An official notice has been published
Steven Smith Content Editor
15:07, 06 Nov 2025Updated 15:46, 06 Nov 2025
Andrew and Charles pictured in September(Image: ADRIAN DENNIS, AFP via Getty Images)
The King has officially removed his disgraced brother Andrew Mountbatten Windsor’s HRH status and prince title. Charles formally enacted the changes, which were dramatically revealed a week earlier, by issuing a Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Realm, published in The Gazette, the UK’s official public record, via the Crown Office.
The entry, published on Wednesday, stated: “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 move to expel Andrew from the monarchy and strip his birthright as a prince, along with his dukedom, came amid mounting controversy surrounding his connections to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Andrew has damaged the Royal family’s reputation through his association with Epstein and faced years of allegations that he sexually abused Virginia Giuffre after she was trafficked by the financier. He has vigorously denied the claims.
A separate entry confirmed Andrew’s removal from the Roll of Peerage as the Duke of York, as previously disclosed.
It stated: “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.”
Charles and his younger brother Andrew(Image: PA Archive/PA Images)
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 is officially no longer a prince(Image: Jordan Pettitt/PA Wire )
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”.