Time, perhaps, for a last-minute addition to the final stages of Celebrity Traitors?
For the ex-Duke, ex-Prince, ex-Knight henceforth known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor has now been reduced to the ranks of those who have actually committed treachery against this country.
He now sits in a hall of shame alongside genuine traitors. His is an astonishing descent. This is not merely disgrace. This is regal cancellation.
So why such severity? And how significant is this banishment of the eighth in line to the throne in the royal scheme of things?
I think we have to go back to 1992 and that succession of royal calamities which the late Queen called her ‘annus horribilis’ to find the last time that a family crisis was resolved with a constitutional sledgehammer.
For the King, this has also been the hardest decision of his reign so far.
Unlike more recent challenges for the House of Windsor, be it the departure of the Sussexes or the cancer diagnoses of the King and the Princess of Wales or even the death of the late Queen, this one has not been a case of stoically pressing on, heads down, and waiting for a crisis to pass. Instead, it has led to a dramatic change in the rules.
Before 7pm on Thursday, the last man to have his title of ‘Prince’ removed – Prince Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale – was being punished for siding with the Kaiser in the First World War.
The ex-Duke, ex-Prince, ex-Knight henceforth known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor (pictured, at the Order of the Garter service in 2013) has now been reduced to the ranks of those who have actually committed treachery against this country
He now sits in a hall of shame alongside genuine traitors. His is an astonishing descent. This is not merely disgrace. This is regal cancellation. Pictured: Charles and Andrew walking behind the late Queen’s funeral cortege in September 2022
The last Knight of this country’s senior order of chivalry, the Order of the Garter, to lose the initials ‘KG’ and have his banner (his heraldic flag) removed from St George’s Chapel, was Emperor Hirohito of Japan during the Second World War.
What’s more, he was readmitted to the order on his state visit in 1971. I can’t see that happening to Andrew.
In other words, until now, you had to be an enemy of the United Kingdom to lose the highest titles and honours. Now the criteria for ritual humiliation have changed.
That is why the traitor-level punishment meted out to the King’s brother is so remarkable.
For whatever his faults in so many other regards, the former Prince Andrew has never fought against his country.
Famously, he had to push against the wishes of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher – who did not want a VIP royal target drawing down enemy fire on other servicemen – in order to set sail with the British task force and fight for his country.
Incidentally, it is wrong to say that the ex-Prince has lost all his titles and is now Mr Andrew Mountbatten Windsor Esq. I very much doubt he will be putting that on his stationery.
By dint of his service and seniority, he is still technically Commander Andrew Mountbatten Windsor RN (Rtd), his substantive (not honorary) rank.
I fully expect him to cling to that and it is one title he should be allowed to keep. A Palace source says that this is ‘one for the Ministry of Defence’.
His dishonour could have been marginally worse. There is actually an ancient royal process for the removal of a Knight, going back to the days of jousting and shining armour.
Known as ‘degradation’, it involves the King’s heralds formally kicking the disgraced Knight’s banner and helmet into the gutter.
That has not been deployed since the Duke of Ormonde backed the Jacobite cause in 1716. However, no one expected the King to be this robust this swiftly.
I, for one, did not expect him to go as far as explicitly stripping Andrew of all his titles and honours, though the house was looking more vulnerable.
In recent days, the national talking point was Andrew’s continued occupancy of Royal Lodge.
We knew that he had a ‘cast iron’ lease on the late Queen Mother’s palatial home and thus a legal right of tenure. So what changed on the housing front?
First, he was staring at some colossal bills for maintenance and security.
By dint of his service and seniority, he is still technically Commander Andrew Mountbatten Windsor RN (Rtd), his substantive (not honorary) rank. Pictured: Andrew in naval uniform with his late mother the Queen, left, and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, right, in 1991
I, for one, did not expect him to go as far as explicitly stripping Andrew of all his titles and honours, though the house (pictured, Royal Lodge) was looking more vulnerable, writes Robert Hardman
He had foolishly rebuffed the King when he had the option of cheaper alternative accommodation more than a year ago.
