Infamous Scandals

by Anne Williams

  When Andrew had completed his A-levels in 1979 he joined the Royal Navy and quickly saw active service. His squadron was scheduled to sail to the Falkland Islands on HMS Invincible, from where he flew missions in Sea Kings. In 1997 Andrew took a desk job in the Ministry of Defence and finally retired from the Navy in July 2001.

  Already being headlined as the ladies’ favourite, it was no surprise when he was seen out with a stunning brunette. The girl in question was Koo Stark, the daughter of film producer Wilbur Stark, with a promising career ahead of her in films and as a photographer. Koo is thought to have met Andrew at a party held by writer Nigel Dempster, and the chemistry was there right from the start.

  Andrew was smitten and introduced his new girlfriend to the queen and the queen mother at Balmoral and she was an instant hit, particularly with Prince Philip, who always had an eye for a pretty lady. However, she quickly fell out of favour with the royal family when they learned of Koo’s involvement in soft-porn films in 1977, called Emily and Cruel Passion. Her relationship with Prince Andrew was quickly worldwide news – after all it’s not every day that one of the queen’s sons goes out with an actress who has been seen doing naughty things on film.

  The family immediately put pressure on Andrew to end the affair, but the prince was besotted and found it hard to let go. They wrote impassioned letters to each other and talked about their future together, but deep down they both knew their relationship was doomed. Koo’s past had caused too much of a stir in the Windsor family, and under direct orders from the queen, Andrew reluctantly ended the affair in 1983. He was banned from having any contact with Koo, and the telephone operators at Buckingham Palace were told not to put any calls from her through to the prince. Although it caused a minor scandal in the House of Windsor at the time, had they realised what major waves one Sarah Ferguson would cause later on, they would probably have gladly accepted Koo into their family circle.

  Andrew and Sarah Ferguson had been childhood friends because her father was the manager of Prince Charles’s polo team. In 1985 Sarah was invited to a house party at Windsor Castle to celebrate the Royal Ascot horse races, and it is believed that the romance started that same week. By March 1986 they were engaged and on 23 July 1986 they were married in Westminster Abbey. Many believed the couple were still feeling the effects of previous love affairs – Andrew for Koo Stark and Sarah for a former racing driver Paddy McNally. Despite this the crowds turned out to see the wedding of the year and 500 million television viewers tuned in to see the latest royal love match. Everyone was happy that the dashing prince had settled down at last and the beautiful red-haired princess had captured his heart.

  However, after the initial excitement of a new relationship, the couple started to have problems. Andrew loved his life in the services and missed the excitement when he was home, and his periods away from Fergie, as she was affectionately known, became longer and longer. In 1987 he went back to sea on HMS Edinburgh, which drove an even deeper wedge between the couple.

  To try and get over the loneliness, Fergie took to travelling around the world in a rather carefree manner and initially the press were kind to her. However, she soon became the subject of criticism – her clothes, her weight, her personality all made her a worldwide laughing-stock. She became miserable and despite frequent requests to be allowed to live like other military couples, the Windsors would not allow it for security reasons. Fergie threw herself into charity work and even learned to fly a helicopter to try and win favour with her husband, but the rift grew deeper.

  While her own world was falling apart, Fergie was unaware that her father, Major Ron Ferguson, had secrets of his own. In May 1988 he was exposed by a Sunday newspaper as being a frequent visitor to a massage parlour who offered ‘extra services’ for those who wanted it. Although the royal family supported the major, Andrew then had his own doubts that he had chosen the wrong person to be his wife.

  When their first daughter, Beatrice, was born in 1988, it not only took the pressure off her father’s scandalous behaviour, but it also seemed to briefly reunite the royal couple. Their second daughter, Eugenie, was born in 1990, but to Fergie’s dismay it did not keep Andrew at home – it appeared that the sea was still his first love. Once again Fergie’s behaviour was plastered all over the front pages of the tabloids, knocking her for her frumpy image compared to the beauty and style of her rival Princess Diana.

