Sarah Ferguson's extravagant demands exposed as she made 4.30am request to butler

The Duchess of Yorkhad debts totaling hundreds of thousands of pounds paid off by the late Queen after living a life of "opulent excess", according to a new explosive biography.

Sarah Ferguson, known as Fergie, spent wildly on staff, holidays, parties and flowers, with no regard on settling bills during her marriage to Prince Andrew, it is alleged.

The Duchess, who was married to the disgraced Duke of York for a decade between 1986 and 1996, was bailed out on "several occasions" according to renowned historian Andrew Lownie, including one payment of £500,000 in April 1994 when the bank Coutts "demanded £500,000 within 14 days".

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The biography, 'Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the Yorks', gives a startling insight into the Duke and Duchess’ "hedonistic life, controversial friendships and secretive money-making endeavours".

Said to be based on four years of research and hundreds of interviews, Lownie claims Ferguson’s life as a member of the royal family was notable for being "marked by ambition and financial recklessness".

The Duchess is alleged to have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on royal staff, renting foreign villas and demanding security for her two daughters, Eugenieand Beatrice. Lownie writes: "The bubbly young redhead was initially seen as a breath of fresh air when she married him in 1986, but her exploitation of her royal status to make money has seen her join her ex-husband as a hugely diminished figure."

Despite a string of failed business ventures, often trading on her royal connections, including putting her name to a chain of retirement homes that went bankrupt, Ferguson reportedly had debts in excess of £3.7 million by 1994.

Lownie states "she needed bank approval to pay even modest cheques. But even then, according to a member of her staff, she always believed there would be 'a deal around the corner' that would solve all her problems".

According to the author behind several books on the royal family including Prince Philip ’s uncle Lord Mountbatten and King Edward VIII, who famously abdicated after less than a year in 1936, Fergie became well known for running up huge bills on credit in stores such as Harrods and not paying.

Lownie writes: "She also found 'ways and means of getting around her financial restrictions'. For example, Mohamed Al-Fayed, owner of Harrods, never pressed her to settle her account at the store, a practice she exploited elsewhere. A former employee confided: 'These accounts just never get paid, somehow. The shops don't complain because of who she is, or they never used to.'"

In one newspaper article, her former lover and financial adviser John Bryan revealed that Fergie’s estimated £860,000 annual expenditure included £300,000 on staff, £150,000 on gifts, £50,000 on flowers, £50,000 on parties, £150,000 on travel and £100,000 on clothes - £25,000 of it in an hour's spending spree in Bloomingdales.

The explosive book also alleges how friends also engaged in lending the Duchess money, often never seeing full payment in return. It is claimed that one one who had lent her £100,000 to pay for a holiday in the South of France threatened to sue Fergie at the High Court "after she paid back only £5,000, claiming she understood the rest to be a gift".

Further allegations of more wild spending include £14,000 in just one month with a London wine merchant, as well as luxury holidays to "Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Poland and four trips to America", each time reportedly staying at the luxury Carlyle Hotel, where the cheapest suite was £330 a night.

Lownie also details further extravagant spending including visits to New York, where she allegedly took one car to the airport "and another for her ten suitcases".

The book also claims that her assistant at the time, Christine Gallagher, had once been sent on Concorde, at a cost of £5,000, to bring her some paperwork.

Buckingham Palace released a statement in 1996 following the York’s divorce, stating: “The Duchess's financial affairs are no longer Her Majesty's concern but matters which the Duchess of York must discuss and resolve with her bankers and other financial advisers."

However, further financial mismanagement was revealed in the form of thousands of unpaid bills to personal shoppers, the late Queen’s personal mail service, and allegations of irregularities with charity funds from her The Sarah Ferguson Foundation.

Following her divorce, the Duchess became involved in a series of money making ventures, trading on her royal connections, including accepting £100,000 from Austrian building magnate, Richard Lugner, in 1997 to open a shopping precinct in Vienna, do a book signing and accompany him to the Vienna Opera Ball.

In the same year she became the first royal to endorse a product on television when she advertised Ocean Spray cranberry drink for a fee of $500,000 (£376,000). With an advance on her memoirs in the same year, as well as considerable income from a £500,000 deal with WeightWatchers, Fergie attempted to settle debts despite reportedly owing £1.6 million in taxes.

A sacked staff member also reveals to Lownie that "greed and wastefulness that contributed to the duchess's financial downfall"

The former courtier claimed: "Every night she demands a whole side of beef, a leg of lamb and a chicken, which are laid out on the dining room table like a medieval banquet. It's a feast that would make Henry VIII proud."

The source continued: "But often there is just her and her girls, Bea and Eugenie, and most of it is wasted. There is no attempt to keep it to have cold the next day. It just sits there all night, and the next day it's thrown away." Lownie also claims Fergie "would regularly miss flights that were not refundable", totting up thousands of pounds in unnecessary costs.

According to one source, the Duchess "thought nothing of arriving at an airport with 25 cases and paying between £800 and £4,000 in excess baggage. At least five of those cases were packed with toiletries and make-up. Another would be used solely for clothes hangers."

The book also alleges "personal trainers, hairdressers and Pilates instructors were paid hundreds of pounds an hour to wait for her to emerge for the day in the late afternoon. Her butler had to get in at 4.30am to put watercress on ice".

As the Duchess continues to live rent free with her ex-husband in his Royal Lodge mansion in Windsor, Lownie reveals her extravagant ways continue.

In May 2009, she signed a year's lease on a house at £8,000 a month but stayed with Andrew at Royal Lodge instead. The result was £50,000 spent on a house she never lived in.

The explosive book, which Lownie claims is the product of four years of research and hundreds of interviews, the author claims that Fergie was hotly in pursuit of a famous cast of potential lovers over the years. He claims on a trip to New York, the Duchess tasked her staff to find out if John F. Kennedy Jnr - handsome son of the assassinated US president John F. Kennedy - was in town.

On discovering he was, she immediately invited him for drinks or dinner at her hotel, which he is understood to have accepted. When the Duchess allegedly discovered that Kennedy was seeing the actress Daryl Hannah, the Duchess allegedly replied: “That's not going to bother me!”

According to Lownie, Hannah was indeed bothered which led to Kennedy cancelling, claiming a prior engagement. Lownie claims Fergie then ordered staff "to spy on his apartment all night to check that he had told the truth".

Lownie also claims the Duchess declared she was "in love", with the legendary American golfer Tiger Woods. It is claimed she flew 1,500 miles to meet him, then confided to broadcaster Piers Morgan: "I'm in love."

Morgan is reported to have asked her: "Who's the lucky guy?" to which Fergie replied: "He doesn't know yet." Fergie then suggested she was going to "follow him around the course for a bit and see how I get on". Morgan concluded: "Poor old Tiger isn't going to know what's hit him."

A spokesperson for the Duchess of York was contacted for comment.

'Entitled' by Andrew Lownie (William Collins, £22), to be published August 14.