November 9, 2025 • 14 mins
Before the disgrace came the adoration. In the shadow of his elder brother Charles, Andrew was “the Golden Prince” — dashing, charming, and adored by the press. As a young naval officer and hero of the Falklands War, he embodied confidence and glamour. But even in these glittering early years, the seeds of entitlement were being sown. To his mother, he could do no wrong. To palace insiders, that would prove dangerous.
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Unlock an ad-free podcast experience with Caloroga Shark Media! Get all our shows on any player you love, hassle free! For Apple users, hit the banner on your Apple podcasts app. For Spotify or other players, visit caloroga.com/plus. No plug-ins needed!
Subscribe now for exclusive shows like 'Palace Intrigue,' and get bonus content from Deep Crown (our exclusive Palace Insider!) Or get 'Daily Comedy News,' and '5 Good News Stories’ with no commercials! Plans start at $4.99 per month, or save 20% with a yearly plan at $49.99. Join today and help support the show!
We now have Merch! FREE SHIPPING! Check out all the products like T-shirts, mugs, bags, jackets and more with logos and slogans from your favorite shows! Did we mention there’s free shipping? Get 10% off with code NewMerch10 Go to Caloroga.com
Get more info from Caloroga Shark Media and if you have any comments, suggestions, or just want to get in touch our email is info@caloroga.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This series is a dramatized interpretation inspired by real events.
It is not an official account of the royal family
or any individual's private thoughts. While based on historical reporting
and public record, nobody but the Queen herself could ever
know what she truly thought or felt. What follows is
an imagined reconstruction of how these moments might have unfolded
(00:23):
behind closed doors, created for dramatic purposes Calaruga Shark Media.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
The corridors of the palace remember everything. They remember laughter
and low voices, and the click of Queen's heels when
she is trying not to hurry. In the winter of
nineteen sixty, a young sovereign moves more quickly than her
equerries prefer She turns a corner, passes portraits that once
(01:13):
intimidated her, and opens a nursery door to the one
room where she never performs. He is sleeping, a soft,
ordinary sleep that would look the same in a cottage
or a castle. She stands over the cot and watches
the rise and fall of her child's chest. She has
(01:33):
two children already, a dutiful heir and a daughter who
looks like a promise. But this son has arrived at
a moment in her reign when the storm has quieted.
Her father is no longer a recent grief. The post
has settled into rhythm. She is still young, but no
longer unsure. There is time now to be a mother
(01:57):
and not only a monarch. They call him Andrew. When
she says his name aloud for the first time, it
feels like a private blessing. This is crown and controversy.
Prince Andrew. Episode two. The Queen's favorite palace routine adjusts
(02:20):
around the new gravity in the nursery schedules, bend aids
exchange glances. The mothers of the realm are not supposed
to rush upstairs between red boxes and Privy Council. Yet
she finds her feet drawn back to the child with
the dark eyes and a laugh that comes easily. At breakfast,
(02:41):
she glances at his high chair and smiles. In meetings,
she pauses, distracted by a sound from the corridor. She
does not notice that courtiers, when speaking of the queen's son,
begin to use softer tones. One aid will later say
that the Queen had many virtues, but detachment was not
a mong them. She loved this boy fiercely and without
(03:03):
royal caution. The word favorite drifts through the palace like
the scent of lilies, recognizable but never acknowledged. Philip sees
what is happening. He admires Andrew's energy, his curiosity, his
lack of fear, but he also sees indulgence taking root.
He's a bright boy, he says once to a naval aid,
(03:26):
but he's never heard the word know in his life.
The Queen hears that remark and chooses to ignore it.
It is not that she disagrees, it is that she
cannot bring herself to impose on this child what duty
has already imposed on her. The years gather like ribbons
on a uniform. Charles grows reserved, introspective, Anne grows practical.
(03:51):
Andrew grows adored. At Sandringham, he rides ponies and charms guests.
At Balmorral, he sits on his mother's knee while ministers
wait downstairs. When courtiers worry, the Queen smiles and says,
he's just spirited. By the time he turns eighteen, that
spirit has hardened into confidence. He knows the palace guards
(04:16):
will salute him, that staff will move to clear his path.
