Prince Andrew is fighting to stay in the huge 30-room royal home that has been his home for the past two decades.
The Duke of York has spent several years hiding out from public view at his Royal Lodge residence in Windsor following the scandal over his links to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Despite his grandiose, high-walled home, Prince Andrew is once again in the spotlight, with his personal finances coming under fresh scrutiny after it was reported that King Charles has stripped his brother's security detail of £3 million a year.
Prince Charles' refusal to pay for a 10-man security team is said to be an “extreme” power play aimed at driving him out of the residence and diminishing his status, royal experts told i.
The prince continues to live a lavish lifestyle at Royal Lodge with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, but new questions have arisen about how he funds it.
Allegations first emerged last year that Prince Andrew, who was stripped of his royal duties in the wake of the Epstein scandal, was struggling with the costs of maintaining the Grade II-listed home, which has an estimated value of £30 million, estimated at £400,000 a year.
His wealth and sources of income are shrouded in mystery, leaving questions about whether Andrew can afford his own expenses and how he stays out of the red.
Prince Andrew on the grounds of Royal Lodge in Windsor in 2021 (Photo: Steve Parsons/AP)
How Andrew made his money as a royal
The situation was previously clearer: as a working royal, Prince Andrew was thought to receive around £250,000 a year to cover his work at Buckingham Palace, plus a further £20,000 a year in naval pension.
The allowance is thought to have ended after Prince Charles was stripped of his royal duties and title in 2022 following his BBC Newsnight interview debacle in 2019. However, it is unclear whether the late Queen Elizabeth continued to give her son an annual allowance, and reports suggest King Charles was keen to cut the remaining funding.
During the Newsnight interview, Andrew was questioned by Emily Maitlis about his relationship with Epstein. Andrew also said he had no recollection of meeting Virginia Giuffre, who claims she was sexually assaulted by him when she was 17 after being trafficked by Epstein.
Prince Andrew, who has always denied the allegations against him, settled with Giuffre out of court in 2022. But it remains unclear how he paid an unspecified sum to settle the civil lawsuit. The Daily Telegraph reported that the late Queen Elizabeth helped pay the legal costs.
Andrew and one of Britain's richest men
Is Pitch@Palace, Andrew's beloved Dragon's Den-esque business initiative, still providing him with a springboard?
After a long period of exile from public life, Andrew was surprised in March this year when he was spotted having lunch in Mayfair with his friend Johan Eliasch, the former director of Pitch@Palace before stepping down in 2021.
Mr Elias, chairman of sports company Head, was ranked 46th in The Sunday Times rich list.
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The two also served on the board of directors of Napoli Gold, which was dissolved in 2021 without generating any revenue.
A company spokesperson previously told the Daily Mail that the company was a “fictitious” entity set up to “promote charitable efforts to protect rainforests”.
Launched in 2014, Pitch@Palace aimed to provide a platform for entrepreneurs to pitch to investors.
The venture does not appear to have made a profit in recent years: accounts for March 2023 show that total capital and reserves are still £490,000, down from £918,000 in March 2019.
The prince remains a “significant controller” of the business, allegedly run by Arthur Lancaster, but his name was removed from the Pitch@Palace website in 2020 in the wake of the Epstein scandal.
Andrew's company and a £200,000 donation
Andrew remains Mr Lancaster's business partner, despite his links to Doug Barrowman, the husband of former Conservative peer Micheál Mone – both of whom are under investigation by the National Crime Agency over PPE contracts.
Lancaster has come under fire from tax authorities in the past. He was a director of AML Tax, which was fined £150,000 by HMRC in 2022 for failing to comply with an investigation. HMRC accused AML Tax of “actively” facilitating a tax avoidance scheme and found the company to be part of Barrowman's Knox Group.
Companies House records show that both Mr Andrew and Mr Lancaster have “significant control” over Woollamore Limited.
Wramoah was described by a South African company doing business with the firm as “the private investment office of His Royal Highness the Duke of York”.
The prince's venture owed £207,000 to creditors but secured £210,000 worth of funding in the form of non-redeemable shares from a mystery undisclosed donor in December 2023.