As I reveal in my book, Charles III. The Inside Story, the monarch had offered Andrew the use of Frogmore Cottage, inside the Windsor security cordon, and the retention of his living allowance, paid privately by the monarch.
Andrew loftily replied that he would stay put at Royal Lodge and fund it himself. Whereupon the King cut off the allowance and told him he was on his own.
The latest tawdry revelations mean that whatever furtive business prospects Andrew and Sarah might have devised to pay these huge bills are now in tatters.
The pair are now as marketable as anthrax. Yet again, Andrew had shown the same deplorable sense of judgment which had resulted in his association with the monstrous Jeffrey Epstein in the first place.
In recent days, Andrew has been naively trying to resurrect the King’s former offer while his ex-wife’s representatives have even been airing talk of a separate house for her.
What they have both discovered is that the King, though a kindly and Christian soul, is not a soft touch.
The King had wanted him out all along, Andrew had a deal, he had turned it down and so now he is not just off the estate from which he takes his name. He is banished from the Royal County of Berkshire altogether.
One problem with him remaining on the Windsor Estate was that he would still be on (state-operated) Crown Estate land. That could prompt legitimate questions about costs to the taxpayer.
On the Sandringham Estate, he will be on private property near the North Sea coast and funded entirely by the King from private funds.
Nor, contrary to some reports, is he being allocated Wood Farm, a comfortable estate farmhouse where the late Queen and Prince Philip used to escape. I understand something more modest is being considered.
As for the ex-Duchess, she is not even part of the equation. The Palace has made it clear that Ms Ferguson will have to ‘make her own arrangements’.
If the ex-Yorks wish to cohabit, that will be up to them but there will not be so much as a gamekeeper’s bothy set aside for Sarah.
Having spent her entire life in the Home Counties golden triangle of Windsor/Ascot/Sunningdale, she may not relish spending her dotage shopping at Lidl in King’s Lynn.
Of greater constitutional significance, is the way in which the King will now strip Andrew of his dukedom.
In short, he has waved a royal magic wand. Previously, the removal of a peerage has had to go through Parliament.
He had foolishly rebuffed the King when he had the option of cheaper accommodation than Royal Lodge more than a year ago, in the form of Frogmore Cottage (pictured)
The latest tawdry revelations mean that whatever furtive business prospects Andrew and Sarah (pictured at Ascot in 2019) might have devised to pay their huge bills at their former residence are now in tatters
Also, to remove the dukedom of York without inflicting collateral damage on Andrew’s daughters, who are both Princesses of York, could have been time-consuming.
From the start, the King has been keen to keep Parliament out of this, not because of the ‘can of worms’ argument that it would open up the monarchy to forensic scrutiny on multiple fronts (it would if Sir Keir Starmer wanted to go down that route – but he does not).
Rather, the King could see that at a time of economic uncertainty and global crises, it would just be a very bad look for Parliament to be spending any time on legislation regarding one bad apple in his own family.
Now that no longer needs to be the case. A new process has been created, clearly in close consultation with the Government.
This is not some royal decree. Using the Royal Prerogative (the King’s residual powers to issue orders on his own), he will send Royal Warrants to the Lord Chancellor with instructions to remove the Dukedom of York, along with the title of Prince and style of HRH, from the Peerage Roll.
Providing the Lord Chancellor, David Lammy, agrees (and he has been in on this from the start), then this all goes through without bothering the Lords and Commons.
So why has the King acted so forcefully? There is no question that he and his officials were dismayed by The Mail on Sunday’s recent revelations about Andrew’s continued association with Epstein.
Journalist Daphne Barak revealed that Andrew had not been telling the truth when he told the BBC’s Newsnight in 2019 that he had severed all contact with Epstein in 2010 (remember all that huffing and puffing about him being so ‘honourable’ that he flew to New York to break off their friendship). Nonsense, we now discover.
