King Charles strips brother Andrew of 'prince' title and royal estate

Prince saint andrew the apostle to turn a loss ‘Prince’ title, Buckingham castle announces

News of removal of Andrew's royal title and eviction from Royal Lodge spreads through London

Embarrassment surrounding Prince Andrew grows with accuser’s memoir

Virginia Giuffre accuses Prince Andrew of being 'entitled' in posthumous book

Prince Andrew to give up royal titles, including Duke of York

As much as today’s censures of Andrew are a significant development, much remains to be seen about how the Royal Family moves forward from the scandals that have surrounded him.

A lot will depend on how the King’s moves are received by the public, and the extent to which Andrew, who has been seen at family moments such as the recent funeral of Katharine, Duchess of Kent, disappears from public view.

“I think when you look at most of the crises about the monarchy, it's when the monarchy is out of step with public opinion and out of step with parliamentary opinion,” Prescott told me earlier this week.

Today’s announcement could have some impact.

“The statement from the King was clear, especially when saying, ‘these censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him,’” Prescott told me just now.

“It’s clearly distancing Andrew from the rest of the monarchy, which is reinforced by moving him to Sandringham. This move has put the monarchy back in step with public opinion and opinion in Parliament.”

How long that lasts will only emerge over time.

We’re ending our live coverage now, but we’ll have more coverage in our biweekly Royal Fascinator newsletter.

Buckingham Palace isn’t saying exactly where Andrew will live on the Sandringham estate, the King’s private estate in Norfolk, northeast of London.

But the fact he will be there could lessen the potential for public criticism that was mounting around his living arrangements at Royal Lodge.

“This is the neatest solution to the housing question,” Prescott told me.

“Sandringham as a private estate means that no taxpayer money will be spent housing Andrew.”

Conservative MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, who chairs the U.K. Parliament’s public accounts committee, raised the taxpayer funding issue in a letter to the U.K. Treasury and the Crown Estate, from whom he also asked details on the property’s lease.

“There is considerable and understandable public interest in the spending of public money in relation to Prince Andrew, which in part stems from the fact that he is no longer a working royal and from serious and disturbing allegations made against him,” he wrote, according to The Guardian.

Embarrassment surrounding Prince Andrew grows with accuser’s memoir

There are calls in the U.K. For the royals to further distance themselves from Prince Andrew after the publication of the late Virginia Giuffre’s memoir, which details her allegations against Andrew and his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The prince continues to deny the accusations.

Recent revelations, including reports by The Times that Andrew has lived rent free for 35 years at his sprawling Royal Lodge home, have again propelled the question of how the Royals are funded up the British political agenda.

In Britain, like Canada, many people are struggling with a rise in the cost of living — and many think it’s distasteful to use public money to fund royal accommodation.

Today's news broke during a recording of the BBC’s Question Time, a TV show debating current issues with political guests in front of a live studio audience.

As the details of the King’s decision was read out by host Fiona Bruce, the studio audience gave a resounding applause.

Andrew remains eighth in line to the throne, and could only be removed from the line of succession by an act of Parliament, Prescott said. That would also require the consent of the 14 other countries where Charles is King, including Canada.

There have been rare removals from the line of succession in the past, one being Prince Michael of Kent, who lost his place when he married a Catholic in 1978 — as per the Act of Settlement of 1701.

With the Succession to the Crown Act in 2013, Prince Michael was reinstated into the line of succession.

The process to remove Andrew's titles won’t necessarily be instant — or easy.

“I suspect a lot is being worked out right now between Buckingham Palace and Westminster in terms of how to legislate this process and most likely to expedite it,” Vovk said.

“The last thing anyone wants, I’m sure, is for this to be a long, drawn-out process.”

Prescott told me letters patent — a published written order — from King Charles will be needed to remove Andrew’s status as a prince.

As regards the Dukedom of York, which Andrew was granted on his wedding day in 1986 by his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, Prescott said it’s been reported that he is going to be struck from the Roll of the Peerage, the official record of the peerage.

That would avoid the need for any legislation, Prescott said.

David Michael Lamb

Andrew has been divorced from Sarah Ferguson since 1996, but in what can only be described as an unusual arrangement, they have lived together at Royal Lodge for many years.

Known by her nickname “Fergie,” she too will now move out of the residence. It’s not known yet where she will go.

Ferguson agreed to relinquish her Duchess of York title earlier this month when Andrew also gave up his courtesy titles. She was also dropped as a patron of several charities after an email from 2011 emerged in which she called Epstein her “supreme friend.”

There is a sense in the U.K. That this is finally some decisive action being taken by King Charles. Headlines about Andrew have long filled the tabloids, chipping away at the reputation of the Royal Family.

Andrew denies the allegations, but the damage clearly has been done. The King’s move against his younger brother is radical and peak humiliation for Andrew.

Vovk, the royal historian, said today’s actions speak “to the King being more proactive than I think his predecessors would have been.”

He also said he thinks they speak to Charles’s “self-proclaimed modernizing approach to monarchy.”

“The announcement itself touched on everything it needed to,” Vovk said.

“It made it clear that this is now a formal process, that Andrew will no longer be subject to any kind of legal or administrative protection simply by being born into his family, and, most importantly, reinforcing the support for survivors and victims of sexual abuse.”

Andrew has been roundly criticized in particular for the lack of empathy shown for Epstein’s victims in his disastrous BBC interview in 2019.

---

---