WAIT until 2059 and you might, just might, find out!
The ancestry of Prince Andrew isn’t the burning issue of our times. But it highlights an important point – the Royal Family is a secret society, we get to hear all the nice fluffy news like William and Kate are having a new baby but the real dramas are buried.
This one was conveniently put in a vault marked ‘do not open’ for 50 years or until 2059.
The story behind it lies in the early rather troubled years of the marriage between The Queen and Prince Philip.
In the 1950s she became ‘romantically linked’ with the gentleman in this photograph Henry George Reginald Molyneux Herbert, Earl of Carnarvon, known as Lord Porchester.
Naturaly it’s not established fact they were lovers, but I’d ask you to use your imagination.
Throughout the 50s and 60s Elizabeth and Porchester spent many, many hours together discussing racing.
They would frequently meet at Broadlands where Louis Mountbatten, no less, would be their host.
Here they would ride together, walk with the dogs and chat long into the night.
Mountbatten, who had an interesting sexual history himself, was so concerned how close Elizabeth was getting to this handsome young man he took the unprecedented step of sending a letter of warning: ‘I urge you to be more discreet with your relationship with Porchy’ or translated ‘what the public don’t know won’t hurt them, but be careful’.
She was able to spend more time with Porchester around 1959 because Prince Phillip had been ‘sent away’ for a while after Elizabeth suspected his own indiscretions.
Phillip’s new ‘cup of tea’ was a gentleman’s club down in old Soho attended by other ‘dignitaries’ including the lovely Kray brothers and a number of very attractive young ladies.
His backers contended that Phillip spent his long afternoons having a cup of PG Tips and discussing common interests but a whole series of women, including Zsa Zsa Gabor and Katie Boyle were moved to officially deny they had become sexually involved with him.
None of this really worries me. Infact it’s quite reassuring to know that the couple are indeed human and struck out against the pantomime of their official existence.
But what does annoy me is the secrecy.
Cabinet papers released in 1990 referring to 1959 – the year Prince Andrew was conceived – report that the Royals were discussed on three occasions but the information concerned was deemed more than averagely sensitive.
Usually such matters are kept quiet for 30 years – but, on this occasion, one was embargoed for a further 20 and the other two tucked away until 2059, a cool 100 years!
By the way, The Queen continued to see Porchy long after the controversy had brewed.
From 1976 they often travelled to Kentucky together during the spring and Porchester remained her racing manager until his death in 2001.
He sure does look like Andrew in this photograph, doesn’t he?
Shades of James Hewitt and Harry, methinks…..