More Rosebud - Royal Special

0:00Thank you.

0:30Gyles Brandreth: I'm Giles Brandreth, by the way, and I'm not alone because on Tuesday, my lovely producer, Harriet Jane, steps away from the sound desk and sits in front of the microphone because we chat together.

0:42Harriet: How are you? Yes, fine, thanks.

0:45Gyles Brandreth: You suggested we might talk about royalty today.

0:49Harriet: Yes. Why would that be? Well, I don't know if you'd noticed, Giles, but your friends, the royal family, your good friends, seem to be in a bit of trouble this week.

1:02Gyles Brandreth: Two things to say to you.

1:04Harriet: It's not your fault, by the way, Giles.

1:06Gyles Brandreth: Thank you very much indeed. No, I am pleased to say that I do not believe I'm mentioned in the Epstein files. To the best of my knowledge, I never met Mr. Epstein. but I ought to say to you when you say my friends I do remember and I'm sure it does feature in my diaries because you asked me to bring my dad along today for a reason I'm sure it features in my diaries the encounter that I had at a Buckingham Palace garden party many years ago almost the first time I went to such an amazing event thrilled to be invited I encountered James Callaghan who had become prime minister. He succeeded Harold Wilson as prime minister a long time ago.

1:48Gyles Brandreth: And I said to him something like, oh, Mr. Galan, you're now prime minister. That's why you're here. You're now friends with royalty. He said, oh, no, young man, bear in mind, senior royalty, they offer you friendliness, not friendship. Never forget the difference. And I never have. I've always been conscious of that. and I've always been intrigued by the royal family because I'm British, because I was born in the same year as King Charles III, because when I was brought up in London in the 1950s, I went to watch The Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. Well, it must be the first television I remember watching was the coronation when I was whatever age I was, five years of age.

2:37Gyles Brandreth: I don't really remember much about the coronation except I do remember my sisters being cross with me because they were older than me for standing in front of the television set. I can't remember what I saw on the television.

2:47Harriet: Oh, you were probably saluting, Giles, don't you think?

2:49Gyles Brandreth: Well, in the old days, you might find this hard to believe. I do remember that my sisters, when they heard the national anthem being played on television, would stand up to attention.

2:59Harriet: Oh, I can imagine that.

3:01Gyles Brandreth: And they weren't alone. I remember Lord Snowden, Tony Armstrong Jones, photographer, who was a friend of mine who had married princess margaret him telling me i think it was the time of one of the late queen's jubilees he wrote me a letter saying that he'd been alone and been watching the jubilee you know pageant on television and when they played the national anthem all alone he stood up and oh he did yeah wow yeah exactly yeah even though he was the brother-in-law he stood up and he said I stood up with tears in my eyes. So there was a, you know, we're talking about a long time ago, the 1950s, there was a different feeling about royalty.

3:44Gyles Brandreth: But I took a personal interest, A, because I was the same age as Prince Charles, as he then was, who there were often photographs of him in the newspaper. And then he was sent away to a boarding school called Gordonstone. By chance, my godfather, a man called John Pace, who my father had known when they were both in the army in the 1940s, had a son, a little bit older than me, who was already at Gordonstoun and was the guardian, the head boy at Gordonstoun. So we would get gossip, the goss from Gordonstoun, about how Prince Charles was doing and we discovered he wasn't very happy there.

4:19Harriet: Yeah, I mean, I remember knowing that. So that was sort of out there, wasn't it? It was. He hadn't enjoyed school.

4:25Gyles Brandreth: It became very much more out there later. The detail of it became clear when Prince Charles, going through a bad time in his life expressed a lot of that to Jonathan Dimbleby who wrote a book, a biography with quotes from Prince Charles about his childhood and how he felt isolated

4:44Harriet: and unhappy and possibly not loved as much

4:49Gyles Brandreth: as he might have wanted and how much he hated the school and there's evidence of that and also of his father Prince Philip basically saying to him you know it's not that bad get on with it

5:00Harriet: suck it up Yeah, suck it up. Yeah, I think Prince Philip was probably full of that sort of thing, wasn't he?

5:05Gyles Brandreth: He was.

5:07Harriet: Stip up a lip.

5:08Gyles Brandreth: More than, yes. Stip up a lip and actually it's better just to get on with these things. I think he hoped it would toughen him up. He, Prince Philip, had been to Gordonstoun and had loved it.

5:18Harriet: It's a very hearty place, isn't it? Lots of outdoors.

5:21Gyles Brandreth: Exactly. And Prince Philip was physically fit. He enjoyed the games, the exercise, all of that. But Prince Philip himself had a very tough childhood. He was brought up really without parents. His parents had four older sisters, and his parents went into exile the year after Prince Philip was born. The family then split up. Prince Philip was, well, the four sisters by then were getting married to different German princes, and his parents split up. His father floated down to the south of France where he ended up living with a girlfriend on a yacht, and his mother had a severe nervous breakdown, ended up in a clinic in Switzerland.

5:58Gyles Brandreth: But he never complained about this, didn't want to talk about this, just felt, as you say, suck it up, get on with life. These things happen, was his line.

6:04Harriet: Yeah. And he's that generation, isn't he? He is that generation. You bury things a little.

6:09Gyles Brandreth: Yes. He wouldn't regard it as burying it. We do, in that we think maybe it wasn't good either for him or indeed for the way he related to his children. But the point is, I got to know about this, I felt it firsthand, because I had reports coming to me as a boy from the school. I also, my father was the legal advisor to the Automobile Association. Oh, yes, I remember that. And the Duke of Edinburgh at the time was the president of the Automobile Association. And the AA, if you remember, offered free legal defence. So when Prince Philip was had up for speeding or for any other motoring offence, he would call on my father and say, look, I'm a member of the AA.

