Newly declassified British government documents have pulled back the curtain on a decades-old royal appointment, revealing that the late Queen Elizabeth II personally lobbied for her son Prince Andrew (full name Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor) to be given a prominent role as the UK’s international trade envoy at the turn of the 21st century. The release of the 11 files, which date back to 2000 and detail the negotiations around Andrew’s appointment to the role with British Trade International (BTI) – the public body tasked with promoting UK commerce overseas – comes amid ongoing fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal that has continued to engulf the disgraced former royal. Andrew’s connection to the late American convicted sex offender has already cost him all of his official royal patronages and titles, which were stripped from him in 2022 following the public release of court documents tied to Epstein. Most recently, in February of this year, he was taken into police custody for questioning over allegations of misconduct in public office, with prosecutors claiming he shared sensitive state information with Epstein during his 10-year tenure as trade envoy from 2001 to 2011. After hours of interviews with law enforcement, Andrew was released without charge, and he has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing related to the allegations. The declassified files lay bare the direct role the late monarch played in securing the post for her son. In a February 25, 2000 letter sent by BTI chief David Wright to the then UK foreign secretary, Wright wrote that after a “wide-ranging conversation” with the Queen’s private secretary, it was made clear that appointing Andrew to the role was the Queen’s explicit “wish”. The letter further emphasized that “The Queen is very keen that the Duke of York should take on a prominent role in the promotion of national interests.” Even in the earliest internal discussions ahead of the appointment, protocol officials flagged unusual preferences from Andrew. A month before Wright’s letter, in an internal memo with the subject line “Duke of York’s travel”, protocol head Kathryn Colvin advised that the royal “should not be offered golfing functions abroad” during official trips, while also noting that the duke favored visits to “more sophisticated countries” and “liked travelling, especially when on royal business.” While the post itself was an unpaid position, Andrew’s decade in the role earned him the unflattering nickname “Air Miles Andy” due to his constant global travel, with all travel costs and luxury accommodation expenses covered by British taxpayers. In a written statement to the UK Parliament released alongside the declassified documents, current Trade Minister Chris Bryant confirmed that a thorough review of the files found “no evidence that a formal due diligence or vetting process was undertaken” ahead of Andrew’s appointment. Bryant added that the lack of formal vetting was “understandable”, given that the appointment was framed as a continuation of longstanding royal family participation in UK trade and investment promotion work. The document release also casts new light on another figure tied to the Epstein scandal: former cabinet minister Peter Mandelson, who was forced to resign as UK ambassador to the US last year over his undisclosed connections to the convicted sex offender. Mandelson is already under investigation over allegations of misconduct in public office dating back to his time as a government minister in the 2000s, and the Liberal Democrat Party – which pushed the current UK government to release the Andrew files – is now calling for the public release of all correspondence between Mandelson and the former prince. Andrew has been mired in controversy for years over his long personal friendship with Epstein. In one of the most high-profile accusations, Virginia Giuffre, an Epstein accuser who died by suicide in 2024, claimed that she was trafficked to have sex with Andrew three times starting in 2001, including two encounters when she was just 17 years old. Andrew agreed to settle a 2022 civil lawsuit brought by Giuffre out of court, without ever admitting legal liability for the allegations.