Andrew gives Charles his ‘first genuine royal crisis’ as King

As each day passed over the last little while, there was a growing sense that something had to give in the circumstances surrounding the man who will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.

In a move with little — if any — royal precedent, Buckingham Palace said Thursday that King Charles has started the formal process to strip his younger brother of his title of prince.

Andrew, 65, is also being evicted from the 30-room mansion he leases from the Crown Estate near Windsor Castle and relocating to one of the King’s private estates in the fallout from the scandal and controversy around his association with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

That controversy had become a crisis for the Royal Family. In Charles’s handling of it — particularly Thursday’s statement regarding Andrew’s titles and housing — there could be signals of the kind of monarchy the King is hoping to lead.

“This is one of the most significant events for the monarchy in the 21st century,” said Justin Vovk, a royal historian and member of the advisory board of the Institute for the Study of the Crown in Canada. “It sends very clear signals that the reign of King Charles wants to be one of modernization and adapting to developing circumstances."

Andrew had stepped back from official royal duties after his disastrous BBC interview in 2019 regarding his friendship with Epstein. Andrew, who has continued to deny all allegations against him, had also agreed to settle a lawsuit in which he was accused of sexually abusing Virginia Giuffre.

Recently published excerpts from a posthumous book by Giuffre accused Andrew of being “entitled — as if he believed having sex with me was his birthright."

Other reports had emerged recently that he told Epstein in an email “we are in this together” after a photo of the royal with his arm around a teenage Giuffre was published in 2011.

“This has been … the first genuine royal crisis of the King's reign,” Craig Prescott, a constitutional expert and lecturer in law at Royal Holloway, University of London, said in an interview earlier this week. “This will be one of those moments that is sort of pointed out as a particular issue for the monarchy that it struggled to deal with."

When you look at most crises about the monarchy, Prescott said, “it's when the monarchy is out of step with public opinion and out of step with parliamentary opinion."

U.K. parliamentarians had been starting to raise questions about Andrew’s accommodation arrangements at Royal Lodge. Charles was heckled by a protester earlier this week about Andrew’s relationship with Epstein, although the heckler was met with vocal support for the King, the BBC reported.

The palace’s latest moves could perhaps lean toward countering any split with broader public and parliamentary opinion.

WATCH | King strips Andrew of titles:

King Charles strips Andrew of ‘prince’ title and royal property

October 31|

Duration2:06

Buckingham Palace says King Charles’s brother will lose the title of 'prince' over continued scandals surrounding his past behaviour. He will also move out of Royal Lodge, his home for decades.

“The statement from the King was clear, especially when saying, ‘these censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that [Andrew] continues to deny the allegations against him,’” Prescott said via email late Thursday night.

“It’s clearly distancing Andrew from the rest of the monarchy, which is reinforced by moving him to Sandringham. This move has put the monarchy back in step with public opinion and opinion in Parliament."

Looking back in royal history, it’s hard to find any example to rival what is happening with Andrew, his titles and his relationship within the Royal Family.

Prescott said he thinks “this is pretty much unprecedented."

The only sort of parallel he sees is the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936.

Vovk also said “there really is not any” precedent for this.

“The closest example was the Titles Deprivation Act of 1917, which specifically dealt with peers who had been fighting against Britain during World War I. There really is no roadmap for excommunicating a member of the Royal Family in this way."

Thursday’s censures by King Charles are the latest developments as the cloud of scandal and controversy has been swirling around Andrew for years.

When the allegations that Andrew had sex with Giuffre resurfaced a decade ago, the palace vigorously denied them. But as the allegations continued to resurface, Andrew’s profile and reputation shifted.

Controversy has also followed him over the years in connection with his position as a trade envoy for the U.K. government — when he was labelled “Air Miles Andy,” given his penchant for travel at public expense — and more recent reports of a close friendship with an alleged Chinese spy.

While the palace has indicated Andrew’s titles and honours will be removed, doing so won’t necessarily be instant or easy.

“I suspect a lot is being worked out right now between Buckingham Palace and Westminster in terms of how to legislate this process and most likely to expedite it,” Vovk said. “The last thing anyone wants, I’m sure, is for this to be a long, drawn-out process."

Prescott said Letters Patent, legal documents issued by the King, will be needed to remove Andrew’s status as a prince.

As for the Dukedom of York, which Andrew was granted on his wedding day in 1986 by his mother, Queen Elizabeth, there were news reports on Friday that he has been struck from the Roll of the Peerage.

Removal from the roll would avoid any legislative changes, Prescott said.

As controversy swirled around Andrew, there has been much focus and questioning of what King Charles might do.

Vovk said Thursday’s actions speak “to the King being more proactive than I think his predecessors” would have been.

“The announcement itself touched on everything it needed to,” he said.

“It made it clear that this is now a formal process, that Andrew will no longer be subject to any kind of legal or administrative protection simply by being born into his family, and most importantly, reinforcing the support for survivors and victims of sexual abuse."