  Downhearted and feeling badly treated by both the press and the royal family, Fergie sought for affection elsewhere. Fergie first met Texan businessman Steve Wyatt in Houston, Texas, in 1989, while she was pregnant with her second child. She immediately fell under his spell and after that the couple made love whenever and wherever they could. Wyatt was heir to an oil fortune and owned his own private jet, and the couple had romantic holidays in Morocco and the south of France. They threw caution to the wind, not afraid to be seen together and even romped in the gardens of ‘Southyork’, the mansion Fergie shared with Andrew in Sunninghill, Berkshire.

  However, the holiday in France came back to haunt Fergie when 120 photographs of the two of them together were mysteriously found in a London apartment and then printed in a daily newspaper. For Andrew it was the final straw and he told the queen that he wanted to get out of the marriage, adding that it had been a mistake right from the start. Although the queen tried her hardest to get the couple to reconcile their differences, her efforts fell on stony ground – little did she know there was much worse to come.

  Fergie had turned to writing, and published a series of children’s books about Budgie the Helicopter. Despite their success, the Duchess found herself heavily in debt as a result of her jet-set lifestyle. In 1992 Fergie had a new man in her life, John Bryan, who called himself her ‘financial adviser’. Although he was advising Fergie about her finances, it soon became evident that he was offering other more personal services and once again the panic button went off in Buckingham Palace. In August 1992 Fergie and Bryan went away together with the children to a villa in the south of France. Unbeknown to them, a cunning member of the French paparazzi had hidden in the bushes at the edge of the villa and managed to capture them in compromising positions. He took photographs of Fergie going topless by the pool and also, more incriminating, one of Bryan sucking the duchess’s big toe. All this took place not only in front of the two young girls, Beatrice and Eugenie, but also in the presence of two bodyguards. Rather a funny way of managing Fergie’s finances!

  Andrew and the royal family reeled in discomfort from the press releases, and Fergie’s already low status was now at rock bottom. It was the final straw and Fergie was seen leaving Balmoral in her car, banished from the House of Windsor.

  A few months later, Major Ferguson added to the misery with another exposé, this time from his previous involvement with a 26-year-old stable-girl called Lesley Player. She had written a book about her affair with the major and also given explicit details about Fergie’s romps with Steve Wyatt.

  To add even more fuel to an already raging fire, John Bryan gave book publishers a taste of excerpts from diaries he claimed to have kept during his four-year affair with Fergie. Royal insiders were convinced that it was a ploy to exert pressure on Fergie to get cash out of her, and the queen’s advisers were put under pressure to hand over money so that Fergie could buy her ex-lover’s silence.

  The couple’s divorce finally became official in April 1996, and Andrew and Fergie were given joint custody of their children. However, despite the major rift and everything that has happened over the years, the couple have amazingly managed to stay friends and in 2004 Fergie was photographed with the queen for the first time in over a decade. Seemingly, that was one series of scandals that the royal family were able to put behind them.

  princess anne

  Princess Anne was born in 1950 and is the second child and only daughter of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. She was given the title princess royal by her mother in June 1987 and it could be said that she is the most a
ustere of the queen’s children. She is known to have a temper and will not suffer fools gladly, and she has made it plain on more than one occasion that she will not put up with media prying into her private life. Cameramen have often been the brunt of her sharp tongue and she soon gained herself the reputation of being a frosty royal.

  After a string of boyfriends, Anne finally settled down and married Captain Mark Phillips at Westminster Abbey on 14 November 1973 with all the usual pomp and ceremony. Phillips was a lieutenant and later captain in the 1st Queen’s Dragoon Guards and was considered to be an ideal match for the princess royal, being described as a ‘tweedie’ sort with a love for countryside pursuits.

