DRIVEN OUT
Haunted look of duke as he arrives for crisis summit with the Queen which saw him stripped of military titles and agreeing not to use HRH. Now we reveal it was Charles who demanded his exile over US sex case
THE Queen last night cast Prince Andrew out of the Royal Family, stripping him of all his military titles and patronages.
In a brutal two-line statement Buckingham Palace also forced him to drop his HRH title and dashed his hopes of resuming public duties.
It said the ninth in line to the throne would be defending his United States sex abuse case ‘as a private citizen’.
Palace sources said the ‘ruthless and swift’ decision had been ‘widely discussed’ within the Royal Family following Andrew’s failed bid to persuade a judge to dismiss the civil lawsuit in which he is accused of having sex with a trafficking victim.
Prince Charles and his son William are understood to have been ‘instrumental’ in the move to force him out.
‘This is about the survival of the institution at all costs. Always has been and always will be,’ a senior palace source said. In its statement the palace declared: ‘With the Queen’s approval and agreement, the Duke of York’s military affiliations and royal patronages have been returned to the Queen.
‘The Duke of York will continue not to undertake any public duties and is
defending this case as a private citizen.’ Andrew was yesterday summoned for a 90-minute meeting with his mother at Windsor Castle – and was accompanied by his personal lawyer, Gary Bloxsome, who drove with him from his nearby home, Royal Lodge.
But Mr Bloxsome, who was employed by the prince to orchestrate his fight back against Virginia Roberts’ allegations of rape and sexual assault, was unable to enter the royal residence and was left sitting in the car, castle insiders revealed.
The decision to remove Andrew’s remaining titles and bar him from using his HRH title represents his complete removal from official royal life and will be seen as an attempt to distance the monarchy once and for all from his legal woes.
The duke now faces a jury trial in the autumn over Miss Roberts’ claims, which he has consistently denied. It is believed that discussions among family members have been going on for several weeks as Andrew’s attempts to derail the
‘When push comes to shove she knows what is best’
case were repeatedly shot down. Prince Charles has spoken to his mother by phone from Scotland, where he is in residence, following the judgment against his brother in a New York court.
Prince William was at Windsor Castle on Wednesday to conduct an investiture on behalf of his grandmother and would have spoken to her personally as well.
A well-placed palace source said the Queen and her advisers had decided to follow ‘the same model’ of effective banishment with Andrew as she had with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
‘They have taken this decision to insulate the institution from being hit by all the shrapnel that is flying around,’ they added.
‘It follows the same model as the Sussex separation. The removal of titles and patronages means the institution can now legitimately say it is not involved.
‘It was a ruthless and swift decision which will have been recommended by the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge and sanctioned by the Queen.’
Other sources said the decision would have ‘pained’ the Queen enormously, given Andrew’s position as her so-called favourite son.
But just as with Harry and Meghan, the 95-year-old monarch would have known she needed to act for the sake of the monarchy and her legacy.
‘She has the ability, when push comes to shove, to know what is best for the institution and will act in her role as head of state, not a mother,’ said another source who knows her well. ‘She loves Andrew and this doesn’t mean he is no longer her son. But a decision had to be made as it was overshadowing everything the family did and her forthcoming platinum jubilee. Everyone will be feeling very relieved he has finally been cut adrift. It may even help him to have more clarity in fighting the case.’
The beleaguered prince, 61, was last night keen to make clear that his battle to clear his name and restore his reputation was not over. A source close to the duke said his legal team were ‘unsurprised’ by the judge’s decision not to throw the sex case out given last week’s bruising hearing in New York, during which he was openly dismissive of their argument to dismiss the suit.
They added: ‘This is a marathon not a sprint and the duke will continue to defend himself against these claims.’
Another source said they would continue to pursue every legal avenue before the claims got to trial, saying: ‘We are still at very early stages of this case.’ Miss Roberts, 38, who now uses her married name Giuffre, claims she was forced to sleep with the prince three times in 2001, when she was 17. She says she was trafficked and ‘lent out’ by his friends, the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his then girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted last month of procuring underage girls for Esptein to abuse.
Following his disastrous Newsnight interview in 2019, Andrew was forced by the Queen, Charles
and William to step down from official duties. But he was allowed to keep a dozen military affiliations, including Colonel of the Grenadier Guards – a position inherited from his father the Duke of Edinburgh – and dozens of charitable patronages went into ‘abeyance’ while he worked to clear his name. Many of those organisations chose to desert him anyway, but some, mostly in the military, had no choice but to keep the prince in position because it was only in the Queen’s gift, as head of the Armed Forces, to take them away.
There was a sense of widespread relief last night that the decision had finally been taken for them. A royal source said the military posts would be ‘redistributed’ to other members of the Royal Family. But as a former
Royal Navy officer who served with distinction in the Falklands, Andrew will be allowed to retain his military rank of vice admiral.
The Mail has also been told that Andrew will, for now, remain a member of the Order of the Garter, the most prestigious order of chivalry, which is also in the gift of the Queen. However it is unlikely that the prince will take part in the annual procession at Windsor Castle in June.
Like Harry and Meghan before him, Andrew will no longer be able to use the style ‘His Royal Highness’ in any official capacity, although he has not officially been stripped of it.
But the humiliation of the move will be lost on no one. It is not clear how he intends to style himself but he most likely will simply be called the Duke of York.
It is not clear yet whether Andrew will lose his round-theclock Scotland Yard bodyguards, which he had retained despite stepping back from official duties. Harry and Meghan were forced to relinquish theirs, but that was as much because they had chosen to move abroad.
Andrew’s daughters Beatrice and Eugenie had their bodyguards taken away from them when they decided not to take on royal duties.
‘Everyone is feeling very relieved he’s been cut adrift’