Last month, the royal family announced that Prince Andrew was to have his title and honours removed. Robert Hazell explains what has changed, how it was done, what might still happen, and what this could mean for the monarchy as a whole.

On 17 October Buckingham Palace issued a statement in which Prince Andrew announced that he would no longer use his titles or the honours which had been conferred upon him. There followed calls in the media for his disgrace to go further: that he be formally stripped of his titles; evicted from Royal Lodge, his home in Windsor Great Park; lose his status as a Counsellor of State; and be removed from the line of succession. 

In response to mounting public pressure, two weeks later the Palace issued a further statement which said:

His Majesty has today initiated a formal process to remove the Style, Titles and Honours of Prince Andrew.

Prince Andrew will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. His lease on Royal Lodge has, to date, provided him with legal protection to continue in residence. Formal notice has now been served to surrender the lease and he will move to alternative private accommodation. These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him. 

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.

The Palace and the government will both hope that they can now draw a line under the whole affair. But can Andrew be stripped of all his titles without legislation?  What would be required to remove him as a Counsellor of State, and from the line of succession?  And what are the wider consequences for the monarchy, its funding, and its standing in public opinion?

Stripping Prince Andrew of his peerage titles

Prince Andrew has three peerage titles, as Duke of York, Earl of Inverness and Baron Killyleagh. Peerages, although granted under the royal prerogative, can only be removed by legislation. That was confirmed by Nick Thomas-Symonds, Cabinet Office Minister for the Constitution, when he recently stated: ‘The Sovereign may change the entitlement to the titles and styles such as “Prince” and “Royal Highness” under the Royal Prerogative. An Act of Parliament is required to remove a peerage once conferred’. The precedent is the Titles Deprivation Act 1917, which led to three German descendants of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert who were officers in the German army during the First World War being stripped of their British titles.  

Herbert Asquith and his successor as Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, had both been reluctant to legislate, but eventually bowed to public opinion. The Starmer government will be equally keen to avoid legislation. It has other, more important legislative priorities; and the legislation would be open to hostile amendment (for example, to deprive Lord (Peter) Mandelson of his peerage, because of his association with Jeffrey Epstein; or to deprive Prince Harry of his titles). To fend off demands for legislation, the response has been for the King to issue a Royal Warrant instructing the Lord Chancellor, David Lammy, to remove Andrew from the Roll of the Peerage. This was recorded in The Gazette:

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.

Removal from the roll is not the same as removing the peerage, because a peerage can only be removed by legislation.  Its effect merely means that Andrew will no longer be referred to by his peerage title in official documents. He can still be referred to as the Duke of York in Debrett’s Peerage, Who’s Who and any media which care to do so, and they will not be wrong. The Duke of Argyll is not on the Roll of the Peerage, but he is still the Duke of Argyll.

There remains a puzzle, and a problem. First, the puzzle: the 2004 Royal Warrant establishing the Roll of the Peerage contains no explicit power to remove people from it. There is provision in Article 6 for peers to apply to be removed from the Roll; but no provision for people unilaterally to be removed. The problem is the lack of due process. It seems unlikely that Andrew will want to challenge his removal; but it sets an uncomfortable precedent. If the King can remove someone from the roll by executive fiat, any peer who is currently the target of an aggressive media campaign could suffer a similar fate.

Stripping Prince Andrew of his style and honours

Andrew was a also a Knight of the Garter, and Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order; a Prince, and His Royal Highness. The Garter and RVO are both in the personal gift of the Sovereign, so removal of Andrew’s knighthoods would not need to follow a recommendation from the Honours Forfeiture Committee, which deals with Honours awarded on ministerial advice. It would merely need to follow the procedure set out in the statutes of the two Orders. Andrew’s banner as a Knight of the Garter has already been taken down from St George’s Chapel, Windsor. Again, there is a precedent from the First World War: in 1915 King George V struck the names of seven European royals from the roll of Knights of the Garter, including Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria. 

King George V also set the rules which made Andrew a Prince and His Royal Highness, in Letters Patent issued in 1917.  These provided that the children of the Sovereign ‘shall have … the style title or attribute of Royal Highness with the titular dignity of Prince or Princess’. Such styles and titles can also be removed by Letters Patent. This happened in 1937, when King George VI issued Letters Patent declaring that the Duchess of Windsor would not be Her Royal Highness; and in 1996, when similar Letters Patent declared that if a Prince got divorced, then his former wife (in that case, Diana, Princess of Wales) would cease to be HRH following the divorce. In Andrew’s case, Letters Patent were issued this week declaring:

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”.