6:54Gyles Brandreth: I'm the president. I'm wanting some free legal defence.

6:58Harriet: Oh, so your father got involved in his speeding.

7:00Gyles Brandreth: So my dad would go to Buckingham Palace, taking me with him. How amazing. Because he was a nice dad who wanted to involve me in things. So I first went through what is known as the privy purse door, which is on the right-hand side of the main gates, where you go for business meetings or if you've got an appointment. That's the entrance you would take. When I was quite a small boy.

7:23Harriet: Oh, wow. So did you meet the Duke of Edinburgh when you were a child?

7:26Gyles Brandreth: Yes, but to be honest, I don't remember it, and I didn't write about it in my diary.

7:30Harriet: Oh, that's disappointing. I bet he was quite keen on speeding, wasn't he?

7:34Gyles Brandreth: He was extraordinary. I was told this marvellous story by Countess Mountbatten, who was the first cousin of Prince Philip, how Countess Mountbatten and the Queen were driving... Oh, they were driving somewhere, and being driven, rather, by the Duke of Edinburgh. Countess Mountbatten and the Queen were in the car, Prince Philip was racing along. And the Queen was squawking a bit. Squealing and squawking. Slow down, Philip! Yes, she did say that. She did say, please, slow down, Philip. And he said, shut up, woman, or I'll throw you out of the car. Oh, no. And when they got to the end of the journey...

8:13Gyles Brandreth: That is not very nice. When they got to the end of the journey, Countess Mountbatten said to the Queen, you know, you're the Queen. Yeah, don't put up with that. You shouldn't let him talk to you like that.

8:25Harriet: No, absolutely not.

8:26Gyles Brandreth: And the Queen said to her, oh, but he meant it. And what would I have done? Stradited on the motorway. He would have turned me out. Oh, that's dreadful. So he could be quite fierce. But the point of the story is that as a little boy, I was particularly interested. My family was interested. We were royalists. We were loyalists. We loved all this. To the extent that the first royal reference, I think, in my diaries that I've kept dates back to, in fact, the first mention of royals in my diary. is Saturday the 20th of February 1960, which is the day after the birth of, well, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, as we now know him.

9:09Gyles Brandreth: And it reads, and I'm 11 years old at the time, we had a free morning after break in honour of the Queen's child. There was no games. Hurrah! So I was excited by that. He, Prince Andrew, had been born the day before. Of course, we didn't know then he was going to be called Andrew. but that's the first mention. So royalty do pop up a lot in my diaries, sometimes when I'm reporting things that happened outside and also when I get to meet some of them. And seriously, I got into this when I became involved in a charity called the National Playing Fields Association, which is a fantastic charity. And the Duke of Edinburgh eventually became the president back in 1947.

9:53Gyles Brandreth: It was the first national charity he took on when he became Duke of Edinburgh. And I got involved in this charity. It still exists. It's now called Fields in Trust, back in the 1970s. And I was amazed to find the Duke of Edinburgh was there in the office running the thing.

10:11Harriet: Wow.

10:11Gyles Brandreth: And he was running the thing. And this is in a sense relevant to Andrew, Mountbatten-Windsor, because he needed to find something to do. if you are the sovereign you have something to do yeah if you're just one of the family what do you do yeah this heir and spare thing is a real issue anyway what happened was that he when he became when the queen became queen he wasn't quite sure what to do he knew he had to support her and he did but beyond that what was his life and i said well weren't there people telling you what to do? Wasn't there the example of, I don't know, Prince Albert? And he said, no, no, no, no, no.

10:51Gyles Brandreth: Prince Albert was the executive secretary of Queen Victoria. All that had changed. There weren't people telling me what to do. There were people telling me keep out. And so I had to find things to do. And he found different charities. The Playing Fools Association, later the Duke of Enfroys Award Scheme, the Outward Bound Trust. He got stuck in and run those things. And that's how I got to know him. So I got involved in this charity, the Playing Fools Association. and I'm now the vice president. And so over a period of about 20 or more years, I got to know the Duke of Edinburgh really quite well.

11:26Gyles Brandreth: And I found him fascinating. He could be both delightful, amusing, generous, and also a little bit frightening. I'm not quite sure what he made of me. He wrote me fascinating letters about all sorts of things. And eventually, in fact, I, at his behest I wrote a short biography of him

11:48Harriet: So he must have liked you Charles

11:49Gyles Brandreth: And then a longer one When I wrote the longer one I took the proofs in And I remember him saying I just said about when his parents split up How his father floated down to the south of France He said to me, why did you say my father Floated down to the south of France I said, well sir, I was trying to imply that your father Was something of a boulevardier Enjoyed a well turned ankle And an occasional glass of wine and I thought saying he floated down to the south of France conveyed that rather deftly, sir, and discreetly. He said, my father did not float down to the south of France. My father went by train.

12:24Harriet: Oh, brilliant.

12:27Gyles Brandreth: But he was, I don't think he meant it to be funny, curiously.

12:31Harriet: No, no, but it just makes me laugh.

12:32Gyles Brandreth: He wanted things to be accurate.

12:33Harriet: I like that literal mindedness.

12:35Gyles Brandreth: Well, for example, describing his service during the Second World War and he was heroic. Actually, we're going to talk a bit about Andrew. Of course we are in a moment. Don't forget that Andrew was heroic during the Falklands War. Served, whatever it was, feet, air, arm, whatever. He was actually in helicopters, flying over. Colleagues of his lost their lives. The Queen, his mother, said he's in the armed forces. He will go to the front. They offered her the opportunity of saying, no, he doesn't have to go if you don't want him to, ma 'am. She said, no, he's in the forces. He serves in the forces.

