On October 30th, 2025, Buckingham palace announced that King Charles III had begun a formal process to remove his brother Andrew’s style, titles, and honours. His name was subsequently removed from the Roll of the Peerage. Andrew is no longer able to use the title Prince, granted to him at birth, and will hence forth be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. He will also lose his style of His Royal Highness, or HRH, which he hasn’t actually used since January 2022 when he was stripped of his patronages and seized to be a working royal. He has also lost his knighthoods as a Royal Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter and a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order. Andrew’s banner of arms was removed from St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. It is within the sovereign’s rights to remove all of these titles from him.
Andrew himself will be removed from the Royal Lodge, the 30 room mansion built in 1840 on the Windsor estate. This was a point of public contention as the property is part of the Crown Estate, which are owned by the British people, but used by the monarchy. Andrew still has an air tight 75-year lease on Royal lodge, which allows him to rent it for a symbolic one peppercorn per year. However, for public appearance, he will vacate and move to a different luxury property on the Sandringham estate, which is privately owned by the King. Two weeks earlier, on October 17th Andrew himself had attempted to appease public outcry by announcing that he would no longer use his peerage title, Duke of York, which was granted to him on his wedding day in 1986. Andrew is still technically Duke of York, only an act of parliament can remove a peerage title. The Dukedom of York can not be granted to anyone else until he dies, and if he had a son, they could claim the title.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, all of this is happening in an effort to assuage public outrage, and distance the rest of the royal family from Andrew. He had a relationship with convicted sex traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. He was accused of assaulting Virginia Giuffre when she was 17, and paying her an estimated £12 million in hush money. Andrew’s ex wife, Sarah, was also found to have been friends with and accepted money from Epstein and Maxwell. She has lost her style of Duchess of York and will hence forth be known as Sarah Ferguson. However their two daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie retain their royal titles and are still Princesses.
What is so surprising about Andrew’s fall from grace, from a historic perspective, is that he’s actually facing some consequences. In the past, Royals who committed crimes were shielded. There are countless other examples from history of royal families using their influence with the media and government to conceal the wrong-doing or negative images of their members. And likely even more that we don’t know about because the cover ups worked. And while the public has always enjoyed flinging mud at the royals, it is a rarity that the firm itself excises one of it’s members. But it is not unheard of. Andrew is in fact not the first Prince to lose his title. There have been at least 15 English and British royals from whom titles were stripped or surrendered. Including 2 medieval princes who rebelled against their monarch brothers, the long list of women who pissed of Henry VIII, a couple of British Princes who sided with Germany during WWI, and a King who gave up his crown to marry his mistress. Let’s meet them…
Edward II, King of England
Prince Edmund, Earl of Kent
Richard II, King of England
Prince George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence
Catherine of Aragon, Queen of England
Princess Mary Tudor
Anne Boleyn, Queen of England & Marchioness of Pembroke
Princess Elizabeth Tudor
Catherine Howard, Queen of England
Jane, Queen of England
James II of England & VII of Scotland
Prince Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland
Prince Charles Edward, Duke of Albany
Edward VIII, King of the UK
Prince Andrew, Duke of York
Check out the History Tea Time Podcast:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7iW8gOI5wb5TNFAIhBd9Om?si=46aeeacd64214ac0
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/history-tea-time/id1619978406
Follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100091781568503
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/historyteatimelindsayholiday/
Music: Allegro by Emmit Fenn
For business inquiries, please contact [email protected]
Video Source