Removing Prince Andrew as a Counsellor of State, and from the line of succession

The Palace and the government will both hope that no further debasement is required; not least because any further steps would certainly require legislation. That includes removing Andrew as one of the Counsellors of State: people who deputise for the monarch when he is absent abroad, or temporarily incapacitated (for example, by serious illness). Two have to be appointed from a list prescribed by the Regency Act 1937, namely the monarch’s spouse and the next four adults in line of succession: currently Queen Camilla, Prince William, Prince Harry, Andrew and Princess Beatrice. Because the last three were not working royals, the Counsellors of State Act 2022 added Prince Edward and Princess Anne to the list. As a result there is no need for Andrew ever to be called upon to serve as a Counsellor of State; but it would require legislation formally to remove him from the list.

Legislation to remove Andrew from the line of succession would be harder still, because under a convention enshrined in the preamble to the Statute of Westminster 1931 this would require the consent of every other Commonwealth realm (the 14 other states around the world where King Charles is also head of state). The last time this happened was when the law of succession was changed to introduce gender equality; it took 18 months of protracted negotiations from the announcement of the change at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Perth in 2011 to the successful passage of the Succession to the Crown Act 2013. The government will not want to repeat that exercise; nor will the realms.

Removing Andrew from Royal Lodge

Andrew had a 75-year lease from the Crown Estate on Royal Lodge, a large house in Windsor Great Park. The Times published the lease on 21 October, revealing that he paid £1 million for the lease, plus a minimum of £7.5 million in refurbishments; in return for which he paid a nominal rent.

The Crown Estate is a statutory corporation operating under the Crown Estate Act 1961 (as amended in 2025), and manages a huge property portfolio.  The nine Commissioners are property experts who operate independently of government and the Crown. Legally they could not simply terminate Andrew’s lease; the Palace statement that ‘formal notice has now been served to surrender the lease’ suggests that he yielded to mounting pressure to relinquish the lease voluntarily.

The impact on royal finances

Both the Palace and the government will be keen to close the story down, and move on. In parliament backbench Labour MP Rachael Maskell’s proposed bill to remove Andrew’s titles hangs in the air, but is not going to happen unless adopted by the government. Another unwelcome hangover from the whole affair is renewed scrutiny of the royal finances, in the year before the sovereign grant is up for its quinquennial review. The Commons Public Accounts Committee may hold a single evidence session just on Prince Andrew’s finances, or launch a wider inquiry.

It may be hard to avoid the inquiry spreading more widely. Having released the lease on Royal Lodge, the Crown Estate may find it difficult to refuse to disclose the leases on other properties occupied by the royal family. And it may be hard for the Palace to dispel the mysteries surrounding Andrew’s sources of income without being more transparent about the royal finances more generally: in particular of the Duchy of Lancaster, which last year provided King Charles with £27 million of his income. The Palace website says:

The Duchy of Lancaster is a portfolio of land, property and assets held in trust for the Sovereign … Its main purpose is to provide an independent source of income, and is used mainly to pay for official expenditure not met by the Sovereign Grant (primarily to meet expenses incurred by other members of the Royal Family).

Note the final words in brackets. In the days of the Civil List, the annuities received by other members of the royal family were published; since the Sovereign Grant Act 2011, that no longer happens. The Duchy of Lancaster’s annual report and accounts gives lots of detail about the Duchy’s income, but none about its expenditure. The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, has called for a select committee inquiry, and Baroness (Margaret) Hodge of Barking, former chair of the Public Accounts Committee, has called for greater transparency about the royal finances. If the Public Accounts Committee decides to launch a wider inquiry, the payments to other members of the royal family funded by the Duchy of Lancaster would be a natural place to start.

The impact on the monarchy

The Palace’s actions so far are a response not merely to pressure from the media (and social media), but also to the opinion polls. 91% of the public were reported by YouGov in October to have a negative opinion of Prince Andrew, and Ipsos reported that 51% of Britons thought there should be an Act of Parliament formally to remove his titles. On the King’s handling of the matter, the YouGov poll showed 40% saying he had managed the issue well, but 32% saying he had done so badly.

More comforting for the Palace will be the standard polling questions about attitudes to the King, and the monarchy more generally. YouGov reported in October that 62% of the public had a positive view of King Charles, compared to 59% in August; while 29% see the King in a negative light. A majority of Britons (57%) feel the monarchy overall is good for Britain, and they see the royal family as good value for money by 50% to 33%.

On the key question of monarchy versus republic, 62% of the public believe Britain should continue to have a monarchy, compared to 25% who feel we should have an elected head of state instead. Prince Andrew may have caused a small blip in support for the monarchy, but people can clearly distinguish their negative feelings about one bad actor (-91%), while retaining a positive attitude to the institution as a whole. 

About the author

Professor Robert Hazell was the founder and first Director of the Constitution Unit. He is the co-editor of The Role of Monarchy in Modern Democracy.