The Duke of York has been dogged by questions about two overlapping problems – his judgement and his finances.
It is an issue that goes back to the loss of Prince Andrew’s status as a working royal, stepping down over his association with the financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
It has been raised again with the controversy over a Chinese business contact, accused of cultivating financial links with the prince in a way that could be exploited for “leverage for political purposes”. Buckingham Palace declined to comment, saying only that they do not act for the prince, who is not a working royal.
It is a reminder of how the royals can be targeted by those wanting to build links either for their own personal ambition or for a strategic political agenda. Getting close to the royals is seen as a way of getting influence.
For Prince Andrew there’s been a long-running stream of questions about his financial dealings.
In recent months there has been scrutiny over how he will pay for his 30-room mansion in Windsor, Royal Lodge.
The King is no longer funding him and the security bill alone is believed to be several million pounds per year. The prince receives no public funding from the Sovereign Grant, so it has raised the question of where he gets his income and how he can afford to fend off what the media has called the “Siege of Royal Lodge”.
It is not known how much he might have inherited from his mother or other family members.
It is also unknown how much private money he might have accumulated in his globetrotting days as government trade envoy between 2001 and 2011, when he had many wealthy international contacts.
In 2009 alone he carried out 550 engagements involved with this unpaid trade role. In 2010-11 it brought him on trips to 15 countries. When the prince stepped down from the role, then-Prime Minister David Cameron thanked him for the “major contribution he has made over the last decade to UK trade”.
His Pitch at the Palace business competition also saw him moving in entrepreneurial circles.
But there have been glimpses of his financial arrangements, sometimes in the reflected light of other stories.