13:06Gyles Brandreth: He serves in the front line.

13:07Harriet: I mean, looking back at something like that, a little bit like Harry's service in Afghanistan. It was probably in a way when they were happiest because they were doing something useful.

13:19Gyles Brandreth: In many ways had both Harry and Andrew stayed in the armed forces.

13:24Harriet: It might have been better.

13:25Gyles Brandreth: It might have been because there's a system. There's a family for a start. And a purpose. There's a purpose. There are boundaries. There are rules. There are a way you do things. There is a discipline. And it might have been good for both of them. the Duke of Edinburgh always well he didn't regret he claimed he never regretted leaving the Navy he could be quite perverse because one of somebody who ended up at the top of the Navy said if served with him as a midshipman said if Prince Philip had stayed in the Navy he would have gone right to the top but Prince Philip said to me if I had gone right to the top the press would simply have said he's gone right to the top because of who he's married to yeah

14:04Harriet: you can't win it's difficult

14:06Gyles Brandreth: you can't win

14:06Harriet: so can I but no I must finish the story yes because it's about his directness

14:10Gyles Brandreth: oh yes uh he i put out in the second world war where he was mentioned in dispatches he had a heroic war i'd served on hms ramillies and he said i didn't serve on hms ramillies i said sorry sir it's in the book because you lent me the log papers your log book you served on hms ramillies he said i did not serve on hms ramillies i said you did sir you lent me the log books you served on HMS Ramelies. He said, I did not serve on HMS Ramelies. I served in HMS Ramelies. You don't live on your house, do you? You live in your house. Don't you know anything, stupid bugger? Oh, God. So he could be quite forthright.

14:48Gyles Brandreth: That's exhausting. He was, he wanted it right. And he said, stick to the facts. He wrote me, and this is in the diaries. And since you said bring the diaries, I brought this to read to you. He wrote to me about the time, there'd been a lot in the press. This was the early 1990s, and there'd been a lot of gossip and scandal in the newspapers. And we'd been corresponding about the difficulty of people being able to say anything in the press. And he wrote to me about this, sending me, well, let me read you the bit from the diary. Wednesday, 15th June, 1994. Long letter from H.R. Rich. He sent me a photocopy of the serialisation of a book that's being published in Australia.

15:34Gyles Brandreth: Quote, Prince Philip's torrid sex life, famous lovers named. It's utterly ludicrous. They've thrown in everybody. Fergie's mum, Merle Oberon, Katie Boyle, Princess Alexandra, Patty Klug. But what does he do? His only defence is to sue for libel. But as he says, never mind the cost, think of the additional publicity it then gives the book. It's maddening for the likes of HRH and others that absolute fantasies, utter rubbish, can appear in the press and be repeated endlessly. And short of litigation, there's nothing they can do about it. And of course, people believe it. If it's in the papers, it must be true.

16:16Gyles Brandreth: No smoke without fire. People want to believe the worst. I was at a party, and within earshot of the Queen, someone was muttering to me that Prince Andrew was really the son of Lord Carnarvon. Lord Carnarvon's actual son was also in the room at the time. I said in a sort of desperate hush whisper, don't be so stupid. The fellow continued, no, it's true. I swear, I read it somewhere. I know that almost anything is possible in this world, but that the Queen has committed adultery is not.

16:56Gyles Brandreth: now what i'm here to tell you because in a way our justification for talking about this ariot is not just that you like a bit of royal goss and uh you know i've written all these books about the royal family and have met quite a few of them but there is this huge story about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor that, in the view of some people, literally is rocking the throne, is a real constitutional issue. That's our justification, in a sense, for touching on it. But also, our podcast is always, the first question is, what is your very first memory? And we then try and unpick, unpack the childhoods of our guests.

17:40Gyles Brandreth: And we often say, don't we, that a childhood lasts forever.

17:45Harriet: Yeah. So what do we know about the childhood of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor?

17:53Gyles Brandreth: And what do we know about the parenting he had? Because every time we have a guest on the show, and we haven't asked Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, every time we have a guest on the show, they talk about their parents, often movingly, sometimes angrily, sometimes in a very neutral way. I think Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor would have said good things about both his parents it's interesting there were kind of two families for the Queen and Prince Philip the first born was Prince Charles now our King the second born was Princess Anne now the Princess Royal two very different characters and one now King used to almost publicly complain about his upbringing, feeling that he was not given the warmth, the love, the support he might have wanted, feeling he was sent away to a boarding school he didn't like, feeling that there wasn't the empathy, the sympathy he would have hoped for.

18:56Harriet: And they were probably sort of readying him for this very important role. Maybe they thought they had to do that.

19:02Gyles Brandreth: I don't know that they were. I think they reflected their generation.

19:07Harriet: Yeah.

19:07Gyles Brandreth: and when I wrote my biography of both Prince Philip and the Queen I talked to many of their friends and contemporaries who said they were really good loving parents there's footage photographs of Prince Philip playing with both Anne and Charles with their little children there were bedtime stories of course the Queen was Queen there were she was away for weeks on visits the Duke of Edinburgh was busy but actually by the standards of that time they were hands-on parents now the rick of enema did come from this different tradition he was not so much stiff upper lip but as you get on with it yeah whatever hand you're dealt you that's the way you play the cards so prince charles would complain about this princess anne never yeah quite the reverse she actively has said more than once we had a marvelous childhood our parents did their very best given the constraints of their lives no complaints please yeah and she she lives that life she is she and her late father used to compete about which of them could fulfill more official duties in a year and which of them had the more efficient office yeah she's really inherited that duty they want to spend the least of taxpayers money and deliver the maximum of service and they do and they did fantastic now during the 1950s there was lots of rumors about a rift between the late queen and prince philip it surfaced in the papers because he went on a tour on britannia was away for many months including over christmas headlines in the papers gosh where is he at christmas why isn't he with his children good point up in arms yeah well his view was he was sent i think was to open the commonwealth games and he was going to visit more commonwealth countries islands obscure places had never been visited before by any member of the royal family.

