A Buckingham Palace statement today confirmed the stripping of Andrew’s titles and his banishment to Norfolk. Photo / Getty Images
Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, as he is now known, had believed the worst was over when he agreed to stop using the title Duke of York.
He had taken his punishment, he thought, and by digging his heels in and waving his “cast iron” lease at courtiers, he at least had a sporting chance of keeping his Royal Lodge home in Windsor.
The King, though, had other ideas. Whether or not Andrew knew it, there was never any doubt in the mind of his older brother that more had to be done, and it was always a case of not if, but when, he was forced out of the stately pile in Windsor Great Park.
After days of tortured negotiations, it was only on Thursday evening (Friday morning NZ time) that Andrew finally agreed to the terms of his banishment, leading to an announcement from Buckingham Palace at exactly 7pm (8am NZT).
What came as a much greater surprise was the King’s decision to strip him of all of his titles, including that of prince, which is a punishment that the errant Prince Harry was spared.
The sheer amount of potentially compromising material about Andrew and his ill-chosen friends that was out in the wider world, waiting to be uncovered, had spread panic among the King’s advisers.
They feared more details about his dealings with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein coming to light in the US, and more stories about his dealings with alleged Chinese spies.
The fact that Andrew had lied about cutting off contact with Epstein meant he could not be relied upon to catalogue everything else that might still be to come, making it vital that the Palace was seen to be taking a proactive decision, rather than being forced to react to events.
A parliamentary committee starting to show interest in royal finances, particularly the lease on Royal Lodge, only added to the growing sense of crisis.
And if that were not enough, there was nervousness about MPs egging on the Prime Minister to remove Andrew’s titles formally through an Act of Parliament.
As one royal insider said, “There was a certain sense of alarm at the idea of MPs starting to intervene. If they took away Andrew’s title, what else might they do? Would they get a taste for this and decide to intervene in the line of succession by taking Prince Harry out of it? It is a can of worms that no one wanted opened.”
As The Telegraph reported last week, Andrew and the King’s representatives were already in “advanced talks” over Royal Lodge. Exactly when Mr Mountbatten Windsor realised the game was up is not clear, but when the removal of the Duke of York title on October 17 failed to stem media stories, it became clear that more action was needed.
By the start of this week, it had been made clear to Andrew that he and his former wife, Sarah Ferguson, were being moved out of Royal Lodge, a 30-room Grade II listed mansion.
The terms of his removal had to be thrashed out: the questions of where he would live, where Ferguson would live, whether he would be compensated and what mechanism would be used to remove his titles were tied up in legal and constitutional complexities.
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, Andrew’s daughters, also had to be reassured that they would not be affected or lose their titles, and the whole arrangement had to be agreed by the Prince of Wales, who will have to provide for Andrew if he outlives the King.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer also had to be brought into the discussions, as any action taken by the King, particularly in relation to Andrew’s titles, needed to have the full backing of the Government.
Legally, the King could not evict his brother from Royal Lodge. Andrew was right in thinking that his 75-year lease was ironclad, meaning he had to be persuaded to give it up voluntarily, albeit under huge pressure.
Andrew had to serve formal notice to the Crown Estate, which owns the property, to surrender the lease, and courtiers have talked about a “negotiation” taking place, suggesting he may have been compensated, perhaps out of the King’s pocket.
Andrew sank about $10 million of his own money into the property when he moved in 20 years ago and, under the terms of his lease, he was entitled to only about $550,000 for early termination. There is talk of remedial works being needed, which might reduce that amount even further.
Whatever the terms of the agreement, Buckingham Palace has made it clear that the King will make “appropriate” provision for his brother.
Having made clear he wanted to remain in Windsor so he could be close to his daughters and grandchildren, Andrew had at one stage thought he was going to be able to move into Frogmore Cottage, the former home of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, also on the Windsor estate, and that Ferguson would be found somewhere else nearby.
That was certainly discussed, but it threw up the same problems as Royal Lodge: he would be living, presumably rent-free, in a property that could, in theory, yield a rental income for the taxpayer.
The solution was obvious all along, though it took a long time for him to come to terms with it: he would have to live either at Sandringham or Balmoral, the King’s privately owned properties, where he would be a burden on the King and not the taxpayer. In the end, he agreed to be housed in a modest property on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk. Ferguson will have to find her own home.
If losing Royal Lodge did not bite deeply enough, losing every one of his titles would have cut Andrew to the bone.
It was not a straightforward process. Constitutional experts consulted by the King advised him that, because the dukedom of York is a peerage, it could be formally taken away by removing it from the peerage roll.
To do that, the King was advised he would have to send royal warrants to the Lord Chancellor, David Lammy, to remove the dukedom from the peerage roll, along with the title of prince and the style of Royal Highness. The same process applied to Andrew’s other titles of Earl of Inverness and Baron Killyleagh.
A royal warrant is a legal document authorised by the monarch, which requires the monarch’s signature. It can be used to make a public appointment (or remove one), to create medals, and to create regius professorships of universities.
Until now, few people realised it could also be used for the unprecedented step of demoting a prince to a mister.
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