King strips prince of titles, evicts him from Windsor home

Britain’s King Charles has stripped his younger brother Andrew of his title of prince and forced him out of his Windsor home, Buckingham Palace said on Thursday, seeking to distance the royals from him over his links to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

Andrew, 65, the younger brother of Charles and second son of the late Queen Elizabeth, has come under mounting pressure in recent years over his behaviour and his ties to the late sex offender Epstein. Earlier this month he was forced to stop using his title of Duke of York.

Charles has now escalated his actions against Andrew by stripping him of all his titles, leaving him to be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.

The Buckingham Palace statement said a formal notice had now been served on Andrew to surrender the lease of his Royal Lodge mansion on the Windsor Estate, West of London, and he will move to alternative private accommodation on the Sandringham estate in eastern England.

The decision by the king, who is still undergoing regular treatment for cancer, marks one of the most dramatic moves against a member of the royal family in modern British history.

“These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him,” the palace said. “Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”

Andrew was once regarded as a dashing naval officer and served in the military during the Falklands War with Argentina in the early 1980s.

But he was forced to step down from a roving UK trade ambassador role in 2011, before quitting all royal duties in 2019 and then was stripped of his military links and royal patronages in 2022 amid allegations of sexual misconduct that he has always denied.

(Reuters)