Diplomats’ scathing nickname for Prince Andrew tied to ‘childish obsessions’ during Gulf visits

LONDON — A newly cited detail from an unauthorized biography portrays Prince Andrew as the source of a sharp rebuke from Gulf diplomats who coined a nickname tied to what they described as his ‘childish obsessions’ during early trips as the United Kingdom’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment. The account appears in Andrew Lownie’s book Entitled, which compiles memories from officials who interacted with the duke on those missions, including a Bahrain visit that left a lasting impression on the foreign service.

During the Bahrain stop, which formed part of Andrew’s early agenda in the role, he and a modest entourage spent two days in the kingdom alongside the British ambassador and other officials. The stated aim of the visit was the sale of British-made Hawk aircraft, but Lownie writes that the duke ignored the official brief and proposed that leasing the jets would be more financially sensible. The Bahrain government bought the aircraft four years later, but not as a direct result of Andrew’s intervention, according to Simon Wilson, then the deputy head of mission. Wilson recounted that Gulf diplomats began referring to the prince as HBH — His Buffoon Highness — a label the author says captured the sense that Andrew often did the opposite of what had been agreed in pre-visit meetings with staff.

Wilson recalled that the duke’s pattern was to disregard pre-visit briefing and “plunge straight in,” sometimes leaving officials to wonder if he had actually read the briefing. The adviser described the water and food preferences that stalked Andrew’s routine and noted the duchess’s guest’s comment that the prime function of the visit was to promote UK business, not to showcase the duke’s personal agenda. In one telling moment, Andrew apparently chose not to address the British business community as planned; instead, he jokingly signaled to the ambassador, saying this was the chap — not him — whose job it was to promote UK business. Such anecdotes, Wilson told Lownie, grew into folklore within the diplomatic service because they seemed to symbolize a broader pattern of disregard for the preparatory work that surrounded official visits.

The pursuit of influence in the Gulf, and the duke’s perceived detachment from the expected brief, sit within a longer arc described by Lownie and others. Ingrid Seward, a royal biographer who wrote My Mother And I, has suggested that Prince Philip repeatedly warned Andrew that he was not living up to his early potential. Seward’s reflection, drawn from interviews and notes, adds a generational layer to the critique that Andrew’s public service would be remembered not for successes in business outreach but for missteps and reputational risk.

The Bahrain episode was part of a broader pattern identified in the 1980s and 1990s, when Andrew earned a reputation among the press and the public as a sprightly, sometimes wayward member of the royal family. The nickname attributed to him — and its underlying impressions — contributed to the perception of a “playboy prince” during his bachelor years, a stereotype that persisted even as he married in 1986 and later faced the legal and ethical scrutiny that shadowed his post-naval career.

Lownie’s narrative places the nickname within a larger historical frame of the duke’s public-facing roles after leaving active naval duty in 2001 and during his decades as a working royal. The author’s interviews with officials, including Wilson, are part of an effort to document how personal eccentricities can affect formal diplomacy and, in turn, how those moments become part of institutional folklore. The account underscores how visits designed to forge commercial ties can collide with personal conduct, leaving a mixed legacy that is still debated in royal biographies and among former diplomats today.

Beyond the Gulf, Andrew’s career has been punctuated by other high-profile episodes that shaped his public image. In 1982, following Argentina’s invasion of the Falkland Islands, Andrew served as a Navy pilot aboard a Sea King helicopter on missions tied to the conflict. The experience vaulted him into the public imagination as a war hero, even as it contrasted with later criticisms about his post-military choices. The war’s end did not erase questions about his leadership style, and commentators have linked those early career moments to the later controversy surrounding his post-royal ventures.

The broader arc of Andrew’s public life has included scrutiny of his business associations and his role in royal life after stepping back from active royal duties. In 2011, he resigned from his role as Special Representative for International Trade and Investment after a series of damaging headlines about his conduct and the perception of his business connections. That resignation, and the subsequent years of reporting about his ties to individuals with disputed backgrounds, fed into ongoing debates about the proper scope of royal involvement in private enterprise and diplomacy.

More recently, reporting around the duke has touched on concerns about national security and intelligence. It was disclosed that Andrew had formed a friendship with a person described in media as an alleged Chinese spy, identified by some as H6. The individual was later barred from Britain on national security grounds, a detail that has fed into discussions about the risks and responsibilities attached to royal engagements in an era of heightened security concerns. These developments, while not connected to the Bahrain episode itself, contribute to the broader narrative about how the duke’s post-royal years have intersected with sensitive geopolitical issues.

Across these threads, the anecdote from Bahrain, as recounted by Lownie and corroborated by Wilson, stands as a stark example of how a single voyage can acquire symbolic weight in an institution’s memory. The phrase HBH — His Buffoon Highness — did not define the duke’s entire tenure, but it did become part of the folklore that surrounds the diplomatic service’s memory of cross-cultural diplomacy. The tale is frequently cited in royal biographies and journalism as a cautionary illustration of the risk that a personal style can pose to complex efforts like international trade outreach and state-to-state engagement.

As with many royal biographies, the reliability of individual anecdotes is tempered by competing narratives and revised memories. Yet the episode described by Lownie, Wilson, and Seward offers a window into how diplomatic culture grapples with the personal dimensions of public service. It also underscores the durability of a nickname as a cultural artifact within the royal narrative — a reminder that the history of a public figure is often shaped as much by remembered moments as by official records.