The Moment Queen Elizabeth Chose Not To Save Prince Andrew From Humiliation

It’s not a secret that Prince Andrew is Queen Elizabeth’s favorite son. However, that doesn’t mean that the Queen has always stood by his side. In fact, there was a time when the Queen chose not to save her son from humiliation after he had done something wrong to the Windsor staff.

In her book “My Husband And I: The Inside Story Of 70 Years Of The Royal Marriage,” royal author Ingrid Seward revealed that Prince Andrew was mischievous when he was a child. Despite having spent more time with Queen Elizabeth than his older siblings, Prince Charles and Princess Anne, Prince Andrew still badly behaved as a young boy.

Seward recounted in his book how Queen Elizabeth once allowed Prince Andrew to face humiliation as a result of his own mischievous ways. According to Seward, Prince Andrew was only five when he wandered out of Prince Philip’s sight and went into the Windsor Royal Mews stables. Inside the stables, the mischievous prince aimed sly kicks at the dogs and taunted guardsmen, enraging the royal staff at Windsor.

“The coachmen and grooms who worked there had little time for the prince, having often seen him aim kicks at dogs and taunting the helpless guardsmen,” wrote Seward. “Sensing their studied indifference and trying to attract attention, the Prince started beating the ground with a large stick.”

Seward wrote that when Prince Andrew failed to catch the attention of the grooms, he ramped up his attention seeking by beating the legs of the horses. “No one took any notice, so Andrew doubled his efforts and beat the ground even harder, taking a sideways swipe at the legs of horses,” she narrated.

Knowing how precious the horses were to Queen Elizabeth, the Windsor staff did not tolerate Prince Andrew’s doing. To deal with the young prince, two grooms picked him up and threw him into the dung heap and shoveled horse manure all over him.

Stunned by what the royal staff did to him, Prince Andrew immediately ran to Queen Elizabeth while exclaiming to his punishers: “I will tell my mummy!” Unfortunately, the Queen knew what he did was wrong, so she let her son suffer the humiliating punishment without reprimanding the Windsor staff.

That humiliating experience taught Prince Andrew a very important lesson as a child: that just like ordinary boys his age, even a prince like him can be punished if he doesn’t behave as he should.