Over the years, Queen Elizabeth didn't try to hide that ex-Prince Andrew was her favorite child. He was her first baby born after she became Queen, and with a huge 12-year age gap between Andrew and King Charles, and 10 years between Andrew and Princess Anne, he was essentially raised as an only child until younger brother Prince Edward came along. This dynamic shaped the way Queen Elizabeth treated Andrew his entire life, even when he found himself in the midst of an international scandal involving the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In an excerpt from Robert Jobson's upcoming book The Windsor Legacy, serialized in the Daily Mail on November 2, the royal expert wrote that Queen Elizabeth never changed her stance on Andrew, even after she faced public pressure to strip him of his titles.
"The late Queen, of course, adored her second son and continued to support him after his disgrace," Jobson wrote. "In her final days she kept him close, shielding him as Palace insiders continued to push for his total exile."
Ex-Prince Andrew and Queen Elizabeth are seen at Royal Ascot in 2017.
Jobson wrote that her view on Andrew was summed up in one simple phrase, writing, "She confided her support to a trusted confidant: 'You have to remember, he is my son.'"
He added that after the former Duke of York's "disastrous" 2019 interview on the BBC's Newsnight, it was Prince Charles—not Queen Elizabeth—who pushed for Andrew to step down from royal life and "be cut adrift."
Andrew was later faced with a serious lawsuit when Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre accused the ex-prince of sexual assault. Jobson wrote that Queen Elizabeth wanted to have a "private one-to-one meeting" with Andrew "in order to soften the blow" of him losing his military titles and patronages in the wake of the scandal.
However, "senior courtiers intervened and insisted they be present to witness the conversation," per the royal biographer, who added that Andrew "was blindsided" during the "painful" mother/son moment.
King Charles, seen with Queen Elizabeth and the former Prince Andrew, pushed for his brother to step down as a working royal.
Fast forward to November 2025 and King Charles took much more drastic action, making the unprecedented move of stripping his brother of his titles and evicting him from Royal Lodge. Speaking to Us Weekly, royal author Christopher Andersen says he "can't imagine" Queen Elizabeth making such a move if she was still alive.
"This must have been a painful decision for the King—this is his brother, after all," Andersen said. "Charles must know how much booting Andrew out of the royal family would have hurt his mother, the late queen. I can’t imagine Elizabeth II would have ever gone this far—not ever."