He is charming, and he has learned early that charm
forgives many things. When he chooses the navy, the Queen
approves without hesitation. It is what his father wanted and
what she hopes will anchor him. The discipline of the
sea and the structure of service the sea does not disappoint.
(04:40):
London in the late seventies was not a city that
slept politely. The music was louder, the fashion sharper, and
the photographers quicker. Andrew, just out of school and newly visible,
moved through that world with the confidence of a man
who assumed the cameras were friends. He was young, handsome,
(05:01):
and a prince who loved to dance. Tabloids called him
Randy Andy, a nickname the palace loathed, and he secretly enjoyed.
It gave him what no royal upbringing ever could, the
thrill of being wanted for himself rather than for his position.
There were dinners in Mayfair, and knights that blurred into
(05:22):
mourning models, debutantes, actresses, all part of the glittering orbit
that formed around him. The Queen read the headlines and said,
little a sovereign learns which fires burn out on their own.
But privately she worried that the discipline Philip had tried
to instill was being slowly eroded by applause. Philip called
(05:45):
it a phase. The Queen called it energy. The staff
called it something else dangerous. At Buckingham Palace receptions, she
would watch him across the room, her youngest son, laughing
too loudly with foreign guests, his charm spilling past the
edges of protocol. He was magnetic, but it was a
(06:06):
magnetism that bent rules instead of reinforcing them. Still, she
told herself, this was youth, not arrogance. Every generation finds
its own way to rebel, and every mother hope's rebellion
will soften before it breaks. He joins the Royal Navy
(06:35):
in nineteen seventy nine, trains as a helicopter pilot and
quickly earns respect for his skill and nerve. The Queen
watches from a distance, relieved to see a profession that
does not depend on family name. Then, in the spring
of nineteen eighty two, Argentina invades the Falkland Islands. The
(06:56):
Queen has lived through war before. She knows the sound
of briefings, the edge in the air when headlines darken.
But this time her son is among the men preparing
to sail. He serves aboard HMS Invincible. The public calls
him brave, She does not allow herself to call him anything.
When word arrives that his helicopter has flown missions under fire,
(07:19):
she reads the report with care and composure. She nods once,
sets the paper aside, and asks for the next document
in her red box. When the task force returns home,
the country cheers. The Queen stands on the deck to
greet them. Her son, sun tanned and beaming, salutes her.
(07:39):
She feels pride and something quieter, something closer to fear.
Pride can turn to entitlement, Gratitude can become expectation. The
newspapers call him the dashing Prince, the hero of the Falklands,
the Golden Boy, and she allows herself, for the first time,
(08:00):
to believe he has found his place. London in the
eighties glitters like a crown in the sun. Britain is
remade in glass towers and confidence. The Queen watches from
her quiet remove as her son becomes the image of
the age, sociable, fashionable, smiling at every flashbulb. He dates
(08:21):
actresses and heiresses. The tabloids adore him. The Queen is
privately amused but publicly careful. He has always been popular,
she says, a half smile, concealing the edge in her voice.
Then Sarah Ferguson enters the picture. Sarah Ferguson arrives not
as a princess in waiting, but as a woman who
(08:44):
has lived, who laughs too loud, speaks too freely, and
refuses to measure her sentences. By proximity to the throne,
the Queen finds her refreshing, preasingly strained spectacle of Charles
and Diana. Here is a match that feels war warm,
human possible. The engagement brings life back into the family
(09:07):
at Balmorral. The Queen watches them together, the teasing, the affection,
the ease. It reminds her of her own early years
with Philip, before duty carved away spontaneity. The wedding in
nineteen eighty six is a triumph of optics and optimism.
Red tunics, golden carriages, crowds ten deep along the mall.
(09:31):
She watches from the abbey's front pew and thinks, perhaps
this time it will hold. The press draws contrasts immediately. Diana,
fragile and luminous, forever under glass, Sarah, fiery and approachable,
born to break the glass instead. For a brief summer,
it seems both sons have found their paths, Charles steady
(09:54):
in purpose, Andrew redeemed by affection. The Queen allows us
a rare exhale, but behind the smiles cracks form. Sarah
thrives on attention, Andrew back to his old rhythm of
charm and travel, treats domestic life like share leave. To
the Queen, they still look happy. She sees them at
(10:17):
family gatherings, laughing, sharing private jokes. She misses the tension beneath.
