King Charles III on Thursday stripped his disgraced brother Prince Andrew of his remaining titles and evicted him from his royal residence after weeks of pressure to act over his relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Buckingham Palace said.
After the king’s rare move, which follows years of shameful scandals, he will be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and not as a prince, and he will have to vacate his Royal Lodge mansion near Windsor Castle.
Demand had been growing on the palace to oust the prince from Royal Lodge after he surrendered his use of the title Duke of York earlier this month over new revelations about his friendship with Epstein and renewed sexual abuse allegations by one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, whose posthumous memoir hit bookstores last week.
But the king went even further to punish him for serious lapses of judgment by removing the title of prince that he has held since birth as a child of a monarch, the late Queen Elizabeth II.
“These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him,” the palace said. “Their Majesties 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.”
It is almost unprecedented for a British prince or princess to be stripped of that title. It last happened in 1919. when Prince Ernest Augustus, who was a U.K. royal and also a prince of Hanover, had his British title removed for siding with Germany during World War I.
Andrew is expected to move to a property on the king’s Sandringham estate near the northeast coast and receive private financial support from his brother.
His ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, who had been living with him in the 30-room mansion, will have to find a new home.