20:58Gyles Brandreth: He felt he was doing his duty. Also, there was a new royal yacht Britannia. He was testing it. And interestingly, when he got back from this tour, to scotch the rumours, the Queen, for the first time, people called him Prince Philip, but he wasn't a prince. When he married the Queen, he'd ceased to be a Prince of Greece. He was merely, interestingly enough, Philip Mountbatten. When he married the Queen, he was made the Duke of Edinburgh. She made him, when he got back from this tour, which was so controversial, a prince by way of thanking him. And this is relevant to the Andrew McBatton Windsor story, as I shall tell you in a moment.

21:39Gyles Brandreth: After I've just said, after this so-called rift in the 1950s, they had a second family.

21:46Harriet: Oh, I see. So after 10 years, well, you can view it as you like.

21:52Gyles Brandreth: But after this long absence of broad prince philip comes home he's made a prince the press is ignored but there was big stuff in the newspapers you know is there is the royal marriage on the rocks the press secretary of the palace had to come out and say no the marriage is not on the rocks so we've had lots of royal

22:11Harriet: scandals before not quite like this but it's very interesting in light of the arrival of andrew and

22:16Gyles Brandreth: edward isn't it yeah so what then it's a fresh start so what then happens is andrew and edward come along yeah and they i think have much more comfortable a different type of childhood much

22:28Harriet: more comfortable childhoods um more of a sort of well upper middle class family yes upper upper

22:34Gyles Brandreth: upper middle class family a pretty pucker family and and and andrew goes to gordonston oh i didn't and is much happier than Charles ever was. Edward goes to Gordonstone and copes quite well. But they're happy. It's fine. Those years are fine.

22:54Harriet: You certainly get the impression of Andrew that he rubs along with people better than Charles, maybe, and finds that side of things to be more easy.

23:02Gyles Brandreth: Absolutely. And he goes to, I think, in fact, Right, he gets the nickname Randy Andy when he is at school. Really? That young? I don't know. By then, did Gordonstoun have girls? Was there a girl seen going into one of the boys' quarters and Andrew was in there and the boys at school began to call him Randy Andy? Really? I think he would tell you that's where it began.

23:32Harriet: So he was quite young.

23:33Gyles Brandreth: He was quite young. I don't think anything happened. I'm not suggesting. I mean, everybody's piling in with their horror stories about their experiences with Andrew. What I'm trying to remind you, and I'm reminding myself, is there was a time when he was young, rather good-looking, seemed quite charming.

23:48Harriet: Yeah. There was a very amusing, well, entertaining at the time,

23:52Gyles Brandreth: interview with, was it Selina Scott?

23:57Harriet: Yeah.

23:58Gyles Brandreth: Newscaster. I think she may have been standing.

23:59Harriet: Yeah, she was very beautiful, wasn't she? Very beautiful.

24:01Gyles Brandreth: Standing in for Terry Wogan. Prince Andrew.

24:04Harriet: Oh, she used to do that. was a chat show guest, and they were flirting with each other,

24:08Gyles Brandreth: and it was all written up charmingly in the press. Now, it'd be all shock, horror, but in those days...

24:13Harriet: Oh, no, it was... I mean, that was a sort of badge of honour, the Randy Andy thing. I remember as a child, because I was young, thinking he was this dashing, slightly romantic figure, and the Randy Andy thing, even when I was sort of 10, just seemed like a bit of a laugh. They did do it. A bit like we were saying people used to talk about knockers, and, you know, it was, that kind of thing was seen much more as a joke.

24:37Gyles Brandreth: And then when Fergie came on the scene.

24:40Harriet: Oh, she seemed great.

24:41Gyles Brandreth: She seemed huge fun. Yeah. Indeed, I quote someone in my diaries. I met King Constantine of Greece, who was related to the royal family through Prince Philip. They're all related to one another. Through Prince Philip. And he said to me, I said, you know, what's this girl like? Sarah Ferguson. Oh, she said, oh, she's a breath of fresh air.

25:02Harriet: Yeah. Yeah, she's just what the royal family needs.

25:04Gyles Brandreth: This is the best thing to happen to the royal family in years.

25:08Harriet: Oh dear.

25:09Gyles Brandreth: A few years later, when it had all gone wrong, when Andrew and Fergie had separated, when there'd been all that business of her photograph in the south of France, sucking the toes of her financial advisor.

25:24Harriet: Oh, yes.

25:25Gyles Brandreth: Staying at Balmoral during the summer at the time, the newspapers arriving, that photograph being on the front page. disappearing. I did after that an interview with the Duke of Edinburgh, 1997, 1998, and I brought up with him the issue of Diana and Fergie. And he said several interesting things, one of which was his regret that the royal family had become like characters in a soap opera. he said once we're confused with being celebrities everything changes we are not we are there as long as people want us to do a specific job that's what we're there for and he reminded me he said you know when the queen became queen and we went on that commonwealth tour back in 1953 millions of people came out to cheer millions if the queen for a moment had thought that was about her.

26:26Gyles Brandreth: It would have been corrosive. She didn't for a second. The Queen is the same with a million people or one person and that was true. And his fear was that the attention, the adulation that came towards Diana and to an extent towards Fergie was something they thought was about them. And he said it isn't. It's about the position they hold.

