The late Prince Philip was a serial adulterer. That has been known for decades, that he cheated on Queen Elizabeth II throughout their marriage. When Philip “retired” to Wood Farm in his last five years, he basically spent that time with long-time companion/friend/mistress Penny Knatchbull, who had been his special friend since the 1990s. But in his younger days, Philip was pretty wild. I’ve never heard this particular story though, which came out in Andrew Lownie’s book about Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. Lownie claimed that back in the day (the 1950s and ‘60s??), Philip had a lengthy affair with Sarah’s mother, Susan Barrantes. The Daily Mail’s Richard Kay tried to fact-check the story and he made it worse:
Of all the jaw-dropping claims in Andrew Lownie’s meticulously researched book about Prince Andrew – from his insatiable sexual appetite to his wife’s financial recklessness – it is one of the most provocative. It forms the very opening of the whole biography, in fact, as follows: ‘The father of the groom and mother of the bride – lovers 20 years earlier – sat in the third carriage waving to the crowds…’ Nowhere in this arresting description of the Duke and Duchess of York’s wedding day in 1986 does Lownie seek refuge in words such as ‘alleged’, ‘rumoured’ or even ‘reported’.
The two figures sharing the horse-drawn landau that July day were, of course, Prince Philip and Sarah Ferguson’s twice-married mother, Mrs Susan Barrantes. That they were lovers is stated as fact, plain and simple. The affair began, so Lownie asserts, after Susie, as she was known, became ‘exasperated’ by the philandering of her first husband Major Ronald Ferguson, father of the duchess.
Perhaps it is convenient that the protagonists in this menage-a-trois are dead and cannot defend their names or reputations. Yet all this week, in broadcast and media appearances, the author has neither swerved from his view nor retracted a word. Challenged in interviews, indeed, Lownie doubled down. Appearing on GB News, former Tory minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg loftily dismissed the claim as ‘just gossip’, but the author responded that the trusted and knowledgeable source behind it was a member of his own family. Lownie’s wife, Angela, a similar age to Fergie, had grown up near Ascot, close to the Fergusons.
All rather compelling – but does it make the story of a liaison between Fergie’s mother and her royal father-in-law true? Ron Ferguson had his suspicions. In The Galloping Major, his 1994 memoir in which he was scathing about the royals and their treatment of his daughter, he noted: ‘I always suspected that Prince Philip had an eye for Susie. Certainly, they remain friends to this day.’ Behind this seemingly casual remark lies at least a hint of bitterness.
For a few heady years in the 1960s, Ferguson, a career soldier who joined the Life Guards as a trooper before going to Sandhurst, and his well-born wife – Susie was granddaughter of the 8th Viscount Powerscourt – were part of a lively social circle around the young Queen Elizabeth and her husband. Ever since he married into the Royal Family, Philip had been dogged by well-informed speculation about his love life. His reaction was always the same: apparent indifference punctuated by the occasional angry denial. Yet the stories persisted – for he was incapable of hiding his interest in women, not least in the willowy Susan, nee Wright.
This week I learned from another source about the prince’s rumoured admiration for the first Mrs Ferguson. It came from distinguished academic and writer David Rogers, a former parliamentary adviser to Tory grandee Lord Whitelaw. Rogers told me that the rumour was common knowledge among well-connected members of the louche Thursday Club, a men-only establishment where bon viveurs included raffish figures such as actors James Robertson Justice and Peter Ustinov, American harmonica player Larry Adler, the yet-to-be-unmasked Soviet spy Kim Philby, and of course, Prince Philip. Rogers, too, was a member.
Rogers recalls hearing the gossip about Philip and Mrs Barrantes. ‘It was around 1965,’ he told me. ‘As I recall, it was some time between the two general elections of 1964 and 1966.’ What was the gossip? ‘That there was something going on between Prince Philip and Ferguson’s wife. It was talked about openly.’
I looked up photos of Susan Barrantes and let’s just say… yeah, I believe it. She looks like his type – tall, slender, willowy, with a patrician bearing. She looks similar to Penny Knatchbull, honestly. As for when the affair possibly started…they’re being squirrelly about THAT because they don’t want to suggest that Philip is Sarah Ferguson’s secret father, or that Sarah and Andrew are half-siblings. Sarah was born in 1959. Philip’s friends are saying that IF the affair happened, it was in the 1960s, several years after Sarah was born. Which sort of makes it worse when you think about how much Philip despised Sarah – like, he was possibly around Sarah when she was just a little girl.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
