We knew this last autumn, but it’s funny that people continue to bring it up. Last fall, King Charles negotiated the “unroyaling” of then-Prince Andrew. None of this was Charles’s choice though – he had to do something because Parliament, Tory politicians and Labour politicians were all talking openly about auditing royal finances and taking a closer look at royal real estate, including the “sweetheart deal” leases given to many royals and royal-adjacents. Charles had to stop the bleed before a whole-ass republican movement sprang up on the back of Andrew’s depravity. So Charles and Andrew worked out a half-assed unroyaling – Andrew would “give up” his royal titles, his ducal title and his prince title and move out of Royal Lodge. The thing is, Charles can’t actually remove titles all by himself, with the stroke of a pen or a briefing to the Mail. Even now, as Charles is trying to take a more magnanimous tone about his brother’s unroyaling and eviction, various reporters keep bringing up the fact that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is still Prince Andrew, the Duke of York.
Last autumn, with a fanfare of trumpets and a roll of drums, King Charles ceremoniously kicked his brother out of the Royal Family. GONE was his royal princedom. GONE was his Knight of the Garter. GONE was his place in the royal pecking order. And GONE was his beloved home of the past 22 years, Royal Lodge. But, the Daily Mail can reveal this morning, the man formerly known as Prince Andrew is STILL the Duke of York. If he wants to, he can still call himself by that name. He can have his personal stationery embossed with his ancient title. He can still have his coat of arms. And nobody can stop him – not even the King.
The Duke of York title, while associated with the name Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, may effectively be tinpot in the UK – but it could still hold significant value overseas, and even dictate which part of the world the ousted royal spends his twilight years in.
After the worldwide uproar over Andrew’s involvement with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and a lengthy, angry public debate over the suitability of his remaining a royal, plus a piffling squabble over Royal Lodge – a house he was perfectly entitled to inhabit – King Charles finally moved against his brother in November 2025. When he did, people were astonished at the savagery of his actions.
The official announcement sounded the death-knell: ‘The King has been pleased by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Realm dated 3 November 2025, to declare that Andrew Mountbatten Windsor shall no longer be entitled to enjoy the style, title or attribute of “Royal Highness” and the titular dignity of “Prince”.’ Other titles also fell away, less quickly, the last to go being his rank as Vice Admiral in the Royal Navy. But his title as Duke of York? And the subsidiary titles of Earl of Inverness and Baron Killyleagh? A parallel announcement, confirmed by Buckingham Palace, stated that Andrew had been formally removed from the official roll of the peerage in the House of Lords. That sounded final enough. And so now he was a commoner.
Not so, says Michael Rhodes, a leading authority on the peerage and editor of the online Peerage News. ‘It’s quite clear that Andrew’s removal from the Roll was done to deceive and bamboozle the public into thinking that the King’s brother is no longer Baron Killyleagh, Earl of Inverness or Duke of York, when in fact he is and will be until his death – or until an Act of Parliament is brought before parliament. The removal of a peerage cannot be achieved by royal authority alone.’
Mr Rhodes, also an advisor and contributor to the respected ThePeerage online website, points out that not being on the Roll doesn’t mean that men and women have automatically lost their titles. He even cites the examples of peers related by blood to the royals – the Earl of Harewood, Lord Fermoy, Lord Elphinstone – who aren’t listed on the Roll but continue to be known by their titles and to use them legitimately.
Mr Rhodes goes on to say that Andrew could continue to use a coat of arms, though the one created for him on his elevation to the peerage when he married in 1986 would have to be significantly altered to take account of the loss of his royal princedom and his Garter knighthood. ‘Though that could be achieved with relative ease,’ he says.
It also raises the question of whether Sarah Ferguson, though divorced from Andrew, is similarly still entitled to call herself Sarah, Duchess of York. Answer: she and Andrew legally parted long ago. As the divorced wife of a peer, she’s entitled to keep using the title she adopted at the time – Sarah, Duchess of York. With both Andrew and Sarah with titles – however dubious – in their back pockets, could the pair be headed for a retirement under the Arabian sun? The Middle East holds royal titles in high regard however they’re viewed elsewhere – with any regal scandal snuffed out by the weight of societal status. Indeed, at the height of the Epstein controversy, Andrew and his former wife were both said to have had a grand mansion available on demand in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
Again, I think this whole “Andrew will move to the Middle East” stuff is bullsh-t. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Although I do think he’ll probably resume traveling again at some point. But the larger point is that OF COURSE Andrew still “technically” has his titles. OF COURSE this was always a “gentleman’s agreement” between brothers and Charles has little actual authority to “remove” Andrew’s titles. The whole reason Charles had to do it this way was because he needed Andrew to agree to it if they both wanted to avoid going to Parliament and removing the titles in a legal and official way. This was their half-assed solution. The hilarious side effect of this mess is that now everyone understands that all of this sh-t is just make-believe, that the “monarch” is just making it up as he goes along.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
