King formally removes Andrew’s prince title and HRH style

The King has officially stripped his disgraced brother Andrew Mountbatten Windsor of both his HRH style and his prince title.

Charles formally made the changes, which were dramatically announced a week ago, by issuing a Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Realm which was published in The Gazette, the UK’s official public record, by the Crown Office.

The entry, published on Wednesday, read: “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 hold and enjoy the style, title or attribute of ‘Royal Highness’ and the titular dignity of ‘Prince’.”

Charles’s decision to banish Andrew from the monarchy and remove his birthright to be a prince, as well as his dukedom, followed growing controversy over his links to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Andrew has tainted the reputation of the royal family through his association with Epstein and for many years has been dogged by allegations he sexually abused Virginia Giuffre after she was trafficked by the financier.

He has strenuously denied the allegations.

Another entry confirmed the removal of Andrew from the Roll of Peerage as the Duke of York, as previously announced.

It read: “THE KING has been pleased by Warrant under His Royal Sign Manual dated 30 October 2025 to direct His Secretary of State to cause the Duke of York to be removed from the Roll of the Peerage with immediate effect.”

The Letters Patent completes Andrew’s removal from the monarchy – he is now officially a commoner.

The King and his aides will be hoping the formality draws a line under the focus on Andrew and the scandal surrounding him, with attention turning to the Prince of Wales’s key speech at the Cop30 climate talks in Brazil, and also to Remembrance events in the UK.

But there are some remaining issues – the former duke is still in the line of succession and eighth in line to the throne.

Questions have yet to be answered over how Andrew managed to secure a peppercorn rent on Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park for more than 20 years, with the Public Accounts Committee writing to the Treasury and Crown Estate raising value for money concerns.

Andrew has agreed to leave Royal Lodge and is set to move to the King’s private Sandringham estate in Norfolk sometime in the new year as he begins his internal exile.

Earlier in October, he announced he would stop using his Duke of York title, although he remained a prince, ahead of the publication of the memoirs of the late Ms Giuffre, who claimed she was sexually assaulted three times by Andrew including when she was 17.

Andrew paid millions to settle a civil sexual assault case with her in 2022, despite insisting he had never met her.

It emerged in recent weeks that he had emailed Epstein in 2011 saying “we’re in this together”, three months after he claimed he had broken all contact with the convicted sex offender.

And the Metropolitan Police is looking into allegations Andrew passed Ms Giuffre’s date of birth and social security number to his taxpayer-funded bodyguard in 2011 and asked him to investigate.

Finally, the King, with support from his wider family including William, announced he would be removing all Andrew’s style, titles and honours including as a prince and Duke of York in a bombshell announcement on October 30 over his brother’s “serious lapses of judgment”.