<\/p>\n
The late Queen Elizabeth II wanted her second son, Andrew
\nMountbatten-Windsor, to be given a prominent role promoting
\n\u201dnational interests\u201d.<\/p>\n
Papers published by ministers show that the late Queen made it
\nknown that she was keen for Andrew to take on the role of trade
\nenvoy when her cousin, the Duke of Kent, decided to step back from
\nit.<\/p>\n
A memo to the then Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, written in
\n2000 by Sir David Wright, who was then chief executive of British
\nTrade International, said \u201dThe Queen\u2019s wish is that the Duke of
\nKent should be succeeded in this role by the Duke of York.\u201d<\/p>\n
The memo continues \u201dThe Queen is very keen that the Duke of York
\nshould take a prominent role in the promotion of national
\ninterests. No other member of the Royal Family would be available
\nto succeed the Duke of Kent.\u201d<\/p>\n
And it concludes \u201dThe Duke of York\u2019s adoption of his role would
\nbe a very natural fit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor took on the role in 2001, after the
\ndeparture from it of the Duke of Kent.<\/p>\n
The message is one of a number of papers shared by government
\nministers after the Liberal Democrats tabled a Humble Address
\ncalling for the publication of papers relating to Andrew
\nMountbatten-Windsor\u2019s role as trade envoy and also to any vetting
\nand correspondence from Peter Mandelson.<\/p>\n
It follows fresh controversy about the friendship between Andrew
\nMountbatten-Windsor and Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex
\noffender, with whom he maintained a relationship over many
\nyears.<\/p>\n
The papers also shed some light on Andrew\u2019s personality and
\ndemeanour. They include notes that the former prince said he
\npreferred to visit what he called \u201dmore sophisticated countries\u201d \u2013
\nhis role included large amounts of international travel as he
\nrepresented British business concerns overseas.<\/p>\n
And the same documents show that Andrew expressed a desire to
\nsee theatre rather than ballet and that his specialist interests
\nincluded \u201dhigh-tech matters\u201d as well as trade.<\/p>\n
The papers released on May 21 don\u2019t mention Peter Mandelson.<\/p>\n
The call for publication also comes after Andrew
\nMountbatten-Windsor was arrested earlier this year on suspicion of
\nmisconduct in public office. He was released, without charge, under
\ninvestigation after almost 12 hours in police custody.<\/p>\n
The former prince lost his royal titles and honours in October
\n2025. King Chares removed his HRH and Prince through Letters Patent
\nand asked the Lord Chancellor to strike the title of Duke of York
\nfrom the Roll of Peerage.<\/p>\n
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor remains eighth in line to the throne.
\nHe now lives away from the public eye on a farm on the Sandringham
\nestate, the private property of The King.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source royalcentral.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The late Queen Elizabeth II wanted her second son, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, to be given a prominent role promoting \u201dnational interests\u201d. Papers published by ministers show that the late Queen made it known that she was keen for Andrew to take on the role of trade envoy when her cousin, the Duke of Kent, decided to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2426256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2426255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/How-Elizabeth-II-put-in-a-good-word-for-Andrew.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2426255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2426255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2426255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2426257,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2426255\/revisions\/2426257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2426256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2426255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2426255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2426255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}