Prince Andrew has conjured up enough money to stay at Royal Lodge.
His days in the 30-room, grade-II listed house in Windsor Great Park had seemed numbered after his older brother King Charles ramped up efforts to evict him.
The king, 75, wanted the Duke of York to vacate it for the nearby Frogmore Cottage, formerly home to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Crucially, Prince Andrew living within the Windsor security cordon at Frogmore would have axed the security bill Charles has continued paying from his private funds.
Andrew may have stepped down from official royal duties, and been largely shunned from public view, five years ago.
But thanks to his brother’s generosity, he’s still been able to keep round-the-clock security, costing £3,000,000 per year.
That allows him to stay at the Lodge, where he lives with his former wife Sarah Ferguson under a lease agreement valid until 2078.
As what one insider dubbed ‘the siege of Royal Lodge’ dragged on, Charles handed down an ultimatum earlier this year – move, or get cut off.
Charles followed through, no longer paying for Andrew’s security.
That move seems to have failed, however, because Andrew has now convinced Palace authorities that he has the money to pay his own way.
Sir Michael Stevens, keeper of the privy purse, approved the money as coming from legitimate sources, The Times reported.
It may officially be deemed legitimate, but its source is no less of a mystery.
Having stepped down from royal duties, Prince Andrew no longer received public money.
The Prince’s only known income is a Royal Navy pension, leading to speculation over his source of wealth.
He is known to have made money from property sales over the years though.
Prince Andrew sold Sunninghill Park – a wedding present from Queen Elizabeth in 1986 – to Timor Kulibayev, son-in-law of Kazakhstan’s president for £15,000,000 in 2007.
In 2022, Andrew and Sarah Ferguson sold their ski chalet in the Swiss resort of Verbier. Ferguson has since bough a £5,000,000 property in Mayfair, London.
They have also experienced debts in the past too.
Ferguson accepted £15,000 from convicted child sex offender, and Andrew’s friend, Jeffrey Epstein, to pay off a debt, in 2012. She later described this as a ‘gigantic error of judgment’.
In 2017, Andrew took out a £1,500,000 personal loan with Luxembourg-based private bank Banque Havilland, before it was paid off 11 days later by companies linked to David Rowland, a multimillionaire Conservative donor and financier.
Andrew’s biographer Andrew Lownie said: ‘Now he is no longer a working royal, there is far less scrutiny of his business activities, but it is an area that needs to be looked at.’
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