26:44Harriet: Gosh, that's quite wise, isn't it?

26:46Gyles Brandreth: He was a very shrewd animal. And I said to him, people say, you know, that you don't see Sarah anymore and I know she's because I knew her a bit. I know she'd love to see you. And he really wouldn't see her. The Queen kept in touch with Sarah because the Queen was a forgiving type and she obviously wanted to see her daughter-in-law and her grandchildren. And so he'd have them over for tea. But literally, if Sarah was coming through one door, the Duke of Edinburgh would be leaving through the other door.

27:15Harriet: Oh, forever?

27:16Gyles Brandreth: He would not see her.

27:17Harriet: For the rest of... Absolutely. I mean, he was courteous.

27:20Gyles Brandreth: He would send a Christmas card. But I said to him, you know, you don't see her and he said i'm not vindictive of course i see the grandchildren but i don't see her because i don't see the point now this appeared in the papers at the time and sarah fergie said to me and said in public he said i'm pointless and i said no he didn't say you're pointless don't think he said you're pointless he didn't say that he said he couldn't see the point of him seeing you since you were no longer part of the family that was it i do feel guilty about her actually because i remember oh i mean we i i knew her and i liked her and i was lucky with her and there was a night when i'd become an mp i was a new member of parliament and i got a phone call from Fergie asking for help and I led her in inadvertently into what became one of her scrapes listen to the diary Thursday 16th March 1995 inadvertently I appear to have landed poor Fergie in the soup she called children in crisis was in a crisis they had a fundraising dinner in the city and needed a speaker.

28:36Gyles Brandreth: Could I? Would I? Please? Yes, of course. But I have to be back at the Commons to vote at ten. Fine. So along I go last night and all is hunky-dory. Sarah is in very jolly form. I sit on her right, we are cosy, gossipy, giggly, slightly excessively so. I imagine we rather irritate the rest of the table whom we appear to ignore. Sarah tells me how she's made nothing out of Budgie, the helicopter, but she's got a new idea for a children's story that turns out to be just like my new idea. So why don't we do it together? 9.30 comes and I say, I've got to speak now because I've got to go and vote at 10.

29:16Gyles Brandreth: No, no, no. Yes, yes, yes. I get up and do my speech going right over the top about the Mountain Haven Centre and Sarah's commitment, achievement, beauty, brilliance, pizzazz. I've got tears in my eyes. She's got tears in her eyes. I say, I've got to go now. No, no, no. Yes, yes, yes. Lots of huggy, kissy goodbyes. And then, just as I'm slipping out, I have a bright idea. Look, why don't we find the richest man in the room and get him to take my place? What? He can sit next to you for coffee and you can seduce him. before the brandies arrived he had promised a nice fat donation for the cause i'm not sure go on go for it and poor girl she did i've just had a call from the daily mail and after i departed what happened it seems was this the rich stranger was found and placed next to fergie to everyone's surprise a jeremy beadle style pranksters auction then ensued in which people were somehow persuaded to raise money by removing their clothing.

30:27Gyles Brandreth: The long and the short of it is that the man who filled my seat was encouraged to drop his trousers in aid of the cause. And just as he did so, photographers appeared from the shadows and flash-bang-wallop, caught candid snaps of dear old Fergie with a fellow she's never met before with his trousers round his ankles. Wednesday, 22nd March, 1995. A funny letter from Fergie. Life might have been easier if I'd had to leave for a vote at ten. Alternatively, had you remained at my right hand, I would not have been on the front pages of The Sun this morning. But I'm afraid the notepaper confirms Lord Charteress's worst fears.

31:11Gyles Brandreth: A huge, swan-like S, at least 50-point font surmounted by a coronet. Where are your children's books? I would love to hear more about your writing. Michelle says, steer clear, the woman's a disaster waiting to happen. Well, listen to your wife. That was my wife in 1995. But before that, Lord Chartres, who'd been the Queen's private secretary, or assistant private secretary, had been reported publicly as describing Fergie as vulgar, vulgar, vulgar. So there was snobbery about her. There was, you know, unkindness, unfairness, etc. But she led, already then, a very extravagant lifestyle. I remember once we were together at a book event in Manchester and I was going back to London by train.

31:56Gyles Brandreth: She said, come with me on the aeroplane. I said, I can't, I've got a ticket, I've got a train ticket. She said, oh, I've got a spare ticket. I said, you've got a spare ticket on the plane. She said, yes, I always buy two tickets. I said, why? She said, in case I meet somebody fun like you.

32:07Harriet: Oh, God.

32:08Gyles Brandreth: And so I went on the aeroplane with her on her spare ticket. But, you know, what a life to be leading, that sort of extravagance. And, of course, one of her problems is that all this extravagance, this lifestyle had to be funded. And the funding of that is what appears to have got her into deep water with Epstein and possibly with others. So, but she is, as it were, part and parcel of the damage done by all of this. Central to the damage is the Duke of York, as was Andrew, as was. and I think for him the challenge was when he came out of his time in the services what to do and you know the duke his father had to find a role and did find a role through a whole assortment of charities good works military appointments and they gave a role to Andrew made him duke of York when he got married to Fergie that's how she became the Duchess of York that was a gift of the queens on his marriage.

