AN WILSON: Andrew MUST come clean about where the money for Royal Lodge is coming from – the monarchy cannot be covered with yet more shame and embarrassment

Prince Andrew is not just an embarrassment to his family. He is a national liability.

That is because our precarious, fractured Britain has one bit of political ‘glue’ remaining, which really seems to work, and to be popular – that is, the monarchy. And anything that endangers the monarchy can be seen as the loose brick which, when it is wiggled and removed, spells the beginning of the whole wall tumbling down.

Hence our concern at the superficially trivial questions surrounding the origin of the money that has allowed Andrew to stay at Royal Lodge.

Up to now, thanks to the generosity of his mother, who always favoured him and made him her pet, the prince has been living in the stupendous Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park, which was the marital home of George VI before he became king, and which was where his widow, the Queen Mother, spent her retirement, as a much-adored National Treasure.

But King Charles has long made clear his wish to see Andrew leave Royal Lodge. Perhaps in an effort to encourage him finally to move on, he has instructed the Keeper of the Privy Purse to cut off his younger brother’s allowance of around £1million a year, and no longer pays for his security detail [as the Mail has revealed from the new edition of Robert Hardman’s book, Charles III].

You would have thought Andrew might have got the hint. But no.

At the weekend, it was revealed that the prince had secured sufficient funding to stay in Royal Lodge thanks to a mystery benefactor who will allow the disgraced duke to continue lording it over the property.

It may well turn out that the generous person is a saint who honestly believes that this is a sensible use of a great deal of money, which could have been spent rehousing the poor, or helping medical research, or shoring up the plight of war-victims in the Middle East.

The overwhelming likelihood, however, given Andrew’s story so far, is that he has found a rich friend who is going to land the Royal Family in yet more embarrassment. The prince was the Patron of the Middle East Association, and he was also Special Representative for Trade and Investment.

While some welcomed his efforts as he flew round the world, and helped people by making introductions in the world of international trade, others, especially in the Foreign Office, raised an eyebrow at some of the company Andrew kept in the world of international finance.

Now that he is no longer a ‘working royal’, there has been far less scrutiny of Andrew’s business activities.

At the weekend, it was revealed that the prince had secured funding to stay in the property

In 2011, his wife Sarah Ferguson accepted £15,000 from convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein to pay off a debt

The King has been trying to persuade Andrew to move into Frogmore Cottage

But it’s an area that deserves interrogation – particularly since his previous decisions to accept financial help have been far from prudent.

In 2011, for example, his wife Sarah Ferguson accepted £15,000 from convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein to pay off a debt, a decision she later described as a ‘gigantic error of judgment’.

And the prince’s former marital home, Sunninghill Park in Berkshire, was controversially bought by oil and gas tycoon Timur Kulibayev, the son-in-law of the former president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev in 2007 for £15million – £3million more than the asking price, even though the property had been on the market for five years.

It was later revealed in 2016 that the Duke of York’s office had, at the same time as Sunninghill was bought, been acting as a broker for Mr Kulibayev – who wanted to buy another London home from the Queen’s estate. Andrew denied any impropriety.

Then, in 2019 the Mail on Sunday revealed how he had used his taxpayer-funded role as trade envoy to quietly promote a private Luxembourg-based bank for the super-rich, owned by controversial multi-millionaire David Rowland and his family.

This time, the public must be assured that the money allowing him to maintain his unpopular and extravagant lifestyle in Royal Lodge is not coming from a source that, when revealed, will cover the monarchy with yet more shame and embarrassment. That means the duke must come clean about where the money is coming from.

After all, Royal Lodge is an enormous house, and quite unnecessarily lavish for his needs, even if we recognise that these ‘needs’ include providing accommodation to his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson.

The Queen Mother’s weekends there were a by-word for extravagance and old-fashioned luxury of a kind not seen since the early 20th Century, but no one begrudged the old lady her fun, and she gave great amusement for her exotic, elderly guests such as Noel Coward or Sir Roy Strong.

The King has been trying to persuade Andrew to move into Frogmore Cottage, which has now been vacated by Harry and Meghan. In their short occupancy of the place, the Sussexes did it up to the nines, installed yoga studios, saunas and a grand Granny Flat for Doria Ragland, Meghan’s mother.

Queen Elizabeth II always favoured her son Andrew and made him her pet

By any normal standards, this place, though named a cottage, would seem a more than adequate residence for pampered Prince Andrew.

One of the glories of our Royal Family used to be that it liked living simply. Our late Queen, keeping her breakfast cereals in Tupperware and heating her room with a one-bar electric fire was in a noble tradition. George V lived simply at York Cottage, Sandringham, with shop-furniture bought at now-closed Maples in London’s Tottenham Court Road.

His great predecessor George III, unlike the Kings of France or the Hapsburg Emperors in Vienna, lived simply, like a gentleman farmer.

Prince Andrew, on the other hand, with his swanky cars and his nickname of Airmiles Andy, has always been drawn to the life of the rich jet-setters. Hence his fateful friendship with the late Epstein which destroyed his public reputation and made it necessary for him to retreat from all his official duties, in the armed services, and in charities.

No one wants to be vindictive towards him, although he’s a rather nasty piece of work, by all accounts. All we want is for him to be kept well under wraps, somewhere in Windsor Great Park – and not to endanger the much-respected institution of monarchy with any more of his sleazy behaviour.

To be sure of that, we need to know who’s giving Prince Andrew his money.