Buckingham Palace Received Prince Andrew's Confidential Emails Six Years Ago
Buckingham Palace received a trove of emails in 2020, years before the current police investigation into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor for alleged misconduct in public office. These documents, cited in High Court judgments, indicate that an archive of 30,000 emails, containing potentially compromising information regarding the former Prince’s financial dealings, was provided to the Lord Chamberlain, the Royal Household’s most senior officer.
The emails, spanning up to June 2013, were originally sourced from a personal business contact of Mountbatten-Windsor. While the full contents remain undisclosed, earlier this year, a national newspaper published excerpts showing Mountbatten-Windsor requested a confidential Treasury briefing in 2010 on Iceland's banking industry and then shared it with Jonathan Rowland, advising him to use the information “before you make your move”. Rowland’s father, David Rowland, had taken control of the Luxembourg branch of the failed Icelandic bank, Kaupthing, which became Banque Havilland.
The archive’s significance is underscored by its relevance to a controversial period in Mountbatten-Windsor’s financial connections with the Rowlands and Banque Havilland, a bank that subsequently faced regulatory sanctions in the UK and EU. The Epstein Files, released earlier this year in the US, further highlighted Mountbatten-Windsor’s close ties to the Rowlands, showing him promoting their ventures and vouching for David Rowland as his “trusted money man”.
The emails were initially taken from Jonathan Rowland’s account following a business dispute and subsequently obtained by retail entrepreneur Kevin Stanford. Court documents confirm Stanford offered this archive to authorities in Monaco and Luxembourg, and notably, shared them with the Lord Chamberlain in May 2020, with further confirmation of delivery to Buckingham Palace in July 2020.
In response to enquiries about the emails, Buckingham Palace stated it could not comment due to an ongoing police enquiry concerning Mr Mountbatten-Windsor. Thames Valley Police recently issued a fresh appeal for information regarding the former Prince’s activities. The UK government affirmed its cooperation with Thames Valley Police, whilst Mountbatten-Windsor continues to deny any wrongdoing or personal gain from his trade envoy role.