33:18Gyles Brandreth: And what was he to do? Well, he got involved in a variety of charities, some of which his father involved him in, some of which his mother involved him in. The idea came up of him being this trade envoy. And it seemed a good idea to many at the time, not to all, to many at the time, because people do like a bit of royalty. you were quoting somebody weren't you about the glamour of roddy well i think i read it in one of

33:48Harriet: those epstein emails at the weekend it was someone writing to epstein saying you know could you bring could we get andrew involved because he brings aura and connections so that was obviously partly why he was wanted at things, because of this aura of royalty. But so I think one of the things that people have heard about the Queen and Andrew, and I just wondered if you know if it's true, is this idea that he was in some ways a favourite of hers. Do you think there's any truth in that?

34:28Gyles Brandreth: I think the Queen loved all her children. I think, there's no doubt, And indeed, when I came to have conversations with her, and I was lucky enough to do so, if ever she referred to the children, she was always like a good conscientious mother. She used to refer to them in, and this was true of grandchildren as well, in descending order.

34:48Harriet: Oh, yes. So she wouldn't be accused of favouritism. But there's no doubt that she did favour Andrew.

34:56Gyles Brandreth: and she did so specifically, actively and not that long ago. For example, let me read this bit to you. I remember back in February 2011, I wrote about this, Her Majesty gave her second son, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, one of the highest honours at her personal disposal. She made him a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order. The honour was a 51st birthday present for the Prince, a thank you from his mother for the support he had given her and an acknowledgement of his work as unpaid United Kingdom trade ambassador. The announcement of the honour coincided both with the Prince's birthday and with a barrage of bad press for Air Miles Andy, as the British media were then dubbing him.

35:49Gyles Brandreth: At the time, Andrew, as we know, was in the British press, because of his association with Jeffrey Epstein, you know, American billionaire, who'd already been sent to jail and placed on the US sex offenders register after admitting soliciting teenage girls into prostitution. Well, at the end of March 2011, when Prince Andrew called on his mother at Windsor Castle to be invested with his new honour, the Daily Mail reported that the revelations about Andrew's associations had led to questions in Parliament about his suitability as a representative of British industry abroad. Critics argue that the prince's public profile has been fatally damaged.

36:33Gyles Brandreth: Matters have been made worse in recent weeks by further accusations that he has deliberately befriended rich and powerful foreign figureheads, particularly in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, for personal gain. This has always been vehemently denied by Buckingham Palace.

36:56Gyles Brandreth: So, yes, of course she loved her son. Whether she knew what he was up to is quite a different matter. She obviously knew that there was something going on that wasn't right, because she was involved in having, only a few years ago, to make this settlement with Virginia Dufresne to settle out of court the civil action that was being brought against Prince Andrew. This was at the beginning of what would have been her Platinum Jubilee year. And I think she would have been persuaded by her private secretary and people around her that this story is going to overshadow the Platinum Jubilee year. if we admit nothing prince andrew denies everything and i'm sure he denied it to his mother as well as the rest of the world he will have said i don't remember you know we meet thousands of people i don't have no recollection of meeting this person you know i mean it didn't happen well there we are and she will have thought well obviously we've got to settle this thing the amount that they paid reportedly in the region of 10 to 12 million pounds a vast amount of money.

38:11Harriet: It must have made her think.

38:13Gyles Brandreth: It must have made her think. As I understand it, the money came from her and from the estate of the late Duke of Edinburgh. So the parents took responsibility that the siblings were not necessarily asked to. And I believe, I'm right in saying that the King, Prince Charles, the elder brother, was not involved in that payment. So the Queen will have known that she was you know that he had made a mess of things but she always well she rallied around her son she tried to protect her son you will remember and there was distress from other members of the royal family at this that at the memorial service for the duke of edinburgh the Duke of York as was managed to be the person who came with the queen and escorted to her place in the church for this so he certainly used her as a kind of shield yeah but she was a willing shield when there was bad publicity for him repeatedly she did things to help him either by giving him an honour to show that she respected him, recognised his service, or by protecting

39:32Harriet: him by being in a photograph with him, with his picture at the palace. I mean, what do you think she would have made of this situation now? Do you think she'd still be standing by him? She'd be devastated, wouldn't she?

39:45Gyles Brandreth: She would be devastated. You know, in many ways, it's a relief that she didn't live to see this happen yeah nor indeed did his father live to see this happen because they did their very best to keep the show on the road now you may think and it was certainly a failing of the queen's mother the queen mother was known for being ostrich like yeah for putting her head in the sand.

40:14Harriet: It does feel a bit like that.

40:16Gyles Brandreth: Not wanting to see the worst. But when it came to Prince Andrew having to step back from public duties, she went along with that. Just as she went along with Prince Harry stepping away from public duties. And once the decision was made, she followed through. So I've no doubt at all that she would have accepted the King's decision last October to strip Andrew of all his honours and titles. And it would have been a matter of deep sorrow and regret to her. You will remember, Harriet, everyone does remember, the backlash that followed Prince Andrew as he was, the Duke of York's interview with Emily Maitlis on the Newsnight interview that went so badly, badly wrong.

41:06Gyles Brandreth: And, you know, he protested his innocence, but he appeared to show no empathy for Epstein's victims nor even regret his friendship with the man. He sort of justified it. Anyway, obviously what followed from that was, I think, almost immediately afterwards, on the 20th of November, 2019, he was allowed himself, Andrew, to issue a statement. Do you remember? It's become clear to me over the last few days that the circumstances relating to my former association with Jeffrey Epstein has become a major disruption to my family's work and the valuable work going on in many organizations and charities that I'm proud to support.

41:44Gyles Brandreth: Therefore, I have asked Her Majesty if I may snap back from public duties for the foreseeable future, and she has given her permission. So the Queen, I noticed at the time in my diary, essentially fired her own son. But then the following day, she showed us how much she loved him by taking him riding with her through Windsor Great Park in the rain and ensuring that there were photographers on hand to capture the shot.