The following year he was promising to ‘play some more soon’. If that central plank of Andrew’s defence was unravelling, what else was untrue?
And if he had no recollection of ever meeting Epstein victim Virgina Giuffre, why – as The Mail on Sunday also revealed – had he given her social security number to the police?
Other Andrew scandals, like his proximity to alleged Chinese agents, were also eclipsing the daily work of the family.
The King could see that there was an urgent need to act, not least in case more revelations started to emerge.
So his officials embarked on the long and complex path leading up to Thursday’s comprehensive statement.
The announcement, two weeks ago, that Andrew would give up his titles was a stepping stone, not an end in itself.
Whatever the suggestion of negotiations between the brothers, these were perfunctory. The King’s team, I am told, ‘led the ex-Duke to take the only option available.’
Added to all this have been the ‘optics’. Though it made no difference to Andrew’s fate, the recent sight of him attempting wisecracks at the funeral of the Duchess of Kent, to the obvious discomfort of the rest of the family, spoke volumes to an incredulous wider world.
One problem with him remaining on the Windsor Estate was he would still be on (state-operated) Crown Estate land. On the Sandringham Estate (pictured, Sandringham House, the primary residence on the estate), he will be on private property and funded entirely by the King from private funds
Added to the Epstein scandal in recent times has been the ‘optics’. The recent sight of Andrew attempting wisecracks at the funeral of the Duchess of Kent (pictured), to the obvious discomfort of the rest of the family, spoke volumes to an incredulous wider world
Compare his galumphing buffoonery to the quiet dignity of the Epstein victim we saw on Newsnight this week praising the King for his painful decisions.
Back in 1992, when the monarchy was rocked by stories of failed marriages (all three of the late Queen’s married children separated or divorced that year) plus a sensational inside account of Diana’s misery, plus eye-popping topless poolside photos of Fergie with her ‘financial adviser’, plus a blaze which wrecked the family home, the Queen took a historic decision. It had nothing to do with any of this but would show that she was listening.
Just days after the fire, she announced she was going to give up the historical anomaly whereby the monarch did not pay tax.
It was not a knee-jerk response. It had been in the planning for months but the time had come.
Then, when there was a backlash over the cost of fire repairs, she announced she would open Buckingham Palace to summer tourism to fund the costs.
The Andrew scandal is not of that order of magnitude but, once again, we have seen the monarch take decisive action to avert a deepening crisis.
The King will know that the saga is far from over. Quite apart from whatever lurid new revelations may emerge in future, there will still be calls for Andrew to be removed from the line of succession (pointless given that he would be handed Abdication papers on Day One).
I expect any fresh revelations to be accompanied by calls for him to leave the country, either heading West to assist the FBI or East to a nation without prying, pesky newspapers. Saudi Arabia has been mooted.
There have been reports that the driving force behind the demolition of the ex-Duke has been his Windsor neighbour, the Prince of Wales.
While Prince William has certainly been consulted and is wholly supportive, I understand that he was more than happy to leave the hardball to the King.
If there has been one other supportive voice in all this, the clue is in that final section of the Palace statement about ‘thoughts and utmost sympathies’ for the victims of all abuse. It is attributed to ‘Their Majesties’.
No member of the Royal Family has been more closely involved in fighting violence against women than Queen Camilla, with strong support from the Duchess of Edinburgh.
Much of the Queen’s work remains below the radar but, as her 2024 television documentary, Behind Closed Doors, showed, her visits to meet victims of rape and sexual violence are a central part of her work.
The King is very proud of what she has done. He has been all too aware of the excruciating juxtaposition of her work and his brother’s abject lack of empathy for the victims of his old ‘play some more soon’ buddy.
Commander Mountbatten Windsor might reflect on that as he sits in Norfolk, watching golf videos, shooting the odd rabbit and checking out the villa market in Jeddah.
