<\/p>\n
T<\/span>he saga of Andrew Windsor, the ex-Duke, who henceforth will only be known as plain old Prince, may have finally reached its end<\/a>. At least the rest of the Royal family will hope so. But even that is likely to depend on what may further emerge from any more releases of Epstein files, letters, records and emails in the US. His image, such as it remains, may yet be tarnished further.<\/p>\n It is the loss of titles that will certainly hurt him most. Andrew has not formally lost them \u2013 removal of his dukedom requires an act of parliament, which neither government nor Buckingham Palace will want, taking up as it would embarrassingly public lengths of time \u2013 and he can\u2019t shed his princely tag since he indubitably is the son of a monarch.<\/p>\n But he won\u2019t be able to use them publicly or privately and that will be a terrible blow to his sense of entitlement and status. As one of his former dates told Andrew Lownie for his recent book, Entitled<\/a>, he always introduced himself to her friends as the Duke of York, saying: \u201cIt struck me how impressed he was with who he is, or how impressed he wanted others to be. Every joke always ended with: \u2018because I\u2019m the Duke of York\u2019. He tells the most pathetic jokes. He finds poo cushions funny.\u201d<\/p>\n Friday night\u2019s statement<\/a> represented the last shred of dignity in that he was allowed to pretend that he was relinquishing the use of his titles and the knighthood of the garter voluntarily, out of a belated sense of duty. He wasn\u2019t. After at least 10 years of private wrangling among the family and personal anguish on the part of the king about what to do about the Andrew problem, and with his mother no longer around to protect him and pay his debts, there was no alternative but to cut him loose. Evidently Prince William was prepared to be more ruthless than his father. In the end it was the Windsors\u2019 genteel version of the revolver in the locked room with a bottle of whisky.<\/p>\n He still has the Royal Lodge<\/a>, where he lives with his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson<\/a>, (what does he need a place that big for? It\u2019s not as if he has that many friends) and apparently spends his days watching golf on the television and taking solitary rides in Windsor Great Park.<\/p>\n