King Charles III stripped Andrew of his titles, marking a significant moment in royal history. Photo / Getty Images
When Prince Charles ascended the throne in 2022, royal watchers predicted he would be a cautious reformer, edging Britain’s ancient monarchy toward a more open, inclusive and accountable style. Few predicted that exiling his wayward younger brother, Andrew, would be a defining moment in that project.
King Charles III’s decision this week to strip Andrew of his title as a prince, turning him into Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, is a watershed in the history of the royal family – an act so legally complicated, politically sensitive and emotionally fraught that it left royal historians casting about for a precedent.
At one level, Charles’ move is a concession that a decade of half measures was not enough to quell the public outcry over allegations of sexual misconduct against Andrew and his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender. At another level, it is an affirmation that royals, too, can be held accountable.
“These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him,” Buckingham Palace said in a statement in which the passive voice did little to disguise the hammer blow.
For those who parse royal communications, the next line was equally noteworthy. “Their Majesties,” the statement concluded, “wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”
That likely signalled the endorsement of Charles’ wife, Queen Camilla, who has never been close to Andrew, according to people who worked at the palace. She also supports charities that work for victims of rape and sexual abuse.
Palace officials said the King’s elder son and heir to the throne, Prince William, also supported the decision. The current and former palace officials spoke on condition that they not be identified because of the sensitivity of discussing internal royal family matters.
Still, the Firm, as royals often refer to their family, is neither a democracy nor a collective. The King made the decision to send so-called royal warrants to the Lord Chancellor, David Lammy. In these, he requested that Lammy remove Andrew’s titles – Duke of York and Prince – as well as the honorific “His Royal Highness” from the Peerage Roll, which sets out royal and aristocratic titles in Britain.
The manoeuvre will bypass the need for Parliament to act against Andrew, 65, a prospect that was becoming uncomfortably plausible after calls by several lawmakers to address the slurry of sordid disclosures about the accusation that he raped a teenager, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who was trafficked to him by Epstein.
Andrew has repeatedly denied these allegations, which Giuffre detailed in a newly published memoir, Nobody’s Girl. She died by suicide in Australia in April. (Epstein died, also in a suicide, while awaiting trial in 2019.)
Last week, a Member of Parliament, Rachael Maskell, introduced a bill that would give the King the authority to rescind royal titles on his own initiative. Charles appears to have found another way to do this, though it will require the co-operation of Lammy, who also serves as Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Minister. The palace officials said Charles had consulted the Government and that it supported him.
Lammy, as the official responsible for maintaining the Peerage Roll, will have to remove the dukedom of York and the other titles. He is expected to comply without delay, which would short-circuit the need for further action in Parliament.
That is hardly surprising. The Labour Government, like its predecessors, has shown no appetite to confront the royal family, reflecting centuries of convention under which the Crown and Parliament try to stay out of each other’s affairs.
“The really crucial thing was to limit the involvement of MPs,” said Peter Hunt, a former royal correspondent for the BBC, referring to members of Parliament. “What you’ve seen is an extraordinary stretching of royal authority.”
The Government appeared determined to draw a line under the affair.
“I’m delighted,” Chris Bryant, the Trade Minister, told the BBC. “I’ve felt for a long time this was a necessary step, and I’m glad that it’s happening now.”
Opposition leaders agreed. “The public has no truck whatsoever with any kind of sexual abuse, sexual offences, especially of minors,” said the leader of the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, in a radio interview.
The leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, said on social media, “It’s clear that Andrew’s position had become totally untenable, having disgraced his office and embarrassed the country.” He added, “This is an important step towards rebuilding trust in our institutions and drawing a line under this whole sorry saga.”
Whether it will definitively do that is not yet clear, though royal watchers said the magnitude of this step dwarfed previous punishments.
The King had previously instructed Andrew not to use his Duke of York title and to forgo being addressed as “His Royal Highness”. But Andrew remained a prince, and his other titles were merely held in abeyance.
Now he will lose all those titles, as well as his princely home outside London, the Royal Lodge, from which the King is evicting him. As in many family disputes, real estate proved to be one of the biggest bones of contention.
Under a deal between Andrew and the Crown Estate, which owns the lodge, he was able to live there for a nominal annual rent – specified, in traditional English terms, as “one peppercorn (if demanded)” – in return for having paid a large sum upfront to renovate the 30-room residence. The BBC reported he had paid around £8 million ($18.38m).
Charles could not simply break that “cast-iron lease”, according to palace officials. So the King, the Crown Estate and Andrew negotiated a deal under which Andrew agreed to surrender it. The Crown Estate may compensate Andrew for his investment in the property. He will move to a smaller house on Sandringham, a royal estate northeast of London that the King personally owns.
Sarah Ferguson, whom Andrew divorced in 1996 but who continued to live with him in the Royal Lodge, will not move to Sandringham, according to a palace official. Palace officials emphasised that their two daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, would keep their titles.
That underlines the emotional toll of this drama for the royal family. The palace said the king had a “duty of care” for Andrew and his daughters. That was another reason for the delay in taking these harsher measures, they said. Although Charles and Andrew are not especially close, according to two people who worked for the palace, the king has been anguished by the human impact of the scandal.
“Andrew’s catastrophic conduct has scarred two reigns,” Hunt said. “The Queen had a blind spot for her younger son, and if you look at Charles, he’s dithered.”
At the same time, royal watchers said, Charles’ actions showed that he – like Queen Elizabeth II before him – will ultimately put the interests of the Crown first. After Andrew gave a disastrous interview in 2019 to the BBC about his friendship with Epstein, Charles, then the Prince of Wales, called his mother from New Zealand to press her to strip his brother of his public duties.
It was a moment, royal watchers said, that laid bare Charles’ rising influence in the family. But as King, he has had his own trials. His three-year-old reign has been shadowed by his treatment for cancer. Although he has kept up a busy travel schedule, analysts say his health has impeded his other reform efforts.
Now, in acting decisively to punish Andrew, Charles has moved on at least one of those: He has introduced accountability to an institution often faulted by critics for living by its own rules.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Mark Landler
Photographs from: Southern District of New York & Getty Images
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