Queen won’t strip Andrew of his title
Monarch sticks by son after city of York revokes honour
THE Queen will not strip Prince Andrew of further titles despite growing calls to remove his Duke of York association.
The monarch, 96, will stand by her son and not bow to pressure to pursue “a number of paths” in parliament, including amending legislation, to strip the royal of his last major honorary position.
Royal sources said the Queen “certainly will not” force her son to give up his Duke title – a lifelong one she gave him in 1986.
Rachael Maskell, the
Labour MP for York
Central, said she had met Commons officials to investigate ways of forcing
Prince Andrew to give it up.
The move gathered pace in
February after the royal’s €14million outof-court settlement with Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, 38, who accused the Duke of sexually assaulting her in 2001.
Andrew, 62, was dealt another hammer blow to his already battered reputation this week when he was stripped of the Freedom of the city of York, an honorary position, given to him in 1987.
Councillors voted overwhelmingly to dump the disgraced Duke and “erase his stain of an association with the city”.
York city representatives announced further calls for Her Majesty to step in and remove her disgraced son’s Duke title and even tell him to stop using the title Prince, bestowed to him at birth.
However, the Queen alone cannot remove titles of peerage.
Any attempt to remove the title would have to be led by parliament, with a statute passed by both the House of Commons and the Lords.
But Palace insiders remarked how Her Majesty “believes the matter to be settled”. A source said: “The Queen certainly will not take any further action. The Duke of York has stepped back from public life and already had a range of titles removed and Her Majesty’s position has not deviated.”
Andrew was forced to step back from royal duties and stripped of his HRH title, military and royal patronages earlier this year.
Councillors in Northern Ireland are set to hold a debate on the renaming of Prince Andrew Way, in Carrickfergus. Meanwhile, the Queen looked on cheery form as she returned to work at Windsor Castle.
She held a face-to-face audience yesterday with the president of Switzerland Ignazio Cassis and his wife Paola at the castle.
It was her first engagement since a trip to Sandringham celebrating her 96th birthday. Posing for photographs, the monarch – wearing a blue and grey patterned silk dress – stood without her walking stick.