Andrew has been roundly criticized, particularly for the lack of empathy shown for Epstein's victims in the disastrous 2019 BBC interview.

While Andrew’s titles are being removed, he remains at this point in the line of succession to the throne, where he now sits at No. 8.

Removal can only be done by an act of Parliament, Prescott said, and even then it would also require the consent of the 14 other countries where Charles is King, including Canada.

There have been rare removals from the line of succession, one being Prince Michael of Kent, who lost his place when he married a Catholic in 1978. That was the result of the Act of Settlement 1701. With the Succession to the Crown Act in 2013, he was reinstated into the line of succession.

Buckingham Palace isn’t saying exactly where Andrew will live on the Sandringham estate, the private estate of King Charles in Norfolk, northeast of London.

But wherever he will be, the fact that he will be there could lessen the potential for public criticism that was mounting around his living arrangements at Royal Lodge.

“This is the neatest solution to the housing question,” Prescott said. “Sandringham as a private estate means that no taxpayer money will be spent housing Andrew.”

The next step in all this, Vovk suggested, is watching for the “documentation that is produced to fulfil the promise in the declaration that formal steps have been taken to divest Andrew of his titles and to legally remove him from Windsor."

When and how this involves the U.K. Parliament will be of “significant interest," Vovk said, as well as whether Andrew is allowed to remain at Sandringham permanently.

“If that proves to be the case, that may send the wrong message that he is allowed to still find shelter in the private homes owned by the Royal Family.”

Praying with the Pope

When King Charles and Pope Leo prayed together in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel the other day, it marked the first such joint public worship by an English monarch and a Catholic pontiff in nearly five centuries.

Charles, who is supreme governor of the Church of England, sat beside Leo, who was elected Pope in May.

“It was an extraordinary moment," Prescott said, noting that it would “have been unthinkable” 50 years ago.

“And it fits in with the King's idea of, as he said long before he was King, being defender of faith, not of the faith, although that's the title he took at the coronation."

It’s also very much in line with Charles’s thinking of “working across communities,” Prescott said.

Charles also received a new title of Royal Confrater at Rome’s Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, where he was given a special seat at the basilica that will be reserved for future use only by British monarchs.

Another visit with Zelenskyy

King Charles and Volodymyr Zelenskyy met for the third time in the U.K. this year, but the most recent visit by the Ukrainian president was the first to include a ceremonial welcome.

Charles and Zelenskyy inspected a guard of honour at Windsor Castle last week before Zelenskyy met European leaders in London as he continues to seek support for Ukraine in the war with Russia.

The opportunity to inspect the troops “reflects the status that Buckingham Palace and the British government are extending to Zelenskyy,” Vovk said.

“It's one of the ways that Britain can sort of put its arm around Zelenskyy in terms of support and recognition as there's rhetoric from Russia that consistently tries to undermine Zelenskyy's leadership or present him as an illegitimate leader."

But this kind of visit, Vovk noted, “shows that certainly in the eyes of the West that that is not the case.”

Out for a game at the ballpark

It was the ball caps that seemed to set some people off.

After Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, were spotted watching from the front row at Game 4 of the World Series wearing the headgear of the home team — the Los Angeles Dodgers — some social media users had plenty to say.

The general flavour among some posts was why wasn’t Harry, the son of the King of Canada, showing his support for the visiting Toronto Blue Jays. Other posts wondered what the fuss was about.

Harry and Meghan moved to California five years ago, after stepping back from official duties for the Royal Family.

“I say this kind of tongue in cheek,” Vovk said, “if [Harry] still considers himself, you know, someone who truly wants to uphold the interests of the monarchy and the Royal Family, even on the inside, he should have been cheering for Toronto."

Then again, there could have been other interests at play.

“But at the same time with the American crackdown on immigration — it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that he would be wanting to root for the local team,” Vovk said.

“The last thing they need are headlines the next day saying Prince Harry lives in California but supports Canada.”

Royally quotable

“This most dreadful of record-breaking storms reminds us of the increasingly urgent need to restore the balance and harmony of nature for the sake of all those whose lives and livelihoods may have been shattered by this heartbreaking disaster.”

— King Charles, in a message to the people of Jamaica and all those across the Caribbean affected by Hurricane Melissa.

Royal reads

King Charles has unveiled a memorial to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender military personnel after a decades-long campaign against a ban on being gay in the armed forces. [BBC]

It is one of the mysteries of the modern monarchy — and one that is under more scrutiny than ever before. How on earth does Prince Andrewfund his lifestyle? [The Guardian]

The Prince and Princess of Wales have won a case against the French magazine Paris Match over a "grossly intrusive" article and the use of long-lens paparazzi shots. [ITV]

An artist says she "nearly fainted" when she found out a portrait she had been commissioned to draw was a gift for the Royal Family. [BBC]

King Charles and Queen Camilla were garlanded with flowers when they celebrated the 30th anniversary of a landmark Hindu temple with its devotees. [BBC]