Two daughters follow, Beatrice and Eugenie, and the Queen adores
them as fiercely as she once adored their father. The
sound of children's laughter softens the long corridors again, for
a moment, she lets herself believe history might be kind.
(10:40):
It will not be. Distance creeps in as the years
move on. His naval duties, her social calendar, the relentless
lens of the press all conspire to erode what had
(11:01):
once seemed unbreakable. When the marriage falls, the Queen does
not scold, She simply adjusts. Royalty has a way of
doing that. The public loss privately folded into routine. But
Andrew and Sarah remain the puzzle, divorced yet inseparable, quarreling
yet always together. They'll never really let go. An aid whispers,
(11:25):
The Queen says nothing, though possibly she suspects it is true.
When his naval career ends, she helps find him a
role special representative for trade and investment. It sounds significant,
and it keeps him busy, a respectable path for a
son whose ambitions are restless. She believes it will channel
(11:45):
his charm towards service, that it will give him purpose.
What it will give him instead is access. Yet those
consequences lie ahead. For now, she is still the mother
who looks at her groans son and sees the boy
who once tugged at her sleeve, who filled the palace
with laughter. She will not stop believing in him, not yet.
(12:09):
One wonders what she thought in those quiet moments between
duty and silence. Whether she asked herself if love freely
given can leave a child unprepared for the world beyond
the palace gates. Whether she believed that the crown itself
could teach what a mother could not. No one can know.
(12:30):
The Queen shared her mind with no one but God
and the briefest of notes to family. Yet her life
suggests a truth that affection does not cancel responsibility, and
that mercy in monarchy always carries a cost. The corridors
of the Palace remember everything. They remember the laughter of
(12:51):
a small boy, the pride of a mother, and the
whisper that called him the favorite. And they remember too
that in time every favorite must be tested. Next time,
on Crown and Controversy, Prince Andrew a new title and
(13:13):
a new purpose. The Queen's Favorite becomes the nation's envoy,
traveling the world in the name of trade and diplomacy.
But behind every flight and handshake lies a question whose
interests does he truly serve? While no one truly knows
(13:45):
what happens behind closed palace doors. This entertainment series uses
news sources, on the record, quotes, and some artistic license.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Some moments have been dramatized for storytelling effect. To keep
up with the modern day Royal family, follow our sister podcast,
Palace Intrigue, a seven day a week, ten minute update
on the Royals. Crown and Controversy, is a production of
Calaroga Shark Media. Executive producers Mark Francis and John McDermott.
This series is a dramatized interpretation inspired by real events.
It is not an official account of the royal family
or any individual's private thoughts. While based on historical reporting
and public record, nobody but the Queen herself could ever
know what she truly thought or felt. What follows is
an imagined reconstruction of how these moments might have unfolded
(00:23):
behind closed doors, created for dramatic purposes Calaruga Shark Media.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
The corridors of the palace remember everything. They remember laughter
and low voices, and the click of Queen's heels when
she is trying not to hurry. In the winter of
nineteen sixty, a young sovereign moves more quickly than her
equerries prefer She turns a corner, passes portraits that once
(01:13):
intimidated her, and opens a nursery door to the one
room where she never performs. He is sleeping, a soft,
ordinary sleep that would look the same in a cottage
or a castle. She stands over the cot and watches
the rise and fall of her child's chest. She has
(01:33):
two children already, a dutiful heir and a daughter who
looks like a promise. But this son has arrived at
a moment in her reign when the storm has quieted.
Her father is no longer a recent grief. The post
has settled into rhythm. She is still young, but no
longer unsure. There is time now to be a mother
(01:57):
and not only a monarch. They call him Andrew. When
she says his name aloud for the first time, it
feels like a private blessing. This is crown and controversy.
