In The Spectator, Flora Watkins explains that the problems former-Prince Andrew faces today are the result of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II’s, “gentle parenting.” Watkins writes:
“The baby is adorable,” the Queen wrote to her cousin Lady Mary Cambridge, soon after his christening in 1960. “All in all, he’s going to be terribly spoiled by all of us, I’m sure.”
And indeed, the arrogant, tone-deaf oaf we know and loathe today was forged in the nursery. Conventional wisdom has it that, bar a wobble over Diana, the old Queen never put a foot wrong. But by indulging Andrew from an early age, she nurtured and shaped the sweating, bombastic buffoon that may yet bring the whole edifice crashing down.
Known as “Baby Grumpling” from an early age for his temper tantrums and bratty behavior, one imagines the young Andrew Albert Christian Edward Mountbatten-Windsor sitting on the nursery rug in his romper pulling the wings of corgis while his mother – who would babysit the child on the nanny’s day off – looked on adoringly.
Read more here.