42:19Harriet: She's obviously so conflicted about it. So she was.

42:23Gyles Brandreth: And I remember a senior courtier said to me at the time, there was a lot of nonsense he said, talked about no one being at the helm. And he said the Queen took a firm grip of things to use the military jargon there was only a few days between flash and bang action was called for and the queen took it so the queen took the public action she felt to protect the institution and then she showed that she was still a mother and privately went for a ride with her son

42:53Harriet: yeah

42:54Gyles Brandreth: so but but that is a mixed it is a mixed message this is the disadvantage of being the royal family

43:00Harriet: yeah

43:01Gyles Brandreth: what i'm saying to you is would you as a mother if you'd had to fire your son from the company because his behaviour was bringing the company to disrepute, would you still, as a mother, have shown affection? No, I mean, I was saying to Leon the other day,

43:20Harriet: I actually was talking about my sister rather than my daughter's. I was saying if my sister murdered someone, I'd still love her and stand by her because I love her over and above anything she could have done.

43:31Gyles Brandreth: And that, I think you've summarised what I think the late queen's position would have been. She would have gone along with everything that is happening. There's a problem, I think, for the royal family going forward, and it in a way relates to the late queen. Because she was party to this payment being made, it means it's legitimate for us, the world, to inquire what did she know?

43:58Harriet: Yeah, absolutely.

43:59Gyles Brandreth: What did the palace know? What was known? Were they hiding something? Were they covering up? Now, I don't believe the Queen would have covered up. I don't believe that. I think she would have believed her son and would have been doing her best. But while the royal family want to move forward, the King and the Queen going about their official duties, the Princess Royal, the Prince and Princess of Wales, we've seen them this last weekend at the BAFTAs, all keeping going. They want to move forward. We will see in April the King and Queen going to the United States of America on a state visit. They want all this to resume.

44:36Gyles Brandreth: The problem is the Andrew case may come to court. We don't know. Certainly the demands for him to give evidence in America will continue. And now the British press, British Parliament may, in fact the Liberal Democrats are pressing this now, may want to ask questions of the palace. What was known? When was it known? So this one will run and run.

45:04Harriet: But do you think there's an extent to which indulging Andrew in this way that you say the Queen maybe did, you know, he's her favourite and she's trying to cover up for him, in some ways made him into this slightly feckless, reckless, spare character?

45:22Gyles Brandreth: Well, there's an element if you lead a very spoiled life of maybe becoming spoiled. What everybody needs in life is purpose. and that's something that the Duke of Edinburgh, Andrew's father, was very conscious of when he became Duke of Edinburgh. And it wasn't a problem for Andrew when he was in the services because he had a purpose. When he ceased to be in the services, he had to find his own purpose. But also, that was challenging for him. That's why he ended up with this role as the envoy, trade envoy, to give him a purpose. But also, he got a taste for the high life. which was never shared by his parents.

46:02Gyles Brandreth: His parents weren't interested in the high life. Of course, they lived totally indulged lives. Anything they wanted, they had. But they weren't really into that. Indeed, they rather disapproved of that. They even disapproved, I know, of King Charles, because they felt he was a bit indulgent with flowers and food and doing things beautifully.

46:19Harriet: They were the war generation that was quite brutal.

46:22Gyles Brandreth: Well, you remember the stories about the Tupperware where they kept the cornflakes at breakfast.

46:26Harriet: I was just going to say that, yeah, And eating a modest tea in front of the television. All of that is true.

46:31Gyles Brandreth: That's the kind of discipline that they had. And interestingly, Andrew now lives, I don't think this has been covered, in a cottage on the Sandringham estate that is not taxpayer funded, but it was the Duke of Edinburgh's boathole. And it was where at the end of their lives, toward the end of Duke of Edinburgh's life, the Queen went and lived there with Prince Philip. So Andrews ended up in quite a small, modest, I mean, by the royal standards, it is not a palace. It's not like the mansion he lived in. It's actually a farmhouse.

47:06Harriet: A farmhouse, yeah.

47:07Gyles Brandreth: It's a farmhouse, and it's the farmhouse where his parents last lived together.

47:12Harriet: A 28-bedroom farmhouse. No, no, it isn't. No, no, I'm joking.

47:16Gyles Brandreth: It is actually a proper farmhouse. So, yes, there would have been. The problem is they've got a taste for the high life and for being spoiled and indulged and expecting.

47:28Harriet: Private jets and champagne.

47:30Gyles Brandreth: And this is so not what the parents were about, which is interesting.

47:35Harriet: But they maybe slightly created that.

47:39Gyles Brandreth: And also when people are fawning on you, you know,

47:45Gyles Brandreth: it's difficult.

47:47Harriet: You know about that.

47:48Gyles Brandreth: Thank you. Thank you very much. But, yeah. But what is interesting is it clearly happened to him in a way it didn't to the rest of the family. I mean, I do know, not well, but I do know the present Duke of Edinburgh and his wife Sophie have met them a number of times. They're not like that. And the Princess Royal, Princess Anne, is certainly not like that.

48:10Harriet: It went to his head somehow. Yeah. So has it shaken your loyalty? you know you were saluting in front of the coronation or the Queen's speech are you still standing up whenever the National Anthem plays?

48:26Gyles Brandreth: The Royal Family, the Royal Institution has evolved over more than a thousand years and of course over the years there have been scandals some very serious the headings

48:38Harriet: indeed there have been I think

48:39Gyles Brandreth: the last Royal Arrest was Charles I I think that's true So these things come and go. I do think that the royal family, as an institution, is totally bound up with brand Britain. I still think it has value. This is awful. And Andrew's behaviour is reprehensible. The problem is it will linger. but I think you know I think the institution will go on the press will have a different view of it less reverential but you know people like me have been writing books publishing articles for many years we've all been gossiping and spilling the beans we now just feel a greater a license to do so. I remember the Duke of Edinburgh introducing me to the Queen at the Royal Variety Performance, the late 1990s.