  The following year Anne was the target of a failed kidnapping, and to this day remains the closest any individual has come to abducting a member of the British royal family. The incident occurred on 20 March 1974, when Anne and her husband were returning to Buckingham Palace after a local charity event. Their car was forced to stop by a man driving a Ford Escort, who jumped from his car and started firing a gun. Anne’s private detective responded with amazing speed and jumped out to shield the princess. However, his gun jammed and he was shot in the head and chest. Their chauffeur was also shot as he tried to disarm the man. Anne managed to dive out of the car on the far side and the gunman was eventually stopped by a passer-by who punched him in the back of the head. The man who attempted the kidnap was Ian Ball, who doctors later judged to be mentally unstable.

  With the knowledge that Anne loved the country, the queen bought the couple their own mansion at Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire, where Anne’s two children Peter and Zara were born. Although the public saw Anne leading the idyllic life, in reality domestic life in the country disagreed with her. She became bored, not satisfied as her role as wife and mother. She threw herself into her work as a representative of the royal family and made a name for herself with her charity work. For the first time there was a chink in the armour, allowing the people to see the human side of a person who truly cared about what was happening around the world. However, with this new-found fame came the whispers of marital problems.

  The problem first came to light when Anne and Mark were attending the Olympic games as part of the equestrian team. They no longer shared the same bedroom and it became obvious that they barely tolerated one another. It wasn’t until the disclosure of a former royal bodyguard that anyone realised just quite how serious their differences had become.

  Peter Cross was Anne’s former minder and in 1985 he threatened to sell his story that he had had a ‘special relationship’ with Anne. He intimated that she was in love with him but the royal family managed to weather the storm because he was soon exposed as a man who had had numerous affairs. Despite this the marriage between Anne and Mark did not survive the scandal, and the couple only stayed together allegedly for the sake of the children and the reputation of the royal family.

  In 1986 Timothy Lawrence was employed by the queen as an equerry. He a tall and handsome naval officer who not only caught the eye of the princess royal but also stole her heart. Unhappy in her marriage, the new man in her life seemed to bring back some of her old sparkle. The world, however, did not learn about the attraction between Anne and Commander Lawrence until 1989. A number of letters written by the commander to Anne had been stolen out of his suitcase and sent to The Sun newspaper. For some reason the paper decided not to print the contents of the letters and returned them to Anne, averting yet another crisis in the royal family.

  Shortly afterwards Buckingham Palace released a statement that Anne and Mark were to separate, but with no plans for a divorce. The couple remained friends, but there was still more trouble ahead. In March 1991 Heather Tonkin, a 40-year-old teacher from New Zealand, claimed that Captain Mark Phillips was the father of her six-year-old child and launched a paternity suit against him. She alleged that she had received several thousand pounds in maintenance money, which had been cleverly disguised as equestrian fees but wanted more knowing that Mark was about to receive a tidy sum following his separation from Anne. Although the paternity suit was eventually dropped, it is believed that the matter was settled out of court to save any further scandal.

  Princess Ann became the second member of the royal family, after Margaret, to get divorced. It was all finalised on 13 April 1992. On 12 December 1992 the princess royal married Timothy Lawrence in a small family ceremony at a modest parish church in Crathie, Scotland. Exchanging vows that they would stay together until ‘death do us part’ may now seem to be just meaningless words, as rumours that Princess Anne and Commander Laurence were leading separate lives surfaced in 2001.

  daughter of an SS member

  Princess Michael of Kent is the youngest child of the late Baron Günther von Reibnitz and Countess Szapary. She is a descendant of four European monarchs on both sides of her family. The princess gradually climbed the social ladder but it wasn’t until she moved to the United Kingdom that she really received any recognition. Her marriage to an Old Etonian banker lasted only a few years, but it did introduce her to an exclusive London set, which included Prince Michael of Kent.

