Once known as Queen Elizabeth's favorite son and a handsome war hero, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor—formerly Prince Andrew—is now facing public humiliation. His disastrous friendship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has resulted in Andrew being stripped of his titles and evicted from his longtime home, Royal Lodge. Now, stories from his school days have resurfaced, showing early flashes of superiority and a hard time getting close to people.
In Andrew Lownie's biography of the ex-Duke of York, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, the author spoke to a number of Andrew's former classmates at Gordonstoun, the same Scottish boarding school attended by Prince Philip, King Charles and Prince Edward. One woman recalls Andrew as "a very slimy so-and-so, arrogant, pleased with himself, a bully."
"He thinks he's funny, handsome and clever and he isn't," she added. Another former student claimed that Andrew "was so full of himself" and would "literally often say, 'You do know who I am?'" The Gordonstoun alumni added, "People were wary of him."
One former housemaster at Gordonstoun told Lownie that Andrew's time at the school "was hardly ever mentioned" as compared to King Charles's. "All I had heard about Andrew was that he was a bully," the teacher said.
Even if he didn't quite get along with a lot of the guys—who, as one alumni noted, "thought he was a wally and tosser"—the former Duke of York had an "ever-changing circle of female conquests," per Lownie. Nicknamed "Randy Andy," Andrew dated a number of girls, including an American from a prominent family.
The student, who shared a relationship with Andrew in his final year at Gordonstoun, shared a much different opinion than the others. "He was kind, generous and trusting of me and it was a great responsibility to be discreet," she said, describing him as a young man who "was naive and mistrusted people in case they took advantage of him."
Ian Hendry, a fellow cadet of Andrew's at Dartmouth Naval College shared similar sentiments about mistrust, telling Lownie, "He was born in the wrong age and would have been happier as an Edwardian gentleman. He puts on his royal hat to protect himself, that's his veneer." Hendry added, "Barriers were put up as a coping mechanism and he became bombastic."
Another cadet described the ex-prince as someone "who was not naturally good at making friends," per Lownie. Once the royal moved on to the Royal Naval Air Station in Culdrose, Cornwall, it was more of the same, with a coworker complaining Andrew was "toffee-nosed" and another saying he was "unworldy and sheltered"—a person who seemed to be better friends with his royal protection officers than his fellow naval men.
"He wants his own way when he is around, you have to bow and scrape," one coworker said. "Even when he drives round the base in his car, you have to salute that. I mean, fancy saluting a flipping car."
