Has there ever been such a drive-by shooting of a living figure by their biographer? A new book about Prince Andrew is so stuffed with allegations about sex and acts of stupidity that, even before it is published later this month, many have been left wondering if its author has simply gone too far, according to ‘Independent’.

There are breathtaking allegations contained in Andrew Lownie’s biography of the duke – his appalling treatment of Buckingham Palace staff, yet more links to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, how he was once given a bloody nose at a family gathering by Prince Harry, which Harry has strenuously denied. There are upsetting and intensely private revelations that appear to pass the legal threshold for a defamation lawsuit.

The Duke of York might yet choose to hit back at his tormentors in the courts. Were he to do so, it isn’t hard to see how such an episode might help him plot his long-desired return to public life. Could this book be the Duke’s first step on that road to rehabilitation?

Few feel any sympathy towards Andrew, who for years has been an isolated figure. After he was so bovine to those around him, most friends have long since fled. With the death of Her late Majesty, he lost his main channel of support. His eldest bro­ther, the King, tries to be supportive, but has to excuse him from all major state occasions.

While we should resist the opportunity to rehabilitate Andrew, the most eye-popping allegations carried in the extract from the biography offer a glimpse of how he ended up an outcast in disgrace. Put simply, he is a man who has been spoiled by neglect. The prince once had everything you could desire: palaces, money, status and, so the biography says, over 1,000 women prepared to go to bed with him. Throw in the fact Andrew was always his mother’s favourite, but he lacks any of her legendary cha­rm and intelligence, and you’re left with a lethal cocktail of entitlement. It is fitting the biography is named Entitled: ‘The Rise and Fall of the House of York’.

The miracle of the royal family over the last century came about thanks to Elizabeth II, who would have been 100 next year. Despite being in a similar hallowed position to her son at her birth, she escaped the dark taint of entitlement. That was partly luck. She was 10 when her uncle Edward VIII abdicated, and she became heir to the throne. Until then, she was unlikely ever to become monarch, on the presumption Edward would have children. And so, for those 10 precious years, for all her fame, she wasn’t treated with the crippling flattery of deference. She had the close, loving attention of her parents, themselves relatively insulated from the royal limelight.