Prince Andrew. Episode two. The Queen's favorite palace routine adjusts
(02:20):
around the new gravity in the nursery schedules, bend aids
exchange glances. The mothers of the realm are not supposed
to rush upstairs between red boxes and Privy Council. Yet
she finds her feet drawn back to the child with
the dark eyes and a laugh that comes easily. At breakfast,
(02:41):
she glances at his high chair and smiles. In meetings,
she pauses, distracted by a sound from the corridor. She
does not notice that courtiers, when speaking of the queen's son,
begin to use softer tones. One aid will later say
that the Queen had many virtues, but detachment was not
a mong them. She loved this boy fiercely and without
(03:03):
royal caution. The word favorite drifts through the palace like
the scent of lilies, recognizable but never acknowledged. Philip sees
what is happening. He admires Andrew's energy, his curiosity, his
lack of fear, but he also sees indulgence taking root.
He's a bright boy, he says once to a naval aid,
(03:26):
but he's never heard the word know in his life.
The Queen hears that remark and chooses to ignore it.
It is not that she disagrees, it is that she
cannot bring herself to impose on this child what duty
has already imposed on her. The years gather like ribbons
on a uniform. Charles grows reserved, introspective, Anne grows practical.
(03:51):
Andrew grows adored. At Sandringham, he rides ponies and charms guests.
At Balmorral, he sits on his mother's knee while ministers
wait downstairs. When courtiers worry, the Queen smiles and says,
he's just spirited. By the time he turns eighteen, that
spirit has hardened into confidence. He knows the palace guards
(04:16):
will salute him, that staff will move to clear his path.
He is charming, and he has learned early that charm
forgives many things. When he chooses the navy, the Queen
approves without hesitation. It is what his father wanted and
what she hopes will anchor him. The discipline of the
sea and the structure of service the sea does not disappoint.
(04:40):
London in the late seventies was not a city that
slept politely. The music was louder, the fashion sharper, and
the photographers quicker. Andrew, just out of school and newly visible,
moved through that world with the confidence of a man
who assumed the cameras were friends. He was young, handsome,
(05:01):
and a prince who loved to dance. Tabloids called him
Randy Andy, a nickname the palace loathed, and he secretly enjoyed.
It gave him what no royal upbringing ever could, the
thrill of being wanted for himself rather than for his position.
There were dinners in Mayfair, and knights that blurred into
(05:22):
mourning models, debutantes, actresses, all part of the glittering orbit
that formed around him. The Queen read the headlines and said,
little a sovereign learns which fires burn out on their own.
But privately she worried that the discipline Philip had tried
to instill was being slowly eroded by applause. Philip called
(05:45):
it a phase. The Queen called it energy. The staff
called it something else dangerous. At Buckingham Palace receptions, she
would watch him across the room, her youngest son, laughing
too loudly with foreign guests, his charm spilling past the
edges of protocol. He was magnetic, but it was a
(06:06):
magnetism that bent rules instead of reinforcing them. Still, she
told herself, this was youth, not arrogance. Every generation finds
its own way to rebel, and every mother hope's rebellion
will soften before it breaks. He joins the Royal Navy
(06:35):
in nineteen seventy nine, trains as a helicopter pilot and
quickly earns respect for his skill and nerve. The Queen
watches from a distance, relieved to see a profession that
does not depend on family name. Then, in the spring
of nineteen eighty two, Argentina invades the Falkland Islands. The
(06:56):
Queen has lived through war before. She knows the sound
of briefings, the edge in the air when headlines darken.
But this time her son is among the men preparing
to sail. He serves aboard HMS Invincible. The public calls
him brave, She does not allow herself to call him anything.
When word arrives that his helicopter has flown missions under fire,
(07:19):
she reads the report with care and composure. She nods once,
sets the paper aside, and asks for the next document
in her red box. When the task force returns home,
the country cheers. The Queen stands on the deck to
greet them. Her son, sun tanned and beaming, salutes her.
(07:39):
She feels pride and something quieter, something closer to fear.
