Sarah Ferguson is understood to be making her own arrangements amid the humiliating downfall of her ex-husband. Photo / Getty Images
When the late Queen Elizabeth II gave her favourite son the title Duke of York on his wedding day in 1986, she was entrusting him with a dukedom that was cherished by her more than any other.
Her beloved father and mother were the Duke and Duchess of York before they became George VI and Queen Elizabeth. She herself was born Princess Elizabeth of York and her grandfather George V had also held the title.
It was the greatest of gifts and a compliment that Andrew and his wife, Sarah Ferguson, returned by demeaning and degrading the titles for nearly 40 years.
Following the exposure of their lies about their friendship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and the ongoing furore, the King has decided that the dukedom must be formally stripped before it can be sullied any further.
As for Ferguson, Palace aides are clear that the King will not carry responsibility for her going forward, and she is understood to be making her own arrangements amid the humiliating downfall of her ex-husband.
The couple are free to live together in the undisclosed property that Andrew will move into on the Sandringham estate, but the Telegraph understands this is unlikely.
The fall of the House of York has been a long time coming, and Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and Sarah Ferguson, as they will henceforth be known, made equal contributions to its sorry end.
At first Fergie, as the tabloids loved to call her, appeared to have brought welcome energy to the Royal family with her informality and humour. When she was filmed giving her husband a playful smack on the bottom in an engagement interview, it seemed that Randy Andy, the womanising Falklands War veteran, had met his match.
By 1990 they had two daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, making them a perfect family unit.
But beneath the surface, cracks in their relationship were starting to appear. Sarah privately complained that she was only spending 40 days each year with her husband because of his naval service, and rumours of an affair with Texan millionaire Steve Wyatt surfaced in early 1992 (she would later claim that she and Andrew had an open relationship).
In March 1992, after just six years of marriage, Buckingham Palace announced the couple were separating. In a hint of what was to come, the Queen also announced that she would not be taking responsibility for Sarah’s debts.
The separation in itself was not a disaster: after all, the Princess Royal had announced her own separation from her first husband Mark Phillips three years earlier, and Princess Margaret had divorced in 1978.
Divorce can be done with dignity, which was the least that could be expected of a couple whose expensively celebrated marriage had lasted for such a short time.
Instead the pair seemed determined to outdo each other in their efforts to humiliate the monarchy.
In August 1992, just five months after the separation announcement, a topless Sarah was photographed on holiday with her financial adviser John Bryan, now her lover. Photographs of him sucking the toes of Elizabeth II’s daughter-in-law appeared on the front pages of newspapers and magazines around the world, which so infuriated Prince Philip that he effectively banned her there and then from taking part in future family occasions.
Princess Margaret reportedly wrote to her saying: “You have done more to bring shame on the family than could ever have been imagined.”
Despite speculation about a possible reconciliation, the couple’s divorce was finalised in May 1996. Sarah at the time retained the title Duchess of York but ceased using Her Royal Highness.
By then it had become obvious that Sarah’s spending habits were becoming a problem – it later transpired that by the time of the divorce she was £4.2m ($9.6m) in debt.
She pleaded poverty, saying her divorce settlement amounted to just £15,000 per year ($34,437) which had left her with no option but to seek other sources of income, such as a role as a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers, an autobiography called Sarah: My Story and her Budgie the Helicopter children’s books.
Buckingham Palace was so enraged by her claims that it let it be known she had received £350,000 in cash, £500,000 from the Queen to buy a house, and a monthly allowance that had paid out £500,000 in the first 14 years after the divorce.
Nevertheless, Sarah seemed unable to live within her means, and her money-grubbing became a constant source of embarrassment.
In 2010 she was filmed offering an undercover News of the World reporter access to Andrew for £500,000.
Then, in 2011, it emerged that Epstein had helped her to avoid bankruptcy by paying £15,000 to clear a debt to an aide. Several charities immediately dropped her as a patron.
Andrew’s own relationship with Epstein became a wound on the Royal family’s reputation that was reopened over and over again.
In 2010, two years after Epstein had pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor, Andrew was photographed walking through Central Park in New York deep in conversation with him. His friendship with the paedophile cost him his role as the UK’s trade envoy and he insisted he had cut all ties with Epstein.
In 2014 he was accused in court papers of having sex with 17-year-old Virginia Roberts (later Giuffre) who said she had been trafficked by Epstein. The allegations rumbled on for years. In 2019 Andrew, showing typical arrogance, decided to grant an interview to Newsnight, thinking it would clear his name, but which only made matters worse when he said he did not regret his “very useful” relationship with him.
The crisis prompted by the interview led to the suspension of Andrew’s public duties, including stepping down from all 230 of his patronages.
Andrew’s controversial friendships with foreign billionaires did not end with Epstein. The sale of his marital home for £3m more than the asking price to the billionaire son-in-law of the President of Kazakhstan – who then left it to fall derelict – defied logical explanation.
By 2023 King Charles felt that Sarah Ferguson deserved to be given a second chance, and she joined the Royal family for Christmas at Sandringham for the first time since 1992.
Yet the Epstein scandal refused to die, and in early October it emerged that Andrew, who claimed to have cut off all contact with Epstein in 2010, had emailed him in 2011 after a photograph of him with Virginia Giuffre appeared in the Mail on Sunday.
He told Epstein: “It would seem we are in this together and will have to rise above it…we’ll play some more soon!!!!”
His ex-wife had also been caught lying over Epstein. In September 2025 it emerged that in April 2011, a month after claiming to have severed all ties with him, Sarah wrote to him and said that “from the truth of my heart” she wanted to “humbly apologise” for denouncing him.
Separately, the Duke had developed an unfortunate habit of forming friendships with alleged Chinese spies. Chris Yang, who was barred from entry to the UK in 2023 on suspicion of spying, had been invited to royal residences by Andrew. This month, it emerged that the alleged spymaster at the heart of the collapsed Chinese spy trial had met Andrew at least three times.
On Thursday, the King decided enough was enough and initiated the formal process to strip Andrew of all his titles, leaving him simply as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. By doing so, the monarch has done what his late mother could never bring herself to do – make his brother give up the dukedom she had held so close to her heart.
For Sarah, the King’s decisive move marks the nadir of a public and humiliating downfall. Where once there were tentative efforts to bring her slowly back into the royal fold, there is now only isolation. And when she leaves Royal Lodge alongside her disgraced ex-husband – rumoured to be happening in the New Year – she will be left to forge a path on her own.
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