Prince Andrew forced to give up royal titles after ‘discussion’ with King Charles
After ‘discussions’ with the King over ‘continued accusations’ about his friendship with Epstein, Prince Andrew has made a major decision.
Prince Andrew has decided, under pressure from his brother, King Charles, and other Royal Family members, to renounce his royal titles, including the Duke of York.
The move comes just days before the release of sex trafficking victim Virginia Giuffre’s upcoming posthumous memoir and amid anticipated further embarrassing revelations about Andrew - the King has stepped in and further distanced him from the Royal Family.
Andrew’s ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, who has been enveloped in a scandal around a friendship with Jeffrey Epstein of her own, will also drop her Duchess title. The two had already been banned from the Royal Christmas gathering at Sandringham.
Andrew will keep his title of Prince which is by birthright but all other honours, including the highly prestigious Order of the Garter, have been put into abeyance. He will no longer use His Royal Highness title, nor be able to act in the role of Counsellor of State, because he is not a working royal. However Andrew and Sarah will continue to live at Royal Lodge, despite efforts by the King to get them to leave. Andrew has a lease on the property with the Crown Estate until 2078.
Buckingham Palace aides have been trying to to stem the stench associated with Andrew for years now, but despite his vigorous denials about having met Ms Giuffre, the monarchy has continued to suffer reputational damage.
In a statement issued by Buckingham Palace on Saturday morning, Andrew said he has now gone a step further, beyond stepping back from public life five years ago in not using any title or honours.
“In discussion with The King, and my immediate and wider family, we have concluded the continued accusations about me distract from the work of His Majesty and the Royal Family,’’ the statement said.
“I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first. I stand by my decision five years ago to stand back from public life.
“With His Majesty’s agreement, we feel I must now go a step further. I will therefore no longer use my title or the honours which have been conferred upon me. As I have said previously, I vigorously deny the accusations against me.”
Aides said the King was “glad” at the outcome.
Both Andrew and Sarah have been caught lying about their relationship with Epstein after he had served time as a sex offender.
Earlier this month Andrew was revealed to have sent Epstein an email declaring “we are in this together” days after the release of the infamous 2001 picture of Andrew, then 41, with his arm around the waist of Ms Giuffre, then 17, at the London townhouse of Ghislaine Maxwell.
That email was sent three months after the timing Andrew had set out in an interview with the BBC’s Emily Maitlis saying that he had severed all contact.
Sarah has also been disingenuous about her relationship with Epstein, where he had helped pay off some of her debts.
She had publicly renounced her association with him saying it had been a gigantic error of judgement, yet in an email sent weeks afterwards to Epstein - and which surfaced last month - she called him her “steadfast, generous and supreme friend” and “humbly apologised to him for publicly criticising him.
Sarah’s friends later said this grovelling to him was to keep a possible defamation action at bay.
The decisive move by the King, believed to be encouraged by Prince William who has barely constrained his disdain for his uncle, will be felt on the other side of the Atlantic.
Prince Harry and his influencer, jam making wife Meghan, are now on notice that the same could happen to them if their trashing of the royal family ramps up again.
If the King made a similar move against them Harry would remain a Prince - because it’s his birthright - and Meghan would have to drop her duchess title. However she could instead become The Princess Henry, which may, in many American eyes, be more prestigious than the Duchess title.
Despite public calls for the King to strip Harry of his titles because of his constant sniping of the royals in his book and the Netflix series, King Charles has taken tentative steps to bring Harry back inside the family in recent months. This is despite William’s distrust of his brother.
The palace had been dreading further revelations in Ms Giuffre’s book Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice where she outlined the circumstances of the three occasions she said she was pimped out by Epstein for the alleged sexual pleasure of Andrew.
Of their first meeting Ms Giuffre wrote Andrew was being “friendly enough but still entitled – as if he believed having sex with me was his birthright”. She added:
“Afterward, he said thank you in his clipped British accent. In my memory, the whole thing lasted less than half an hour”.
Maxwell praised her in the morning: “You did well, the Prince had fun.”
Ms Giuffre, a mother of three living in Western Australia, died in April this year.
Andrew has also been entangled in the recently collapsed China spy case that has enveloped Westminster. He met with influential and well connected Chinese official Cai Qi - who is at the heart of the spy case - on at least three occasions in 2018 and 2019 and even invited him to Buckingham palace for lunch.
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