It’s been another bad week for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. As well as being officially stripped of his royal titles, the former prince was on Thursday asked to appear before the US Congress.
House Democrats want Andrew to explain his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring. So many questions still remain unanswered.
Make no mistake: Prince Andrew is the author of his own downfall. But few people have played a bigger role in exposing this decades-long establishment cover-up than today’s guest on Democracy for Sale — historian Andrew Lownie.
When Lownie’s new book, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, was published in August, it caused a sensation.
As well as revealing that Andrew’s relationship with Epstein went back almost a decade longer than previously known, Lownie lifted the lid on the prince’s bizarre financial affairs and his questionable role as the UK’s special representative for international trade and investment.
One of the most striking features of Entitled is the wall of secrecy surrounding the Windsors. Lownie describes how, for years, a carefully curated narrative was created around Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson — ‘policed by armies of lawyers and PR people’ and a pliant media.
This is a world where staff are forced to sign non-disclosure agreements and even basic information about royal finances is kept secret from the very public the Windsors are meant to serve.
Perhaps it’s because I’m Irish, but I’ve always found the opacity around the royal family incredible. Lownie sent hundreds of Freedom of Information requests about Prince Andrew. Almost every one was rejected — often on spurious grounds.
Even after the book came out, a PR campaign was launched against him. Anonymous social media accounts accused him of visiting sex workers. Journalists were warned that if they spoke to him, their access to the Palace would be cut off.
Sarah Ferguson’s lawyers threatened legal action simply for publishing facts clearly in the public interest. This is how ‘the Firm’ really works.
Lownie is an unlikely scourge of the British elite: the son of a judge, Oxbridge-educated, and a former Conservative candidate. But his moral clarity came early, inspired in part by his father. ‘I remember even at school feeling injustice when people abuse power,’ he told me.
As a historian, Lownie has built a career on asking uncomfortable questions about the British establishment. Traitor King presents Edward VIII as a Nazi sympathiser; Stalin’s Englishman examines Cambridge spy Guy Burgess; Entitled is unsparing in its portrayal of Prince Andrew’s venality and arrogance. ‘I like going into dangerous territory,’ Lownie says with a smile.
A recurring theme in his work is how the British states and its servants lie and dissemble – and how, in the effort to protect official narratives, documents are either destroyed or hidden from public view. Ironically, Entitled grew out of Lownie’s own fight against government secrecy.
His epic Freedom of Information battle to access the Mountbatten archives — purchased with public money by Southampton University — left him £500,000 in legal debt. After remortgaging his house and selling assets, he needed a more commercial project. That’s when he turned his attention to then–Prince Andrew.
Lownie says it’s ‘poetic justice’ that a lack of transparency in official records led him to write Entitled.
He’s also clear that we still don’t have the full picture about Andrew. While the onetime prince has been called to explain himself in Washington, Westminster’s response has been far more muted.
Lownie believes there should be a parliamentary inquiry into Andrew’s trade representative gig — a role which Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson pushed for, and which saw Andrew cosying up to Kazakh oligarchs and the Gaddafi regime in Libya.
It’s striking that Andrew was forced to resign as trade envoy in 2011 — largely because of his friendship with convicted child sex offender Epstein. These were truths about how Britain works hiding in plain sight.
Lownie is a fascinating guest, and I’d highly recommend watching the full interview. At the end, he even gives a sneak peek at what he’s working on next.
At Democracy for Sale, we are committed to pushing back against official secrecy and mistruths. Right now we are fighting numerous court cases to release important documents.
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