49:42Gyles Brandreth: And when I was writing my book, and Prince Philip presented me to the Queen, he said, oh, here he is. This is Giles Brandreth. Watch what you say. He's writing about you. And he leant forward into her ear. And he said, almost frighteningly, he's going to cut you into little pieces. He meant it as a joke. Of course he did. But the truth is these people are huge fig heads, hugely famous all over the world. And that brings with it great responsibility. I think the frustration for King Charles III is that he has taken that responsibility seriously. He is so committed to doing the job properly, as is Camilla they really do want to do it well they do believe in duty and service and all the rest of it they know there's now going to be greater scrutiny it's frustrating for them there is this major distraction but they take it seriously they're going to do their best as long as it lasts I once said to the Duke of Edinburgh any regrets?

50:52Gyles Brandreth: anything you do differently? what do you think the royal family is going to look like in 50 years time? He said, I have no idea what it's going to look like in 50 years' time. All I can say is, while I've been here, I've done my best to keep it going. Do you have a good royal memory?

51:09Harriet: Well, I mean, I loved the royal weddings, Charles and Di and Fergie and Andrew, because I was the age where you get the little book, the Lady Bird book, and I poured over particularly Charles and Di. So, yeah, I loved it.

51:26Gyles Brandreth: This is the challenge of the royal family. It's a curious mixture between heritage, history, and fairy tale. Yes. And we need a romance always to have a happy ending, and it can't always. Also, people who know about fairy tales know there will be villains as well as heroes. Absolutely. And, well, it looks, I mean, well, clearly, Andrew is the villain of the piece. there is no doubt about that and my hope is that it goes on you'll get different people will approach in a different way you can see that William and Catherine are different people could be you get down to the next generation people like George say do I want this George and Louis Charlotte do I want this do I need this who knows what the future will hold but people do like they do turn out and you know recently when the king and queen have been out on doing public things.

52:25Gyles Brandreth: There's been a guy in the crowd shouting, or sometimes it's been a journalist, but also it's been a member of the public, I think the same member of the public, calling out, you know, what about your brother, Andrew? What do you make of him? Or, you know, should he be arrested? That sort of thing. And they've ignored it and carried on. But I've noticed the rest of the crowd have actually cheered the louder. So I suspect in the long run that the attitude of the media will change and the attitude of parliament will change. I think the public affection for the institution of a royal family, maybe a slimmed down one, maybe one very clearly devoted to duty and service, will continue.

53:10Gyles Brandreth: And from a personal point of view, I hope so. If you don't agree, it doesn't really matter. We're only just chatting. It's only Harriet and me in Park Lane having a little bit of a royal goss.

53:22Harriet: We'll be back to normal Rosebud on Friday. We certainly will be. We're not going to just suddenly turn into a Daily Mail online.

53:29Gyles Brandreth: No, we are not. Though I have to say, Friday's guest, oh my goodness, Friday's guest in the eyes of some might be considered controversial.

53:38Harriet: That's true. I mean, this is Rosebud.

53:40Gyles Brandreth: All human life is here. We've had some good ones recently.

53:45Harriet: We have.

53:45Gyles Brandreth: I mean, if you haven't heard, I mean, because there was so much hoo-ha on Friday when we, who was it?

53:50Harriet: That's a good word, isn't it?

53:51Gyles Brandreth: Hoo-ha. There was so much hoo-ha. Much of it justified. I'm not dismissing any of this. I take this issue seriously, constitutionally.

53:58Harriet: Oh, you're talking about the Andrew hoo-ha.

54:00Gyles Brandreth: I'm talking about, I take that hoo-ha seriously. It's a serious issue at the level of Andrew's alleged misdemeanours and constitutionally. But the coverage was so blanket on Friday. I thought, is anyone listening to our guest? Because he is brilliant. It was? Julian Fellows. Julian Fellows.

54:19Harriet: Well, we kind of thought he's as good as, he's as close to royal as we could get. Because we didn't, unfortunately, we didn't have a Prince and Andrew episode recorded.

54:29Gyles Brandreth: We didn't, well, also, we hadn't asked Andrew.

54:32Harriet: We would love to, Andrew, if you're listening.

54:34Gyles Brandreth: If you're listening, actually, come and tell us your side of the story. Seriously, we could just talk about your childhood. I don't think he should. I don't think he should. Rest assured.

54:43Harriet: We saw what happened last time he died. Oh, I'm much softer touch than that. Not a good idea than Maitlis.

54:49Gyles Brandreth: Yeah, anyway. He was so good. And of course, we timed him last weekend because...

54:55Harriet: Oh, Fellows you're talking about here.

54:56Gyles Brandreth: We timed Fellows last weekend because, in a sense, he has written fictionally about royalty and about scandal. And also, it was the weekend of the BAFTAs and managed to catch a British movie star who's going to be with us in a few weeks. Woo! Yeah, a male hunk movie star.

55:15Harriet: Oh, a male hunk.

55:16Gyles Brandreth: A male hunk. I think he's won. I'm sure he's got BAFTAs.

55:19Harriet: Yeah.

55:19Gyles Brandreth: He may even have an Oscar. Brilliant. If he has, I get him to bring it along. And we can polish it for him. That's it. That's it from this more Rosebud. Thank you for joining us this Tuesday. Until next time, cue the music.

55:32Harriet: Cue the music.

55:46Thank you.

56:26Hally