Prince Andrew and Queen Elizabeth attend Queen Elizabeth's Birthday Parade in 2019 (Photo: Max Munby/Indigo/Getty Images)
Andrew and the Turkish millionaire
Adding to the mystery surrounding Andrew's finances is his secret settlement with Nebahat Isbilen, a Turkish billionaire who has been found to have received large sums of money through con artists.
The High Court heard how the Duke of York, along with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson and daughter Princess Eugenie, received a total of around £1.4 million from Turkish businessman and former banker Selman Turk.
Ms Isbilen is accused of stealing around £40m by hiring Mr Turk to help her move funds out of Turkey. Court documents show Ms Isbilen paid £750,000 to the Duke in November 2019, but it is unclear why the money was given.
Isbilen accused the Turks of tricking her into paying the prince for help getting a passport, a charge the Turkish businessman disputes. Andrew later paid Isbilen back, according to legal documents, but gave no explanation for what it was used for.
Sarah Ferguson describes her ex-husband Prince Andrew as a “very good and kind man” (Photo: Getty)
Shell companies
In 2023, it was revealed that Andrew held shares in shell companies set up to keep his investments secret whilst working as a trade envoy for the government, avoiding any investigation into a potential conflict of interest.
The government-sanctioned shell company operated for 30 years and was used by other members of the royal family before being closed down when Andrew stepped down as trade envoy in 2011.
Questions have also been raised about Prince Andrew's lavish lifestyle. A 2022 book by former Tatler editor Tina Brown, “The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor,” detailed the private jets and lavish vacations the prince enjoyed over the years.
Following their out-of-court settlement with Virginia Giuffre, the Duke and Duchess of York will boost their bank balance by selling their Swiss chalet at the end of 2022 for around £19 million, according to the Daily Telegraph.
But it appears the Duchess has enough money to buy a luxury Mayfair property for £4.25 million in 2022, which she has paid for in full, according to land registry documents obtained by the Mail on Sunday.
But legal experts say she cannot sell the property without the written consent of her daughters Beatrice and Eugenie, a condition that suggests they could have paid for it.
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Palace watchers believe the King is trying to kick his brother and the Duchess out of Royal Lodge and put them up in the much smaller Frogmore Cottage.
Royal critic Richard Fitzwilliams said it may be difficult for the Duke and Duchess of York to fund private security and ongoing repairs to Royal Lodge.
She added: “I know he would like to stay there. I'm sure they (Andrew and Sarah Ferguson) would struggle to pay the expenses. I also know he hasn't found paying work. No one knows how much Prince Andrew actually has.”
But Andrew Roney, who is currently writing a biography of the Duke of York, said the prince would likely have enough personal assets to remain at Royal Lodge, even if his regular source of income was unclear.
“He has enough money for himself. There's no reason why he can't pay the maintenance if he wants to,” Loney told i. “That's the last thing on his list. He's not going to be evicted.”
The author adds: “He may have received money from Queen Elizabeth when she died, when she died and when Philip died. He had his hands in a lot of things. He built up contacts when he was a trade envoy.”
Former BBC royal correspondent Michael Cole said any attempt to oust Andrew from Royal Lodge was made complicated by the 75-year lease given to him by the Crown Estate in 2003. The agreement gave Andrew the right to remain in the property as long as he paid for repairs.
“This is a radical move – the monarch is asserting his power,” Cole said of reports that Prince Charles had refused to pay £3 million a year for his security. “He's sending a very clear signal to his brother, in a not-so-subtle way, to move on to something more appropriate for his position.”
The Duke of York reportedly wants to eventually transfer the leasehold of Royal Lodge to his daughters, allowing them to inherit the estate in the future.
Royal expert Dr Ed Owens told i that the monarch may want a 30-room mansion for “frontline royals”, adding: “It's a really big place – it could be suitable for Prince William and Kate.”
“The King understands that Andrew is an embarrassment to the Royal Family. The King knows that removing Andrew from Royal benefits and privileges will be well received by the People.”
Buckingham Palace declined to comment. I have contacted Lancaster and Elias for comment.
