Prince Andrew’s former maid speaks of her time in Buckingham Palace

A former maid at Buckingham Palace has spoken out about working for Prince Andrew, calling the Duke of York ‘demanding and entitled’.

Charlotte Briggs claimed on Thursday that she was ‘left in tears’ by Andrew’s foul-mouth rants, and on one occasion faced his wrath over a tiny gap in his curtains.

Speaking to The Sun, Ms Briggs said the prince yelled at her: ‘Can’t you f***ing do anything right?’ as she ran up and down the stairs to fix the curtains, some of which he was sitting a matter of yards away from.

‘This man fought for his country in the Falklands but couldn’t stand up to close his own curtains,’ the 47-year-old mother of two told the newspaper.

‘It was utterly ridiculous but spoke volumes about him,’ she added. 

By comparison, Ms Briggs said that the Duke’s brothers Charles and Edward, as well as other royals she encountered during her time at the palace, were ‘wonderful’. 

She began working at Buckingham Palace in 1996 when she was 21, but within six months was tasked with being Andrew’s maid; a job that ‘nobody wanted,’ she said.

At the time, Andrew was 36 and had recently divorced from Sarah Ferguson. He would frequently fly off the handle and expected everything to be done for him.

Ms Briggs, from Halifax, broke her silence to The Sun after Prince Andrew was stripped of his military titles amid a sex assault lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre in the United States.

Ms Giuffre claims she was trafficked by convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to have sex with the prince three times when she was a teenager. The Duke of York vehemently denies the allegations. 

Ms Briggs spoke about how Andrew’s pillows were embroidered with the Royal Crest, that they had to be right in the centre of his four-poster bed, and that his pyjamas and his teddy bears had to be precisely laid out.

Having moved down from Yorkshire to London, her first six months working at the palace involved cleaning offices.

Charlotte Briggs began working at Buckingham Palace in 1996 when she was 21, but within six months was tasked with being Andrew’s maid; a job that ‘nobody wanted,’ she said. Pictured: Andrew in 1996

On her first day, Ms Briggs said Prince Edward held the door for her as the took the bins out, but otherwise she didn’t encounter many of the royals early on.

That changed when she was asked to be Andrew’s maid. No one else wanted to, she said, because of his reputation for tantrums.

Having moved back to the palace after his divorce, the Duke had taken up residence on the ‘nursery floor’ where he, Prince Charles, Prince Edward and Princess Anne used to play when they were children.

But despite being a grown man who served in the military, he refused to do anything himself, Ms Briggs told the newspaper.

‘We’d turn down his bed, remove his teddies, do the curtains and lay out his pyjamas. But he was a bad apple and behaved like a spoiled brat,’ she said. 

On one occasion, she said he called down from his office for a maid to be sent up to close the curtains in his office, she recalled.

For Ms Briggs, this meant putting on her evening dress, going up four flights of stairs to close the curtains Andrew was sitting a matter of feet away from.

As she left the rooms, Ms Briggs said Andrew screamed at her over the fact she had left a small gap at the top, despite the curtains running floor to ceiling.

During her time at Buckingham Palace, she said the other royals treated her well. Prince Edward was kind, she said, and she was even hugged by Nelson Mandela. 

Ms Briggs, from Halifax, broke her silence to The Sun after Prince Andrew was stripped of his military titles amid a sex assault lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre in the United States. The Duke of York vehemently denies the allegations

At the time, she was paid £600 a month and in 1996, she was even pictured on the royal balcony ahead of the Trooping the Colour ceremony, according to The Sun.

But Andrew, Ms Briggs said, ruined her time at the palace.

She also claimed to The Sun that the prince kept Sarah Ferguson’s wedding dress in his wardrobe after they divorced in 1992. The royal couple married at Westminster Abbey in July 1986.

The former palace maid also claimed that her makeup was still laid out on his dressing table, suggesting he still held a flame for her, she said.  

The revelations about the Duke’s outbursts will likely cause him even more embarrassment as he prepares testify against the claims made by Ms Giuffre.

It also comes after The Queen – his mother – stripped him of his royal titles, and as he is facing calls to be evicted from the Royal Lodge in Windsor where he currently lives with his ex-wife Ferguson.

MailOnline has approached Buckingham Palace for comment from Prince Andrew regarding Ms Briggs’s comments in The Sun. As of Thursday night, no response has been received.

Ms Briggs’ account of Prince Andrews teddy bears is not the first time they have been mentioned. 

Earlier this week, former palace guard Paul Page claimed that Andrew had a bed with ’50 or 60′ stuffed toys and maids were given a laminated picture so each bear could carefully be put back in its original position.

The former constable, who left the Metropolitan Police in 2007, was part of the elite Royal Protection Squad and had access to the Duke of York’s private residence. 

His comments came in an ITV documentary: ‘Ghislaine, Prince Andrew and the Paedophile’ that aired on Monday.

He said: ‘It had about 50 or 60 stuffed toys positioned on the bed and basically there was a card the inspector showed us in a drawer and it was a picture of these bears all in situ.

‘The reason for the laminated picture was if those bears weren’t put back in the right order by the maids, he would shout and scream.’

Writer Elizabeth Day was introduced to Andrew’s ‘strange’ teddy bear collection back in 2019 at Buckingham Palace.

She wrote: ‘I was told to wait in a corridor where my only other companion was an oversized teddy bear squashed into a seat.

‘When I was ushered in to meet Prince Andrew, I asked him about it. He sniggered and told me it had been a wedding gift from his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson.