King Charles III’s subjects could be forgiven for believing their monarch had taken the strongest possible sanction against his younger brother, Prince Andrew, after a seeming unending stream of stories about the former Duke of York’s links to the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein threatened to overwhelm the Royal Family’s reputation.
Voters could also be forgiven for thinking, as several Cabinet ministers have tried to claim, that the honours and titles bestowed on disgraced prince are not a matter for the Government.
Rather No10 is being “guided” by the Royal Family on any decision to formally strip Prince Andrew of his titles.
Both beliefs would be untrue.
On Friday Prince Andrew agreed “in discussions with the King” not to use his titles including the Duke of York, received from his mother. It would require a short Act of Parliament to strip him of it and his accompanying membership of the House of Lords.
Other honours are in the gift of the King. Andrew also agreed to give up membership of the Order of the Garter, the oldest and most senior order of chivalry in Britain. But as a prince he can still use the His Royal Highness (HRH) moniker.
So far there has been a royal fudge. Andrew still has these titles but will not use them even though the King could strip them both.
The idea that Prince Andrew cannot become simply Mr Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor by virtue of being the late Queen’s son is simply not true; the King could remove the title.
Palace and No10 in close communication
The distance between Palace and No 10 is often overstated. A two-way line of communication exists but is often only acknowledged at moments of grave danger for the monarchy.
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair is widely credited with privately persuading Queen Elizabeth II to make a public appearance and address the nation’s grief following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997.
When the Queen, as head of the Church of England in the 1950s, did not allow her sister Princess Margaret to marry a divorced man, she did so on the advice of Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden.
“It’s a matter for the Palace in the first instance,” a No 10 spokesman said repeatedly on Monday when asked if the Government would strip Andrew of his honours.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall when Starmer has his next weekly private audience with the King.
In Westminster, it’s a very small number of MPs who have called for Parliamentary time to strip Andrew of his titles.
Prince Andrew with his around Virginia Giuffre, and Ghislaine Maxwell, in a now notorious photograph Photographer: HANDOUT Provider: US District Court – Southern DisSource: AFP Copyright: AFP/GETTY IMAGESSerial Labour rebel Rachel Maskell and SNP leader Stephen Flynn are two examples of voices designed to make the Government do the opposite of what the pair are calling for.
Sir Keir Starmer, already embarrassed by Peter Mandelson’s links to Epstein, clearly wishes the whole sorry business would go away. Any act of Parliament to revoke Andrew’s dukedom and peerage would almost certainly be amended in the House of Lords to remove Mandelson’s peerage too, drawing fresh attention to the damaging case.
But some senior Labour figures believe if any more damaging allegations emerge, perhaps via the Epstein files released from the US, then Starmer will have no choice but to advise the King to further sanction his wayward brother.
Following the divorce of Charles from Diana and Andrew from Sarah Ferguson both women were stripped of their HRH titles in 1996 by letters patent. It’s a royal device most famously used during the First World War when King George V slimmed down the Royal Family – at the same time as changing the family name to Windsor – and some minor royals who had been born princes and princesses were stripped of their titles.
The one title that really matters
When it comes to the constitution there is one title that matters more than others. Andrew is still a Counsellor of State simply by virtue of his position in the line of succession.
In the event that the King cannot undertake his official duties as sovereign on a temporary basis due to illness or absence abroad, Camilla, William, Anne, Edward, Andrew and Beatrice can act on his behalf.
The Palace says in practice, only working royals are ever called upon, which would rule out the prince. But to strike Andrew from the possibility of ever deputising for his brother as sovereign would be a statement of solidarity with the survivors in this tawdry case.
This too would require the Government to act.
“I think the public have been led to believe that Andrew has effectively lost these honours and there could be a backlash when it is pointed out that he hasn’t lost them and he still has them,” Dr Nigel Fletcher, political and constitutional historian, told The i Paper.
“Part of the problem that we’re seeing is that this slow drip, drip of allegations has continued to embarrass both the crown and the Government. But there’s never been a moment at which you can say: ‘this is it; a line has been crossed’.
Prince Andrew bowed to pressure from King Charles to give up his titles last week (Photo: REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo)“He’s not been convicted. If there was a situation in which he was convicted of a serious crime, I think it would be very easy at that point for the Government and the King to immediately say, ‘We’re going to take the nuclear option, and everything must be stripped immediately.’
“I think we’re probably getting to the point now where there is very little else they could do if there are more serious allegations yet to come out. They’d have to formally strip him of his titles,” Fletcher added.
That doesn’t mean those in Government are not frustrated by the Andrew saga, even though some welcome No 10’s strategy of batting any questions back to the Palace.
“I would think that if we decide more needs to be done by the Palace, it will be done privately,” a senior Government source told The i Paper. “I would have thought in terms of advising them to go further we would probably land on advising them to move him out of Royal Lodge. We don’t want to give up Parliamentary time to this.”
The sound of government silence
Andrew has remained at his Royal Lodge residence, a Grade II listed, 30-room Windsor home, despite repeated calls for him to move out. Some MPs suggest he could move to the smaller four-bedroom Adelaide Cottage which, being closer to Windsor Castle, comes into palace’s security bubble at no extra cost.
Meanwhile the prince has consistently denied the sexual assault allegations against him by Virginia Giuffre, whose posthumous memoir is published this week. While he has denied the allegations, he settled a civil claim with Giuffre out of court.
There are others in the royal eco-system who think the King has gone as far as he can in censoring his brother, who is unlikely to ever be seen at a public royal event ever again.
“What else they want to do to him?” one longtime royal-watcher questioned. “All he does is ride in the park, plays golf and spends his time with his family.”
So far Starmer and his Government has erred on the side of silence. But behind the scenes the Prince Andrew saga is the latest example of how even a robust constitutional monarchy can wobble in the face of grave public opinion.
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“There are two types of government advice. If the Prime Minister were to make a suggestion to the King at a private audience, that’s one thing. If the Government issues formal advice to the sovereign as the advice of the Government to do something, then then sovereign is constitutionally bound to take that advice. I understand why ministers are nervous about getting into this issue pertaining to the royal family,” Fletcher said.
“But given that this is something that’s very difficult and personal to the King – Andrew is still his brother – it might actually be helpful to him if the Government were to issue formal advice, which they would also do privately,” Fletcher added.
The danger for Starmer is that public opinion might harden. The MPs calling for Andrew to be stripped of his titles may pick up wider support. By deferring to the King and washing his hands of the affair, Starmer could appear politically leaden-footed. There’s no guarantee this grubby saga will just go away.
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