Andrew, Formerly Known as Prince

The King has “initiated a formal process” to remove Prince Andrew’s titles, Buckingham Palace confirmed, and from now on, the man once known as His Royal Highness will simply be Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

It’s an extraordinary moment in royal history.

At 65, the King’s younger brother has faced years of scrutiny over his friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, a relationship that has cast a long shadow over the monarchy and damaged what little moral authority it still claimed to hold.

Andrew’s fall from grace has been gradual but relentless: first the forced retreat from public life, then the loss of military titles, and now, finally, the stripping of his royal style and honours.

According to Buckingham Palace, the decision to remove Andrew’s titles, including Duke of York, Earl of Inverness, and Baron Killyleagh, was taken following “serious lapses in judgement.” The Palace statement, unusually blunt, declared:

“Formal notice has now been served to surrender the lease [at Royal Lodge] and he will move to alternative private accommodation. These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him.”

A Royal Reckoning or a Managed Exit?

Andrew’s lease at the £30 million Royal Lodge, the Windsor mansion he’s occupied since 2004, has also been terminated. He’s expected to move to private accommodation on the King’s Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, with all costs reportedly “privately funded by His Majesty.”

So even stripped of titles, the disgraced royal won’t be exactly slumming it.

Royal historian Kelly Swaby described the Palace’s statement as “brutal”, and perhaps that’s intentional. Public opinion has long turned against Andrew, and the monarchy knows it. “Ordinary people don’t care about semantics,” she said. “They want to see punishment.”

Behind the scenes, it’s widely believed Prince William has been pushing for his uncle’s removal for months, arguing that the ongoing scandal has risked overshadowing royal engagements and undermined what little credibility the monarchy has left.

Public Outrage Meets Royal Privilege

The King’s decision follows increasing pressure from both the public and Parliament’s spending watchdog, which recently questioned how much public money might still be tied up in Andrew’s royal arrangements.

Even now, questions linger. Why did it take so long? Why only act when the family’s image is under threat, not when justice demanded it?

Andrew’s links to Epstein have never been fully accounted for. His notorious BBC interview with Emily Maitlis, where he claimed he couldn’t sweat and had been at Pizza Express in Woking, remains a cultural symbol of elite impunity and delusion.

Although Andrew has always denied any wrongdoing, the Palace’s gesture is less about truth than optics, a controlled act of damage limitation, not accountability.

A Family of Reinvention

The name Mountbatten-Windsor is itself a carefully curated hybrid, adopted in 1960 to merge the House of Windsor with the surname of Prince Philip, anglicised from “Battenberg” during World War I to avoid anti-German sentiment.

Now, that same hybrid surname marks a final stage of royal rehabilitation, the quiet rebranding of scandal into respectability.

Andrew may have lost his titles, but not his privilege. The King’s private purse will ensure his comfort, while victims like Virginia Giuffre, whose courage in exposing Epstein’s abuse rocked the establishment, are left to history and, too often, tragedy.

It’s not justice. It’s monarchy as damage control.
And as always, it’s the public who pay, one way or another.