  When the news broke of Marie Christine von Reibtnitz’s engagement to Prince Michael of Kent, the queen is said to have commented: ‘She sounds far too grand for us’, and the Catholic divorcee claimed she didn’t receive a very warm welcome. Since her marriage to the prince in 1978, the princess has not been scared to speak her mind, describing the decor at Windsor Castle as ‘awful’ and also that the queen’s corgies ‘should he shot!’. Princess Anne reportedly nicknamed her ‘Princess Pushy’, a term that has been mercilessly used by the press whenever the opportunity arises.

  The princess’s reputation was taken down a further notch when it was revealed that her father had been a member of Hitler’s notorious SS. Apparently he had been one of Hitler’s servants, those men who were responsible for the death of many prisoners of war and civilians in the Nazi’s evil death camps. Although there is no evidence that her father was actually involved in the genocide or the atrocial medical experiments carried out by the SS, he did join voluntarily and was closely connected with the SS ‘Lebensborn’ programme. This project was one of the most secret and perhaps terrifying of the Nazi programmes. The goal was to coax girls of ‘racially pure’ origin to have babies in secret, which would then be given to the SS to raise, in an effort to produce the perfect race. When the news broke it hit royalists hard and there was a public outcry. The idea that someone could enter the House of Windsor with a father who had been a member of the SS was simply unthinkable. Buckingham Palace called an immediate meeting between the queen and Princess Michael.

  Advised by her minister, the queen decided there should be no recriminations or disgrace, and told the princess that she could not be blamed for the actions of her father. Princess Michael publicly spoke on television the following day saying:

  Here I am, 40 years old, and I suddenly discover something that is really quite unpleasant. I shall just simply have to live with it.

  It was indeed a great blow for the princess who had always worshipped her father like a hero. However, she did go on to say that she had a document that proved his membership of the Black Guard was purely honorary, adding that he never actually wore a uniform. Princess Michael did manage to survive the scandal, but she continues to be outspoken and often makes herself very unpopular. A recent event in the United States did nothing for the reputation of the royal family when she turned to some roudy black diners in a New York restaurant and said “You need to go back to the colonies!’ Of course the princess vehemently denies she ever made such a racist remark. It appears that Princess Michael of Kent will always be famous for outspokenness, even down to defending Prince Harry recently for wearing a Nazi costume as a fancy dress. Which is ironic, considering the revelations about father.

  charles and diana

  The House of Windsor has certainly seen its fair share of inglorious days, but the scandal that rocked it to th
e very core was the divorce of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.

  When Charles, the Queen’s eldest son, announced in 1981 that he was engaged to a kindergarten teacher of aristocratic birth, it rekindled the public’s interest in the British monarchy. The fact that she was 12 years his junior and someone with a spotless past was cause for a national celebration and Lady Diana Spencer immediately became the public’s sweetheart. With her coy looks and complete look of innocence, it was felt that she was a wise and suitable choice to act as Prince Charles’s royal ambassador and Buckingham Palace were delighted. The wedding would hopefully improve their long-suffering reputation after a spell of recent transgressions and scandals. Diana was the daughter of one of the queen’s oldest friends, the Earl of Spencer, and also the younger sister of one of Charles’s previous girlfriends, Sarah Spencer. Diana proudly showed off her engagement ring which was white gold with an oval sapphire in the middle and 14 diamonds round the outside. Her face was lit up with excitement and expectation, but little did she know what torment lay ahead of her.

  On 29 July 1981 over 600,000 people crowded the route that Diana took from Buckingham Palace to London’s St Paul’s Cathedral, and a further estimated 750 million people followed the fairytale wedding on their television screens. There was an air of excitement everywhere: for the first time in 300 years an English girl was betrothed to a British heir to the throne. It was indeed the wedding of the century with Diana riding in a glass coach; Britain had never seen such extravaganza. Diana waved and smiled to her fans, but it was more the wave of a film star than someone who was about to become a member of the royal family. In the House of Windsor everything had to be far more discreet and this was a painful lesson she was soon to learn.