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the actress Koo Stark. Andrew, ruggedly handsome, had taken over his brother’s title of
royal heart-throb; he had been competed for by girls at Gordonstoun and in Canada;
soon the British Press would dub him ‘Randy Andy’. Andrew took Koo to stay at
Balmoral and introduced her to Elizabeth, who liked her and seemed utterly relaxed
about Koo’s past love affairs and a part in a soft-porn movie directed by the Earl of
Pembroke. The British press, however, greatly relished publishing stills of Koo in what
the papers described as ‘steamy’ scenes from the film. Despite Andrew’s love for Koo,
who subsequently behaved with great dignity over the ending of the relationship, the
‘soft-porn actress’ label effectively finished any chance of her becoming a princess.
Andrew’s frolics in Barbados with an older woman (already well known to the tabloid
press) and photographs of him necking in the sea with another girl caused a major royal
dust-up. Elizabeth was upset by his evident naïveté and penchant for ‘vulgar’ women;
Philip was furious that he had brought scandal on the family. It was obviously time to
marry Andrew off.
Sarah Ferguson came into Andrew’s life in the summer of 1985. Once again, Elizabeth
was delighted with her son’s choice of bride; once again, had she considered it, the
formbook as far as Sarah’s background and immediate past were concerned held out
some warning signs. Again, at first glance, the match looked promising. Sarah was well
bred. The Fergusons were a landowning family with a record of distinguished service in
one of the Household Cavalry Regiments, the Life Guards, and Sarah’s maternal
grandmother, a first cousin of Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, widow of Elizabeth’s
Uncle Harry, could trace her bloodline back to Charles II. Sarah herself had close court
connections, being second cousin to Robert Fellowes, through his mother, the former
Jane Ferguson, aunt of Sarah’s father, Ronald. Ronald Ferguson, or ‘Major Ron’ as he
was to become known to the tabloids, had come into contact with the royal family
through polo, the game to which Philip and Charles were addicted. Ferguson played on
Philip’s polo team through the 1960s and consequently he and his wife Susie were
occasionally invited to shoot at Sandringham and once to stay at Windsor for Ascot
Week. According to the Major, his first wife, Susie, Sarah’s mother, and Philip were
particularly friendly and remained so beyond the Fergusons’ divorce. His own relations
with Philip did not go outside polo. He became Deputy Chairman of the Guards Polo
Club in 1971 and, after Charles took up polo seriously in 1970, became his honorary
Polo Manager.
‘I was responsible for his ponies, his sticks – even his moods,’ Ferguson was to write in
his autobiography, The Galloping Major:
There were occasions when he arrived at the ground and you could almost see smoke coming out of the top
of his head, he was so uptight. If he was low and tired, I had to boost him up, either by making a comment
or getting him angry. On other occasions he was buoyant and I’d need to subdue him slightly to make him
concentrate. I don’t think the Prince of Wales realized when I was trying to manipulate his moods. I would
do it by giving him the wrong stick, for example. ‘Why on earth can’t you give me the right stick,’ he’d yell.
That was exactly the sort of angry reaction I wanted, to get the adrenalin flowing. I was a useful whipping
boy. The Prince couldn’t shout and scream at just anyone, but he could and did take it out on me…