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Prince
Andrew’s fall from grace complete as monarchy cuts him loose
Caroline
Davies
Ex-royal
cherished his titles and status but Buckingham Palace faced risk of
reputational spillover
Fri 17
Oct 2025 23.20 CEST
This is
the outcome that, ultimately, King Charles and the Prince of Wales would have
hoped for: Andrew, the subject of so many toxic headlines unhelpful to the
royal family and institution of monarchy, finally doing the “honourable” thing.
It has
been six long years since his disastrous Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis
precipitated the start of this very public fall from grace.
Its
immediate aftermath saw him step back from public duties “for the foreseeable
future”. His HRH style was put in abeyance, and he was stripped of all his
military and charity patronages.
The
humiliation, then, will have been hard for a man who so clearly cherishes his
status. Now it is complete.
He has
always clung stubbornly to his dukedom, a gift from his mother on the morning
of his wedding in 1986, along with the titles the Earl of Inverness and Baron
Killyleagh. And to his prestigious Garter role as Royal Knight Companion of the
Order of the Garter. He will no longer use any of them, with immediate effect.
And he
has always, including in Friday’s statement agreeing to put them in abeyance,
vehemently denied the allegations against him. He maintains he did not have sex
with his accuser, Virginia Giuffre, a victim of Epstein who died in April by
suicide aged 41, and whom he claimed he had never met yet paid millions to in
order to settle a civil sexual assault case.
The
headlines will not go away. With each one, the risk of reputational damage to
the monarchy is graver. Behind the walls of Buckingham Palace, it has been
decided, enough is enough.
Andrew’s
acceptance of his fate comes on the eve of the posthumous publication of
Giuffre’s memoir, due out next week, exclusive extracts from which have been
published by the Guardian this week. More unwelcome coverage was, perhaps,
inevitable. Certainly palace aides would have feared so.
Charles
is due to make a historic visit to the Holy See next week, when he will become
the first English monarch since Henry VIII split with Rome in 1534 to pray
publicly with the pope and head of the Catholic church. The king will not have
wanted coverage of that occasion to be overshadowed by yet more vocal cries for
Andrew to relinquish his titles.
Pressure
has clearly been ramped up by other senior royals on the eighth in line to the
throne.
It was a
bad week in which Andrew found himself linked to the collapsed China spy case
when it emerged he had held meetings with Cai Qi, the member of China’s
politburo at the centre of the spy scandal. They had met on at least three
occasions between 2018 and 2019, and the prince had invited him to Buckingham
Palace for lunch in 2018.
The week
had begun with leaked emails allegedly showing that far from cutting off
contact with Epstein in December 2010, as he had claimed in his 2019 Newsnight
interview with Maitlis, he was apparently in touch with the disgraced US
financier in February 2011.
The
emails purported to show Andrew messaging Epstein on publication of that famous
photograph of the prince with his arm around Giuffre, saying that they were “in
this together”.
Friday’s
statement presents this as Andrew’s decision, yet it would certainly have been
made by the palace. Charles will not have relished taking the drastic step of
forcibly removing the dukedom. The last time a dukedom was taken away from a
senior royal was more than 100 years ago, according to the historian Anthony
Seldon, who told the BBC: “That was in 1919, when Prince Charles Edward – one
of Queen Victoria’s grandsons – lost the title of Duke of Albany for fighting
on the German side during World War One.”
It would
also have required an act of parliament.
Andrew is
also a brother: a brother Charles has hitherto loyally included in family
occasions, though Andrew will not be present at the royal family’s Christmas
celebrations this year.
The
prince’s continued obduracy over doing the “honourable” thing will have
saddened and frustrated the king, who seems to have finally grasped the nettle
and found a way to persuade his sibling this is in the family and the
monarchy’s best interests.
So what
is left for the son of the late Queen Elizabeth? He remains a prince and eighth
in the line of succession. He is also still theoretically a counsellor of state
– a stand-in for the king if he’s overseas or unwell. It is only theoretical,
because as a non-working royal the palace has already made clear he would never
be asked. As with many of his titles, it’s classed as “inactive”.
But all
the other vestiges of his once senior royal role are now no more.
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