The surprising reason Prince Edward ‘tore a strip off’ his royal chauffeur revealed in bombshell book

When you’re trying to concentrate on the road, there’s nothing worse than a backseat driver dishing out unwelcome advice. 

But what you do if the person you’re transporting just so happens to be a member of the Royal Family?

According to a new book, this is the exact scenario one royal chauffeur found themselves in with Prince Edward- and it didn’t exactly end well. 

In Yes, Ma’am: The Secret Life of Royal Servants, royal expert described how Duke of Edinburgh once famously lost his temper with a driver.

According to a former member of staff, the late Queen’s youngest son allegedly took issue with how often the driver was looking in his mirrors.

The author detailed how even Prince Edward wasn’t immune to ‘surprising acts of ill temper’ that caught staff off-guard.

The expert wrote: ‘According to a now retired member of the Buckingham Palace staff, Prince Edward once tore a strip off his driver for looking too often in his rear-view mirror.’ 

In order to protect the drivers’ anonymity, the staffer didn’t specify when the incident took place or if it was on one of the Royal Family’s various estates.

Elsewhere in the book, Tom Quinn details how King Charles and Queen Camilla ‘treat their staff well’ but the monarch has been known to ‘lose his temper in a split second’. 

The expert wrote: ‘[Staff] always feel [Charles and Camilla] would no more fly without an aeroplane than invite [them] to have tea with them.’

What’s more, insiders also went on to list some of the King’s particular requests – including his shoes always being ‘perfectly polished’ and drinking his tea out of the ‘right teacup’.

Additionally, the expert claims the King also likes to have someone ‘neatly squeeze his toothpaste on his toothbrush the way he likes it’.

The former staff member added: ‘He loses his temper in a split second but usually quickly regrets it.’ 

On top of this, the insider claimed Prince Andrew has a tendency to treat his staff as though they were ‘irritatingly stupid’. The Duke is also accused of banishing members of staff over a mole he ‘couldn’t bear to look at’ and for wearing nylon ties.

In January 2022, former royalty protection officer claimed the Duke of York would ‘shout and scream’ if his teddy bear collection was knocked out of place by palace maids.

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. 

In his new book Yes, Ma’am: The Secret Life of Royal Servants, author Tom Quinn writes: ‘According to a now retired member of the Buckingham Palace staff, Prince Edward (pictured in 2019) once tore a strip off his driver for looking too often in his rear-view mirror’

Pictured: King Charles at a Buckingham Palace reception earlier this month. Elsewhere in the book, insiders went on to list some of the King’s particular requests – including his shoes always being ‘perfectly polished’ and drinking his tea out of the ‘right teacup’

The Buckingham Palace insider claimed Prince Andrew (pictured with ex-wife Sarah Ferguson in February 2024) has a tendency to treat his staff as though they were ‘irritatingly stupid’

He 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. 

Appearing on the ITV documentary Ghislaine, Prince Andrew and the Paedophile, former royal bodyguard Paul Page 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.’

Writing for You magazine in 2019, journalist and podcaster Elizabeth Day was introduced to Andrew’s ‘strange’ teddy bear collection back 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.

‘It seemed rather strange to me that a grown man should be so amused by the presence of a stuffed toy, but I suppose the English upper classes have a long history with teddy bears used as transitional objects to express emotions they might feel uncomfortable with.

‘I wondered if this was someone who had never really grown up because he had never had to. Here he was, taking up space in his mother’s house, carrying out a made-up job to keep him entertained and still having a teddy bear his ex-wife had given him. It was weird.’