Pride can turn to entitlement, Gratitude can become expectation. The
newspapers call him the dashing Prince, the hero of the Falklands,
the Golden Boy, and she allows herself, for the first time,
(08:00):
to believe he has found his place. London in the
eighties glitters like a crown in the sun. Britain is
remade in glass towers and confidence. The Queen watches from
her quiet remove as her son becomes the image of
the age, sociable, fashionable, smiling at every flashbulb. He dates
(08:21):
actresses and heiresses. The tabloids adore him. The Queen is
privately amused but publicly careful. He has always been popular,
she says, a half smile, concealing the edge in her voice.
Then Sarah Ferguson enters the picture. Sarah Ferguson arrives not
as a princess in waiting, but as a woman who
(08:44):
has lived, who laughs too loud, speaks too freely, and
refuses to measure her sentences. By proximity to the throne,
the Queen finds her refreshing, preasingly strained spectacle of Charles
and Diana. Here is a match that feels war warm,
human possible. The engagement brings life back into the family
(09:07):
at Balmorral. The Queen watches them together, the teasing, the affection,
the ease. It reminds her of her own early years
with Philip, before duty carved away spontaneity. The wedding in
nineteen eighty six is a triumph of optics and optimism.
Red tunics, golden carriages, crowds ten deep along the mall.
(09:31):
She watches from the abbey's front pew and thinks, perhaps
this time it will hold. The press draws contrasts immediately. Diana,
fragile and luminous, forever under glass, Sarah, fiery and approachable,
born to break the glass instead. For a brief summer,
it seems both sons have found their paths, Charles steady
(09:54):
in purpose, Andrew redeemed by affection. The Queen allows us
a rare exhale, but behind the smiles cracks form. Sarah
thrives on attention, Andrew back to his old rhythm of
charm and travel, treats domestic life like share leave. To
the Queen, they still look happy. She sees them at
(10:17):
family gatherings, laughing, sharing private jokes. She misses the tension beneath.
Two daughters follow, Beatrice and Eugenie, and the Queen adores
them as fiercely as she once adored their father. The
sound of children's laughter softens the long corridors again, for
a moment, she lets herself believe history might be kind.
(10:40):
It will not be. Distance creeps in as the years
move on. His naval duties, her social calendar, the relentless
lens of the press all conspire to erode what had
(11:01):
once seemed unbreakable. When the marriage falls, the Queen does
not scold, She simply adjusts. Royalty has a way of
doing that. The public loss privately folded into routine. But
Andrew and Sarah remain the puzzle, divorced yet inseparable, quarreling
yet always together. They'll never really let go. An aid whispers,
(11:25):
The Queen says nothing, though possibly she suspects it is true.
When his naval career ends, she helps find him a
role special representative for trade and investment. It sounds significant,
and it keeps him busy, a respectable path for a
son whose ambitions are restless. She believes it will channel
(11:45):
his charm towards service, that it will give him purpose.
What it will give him instead is access. Yet those
consequences lie ahead. For now, she is still the mother
who looks at her groans son and sees the boy
who once tugged at her sleeve, who filled the palace
with laughter. She will not stop believing in him, not yet.
(12:09):
One wonders what she thought in those quiet moments between
duty and silence. Whether she asked herself if love freely
given can leave a child unprepared for the world beyond
the palace gates. Whether she believed that the crown itself
could teach what a mother could not. No one can know.
(12:30):
The Queen shared her mind with no one but God
and the briefest of notes to family. Yet her life
suggests a truth that affection does not cancel responsibility, and
that mercy in monarchy always carries a cost. The corridors
of the Palace remember everything. They remember the laughter of
(12:51):
a small boy, the pride of a mother, and the
whisper that called him the favorite. And they remember too
that in time every favorite must be tested. Next time,
on Crown and Controversy, Prince Andrew a new title and
(13:13):
a new purpose. The Queen's Favorite becomes the nation's envoy,
traveling the world in the name of trade and diplomacy.
But behind every flight and handshake lies a question whose
interests does he truly serve? While no one truly knows
(13:45):
what happens behind closed palace doors. This entertainment series uses
news sources, on the record, quotes, and some artistic license.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Some moments have been dramatized for storytelling effect. To keep
up with the modern day Royal family, follow our sister podcast,
Palace Intrigue, a seven day a week, ten minute update
on the Royals. Crown and Controversy, is a production of
Calaroga Shark Media. Executive producers Mark Francis and John McDermott.
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