Prince Andrew has surrendered the use of his title, the Duke of York, completing a fall from grace that began nearly six years ago with a calamitous television interview about his ties to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In a statement issued on Friday evening, Andrew said that after discussing the matter with his elder brother, King Charles III, he had decided he would “no longer use my title or the honors which have been conferred upon me. As I have said previously, I vigorously deny the accusations against me.”
Andrew, 65, the second son of Queen Elizabeth II, was removed from official duties in 2019 after a fierce public backlash against him over the interview, which took place with the BBC, as well as allegations of sexual misconduct. He has more recently been ensnared in a spying scandal involving China.
The cascade of scandals have yet again thrust the British royal family into crisis. Charles, who had urged the queen to push Andrew into internal exile in 2019, appeared poised to take further punitive steps this time, according to British news media reports. After the two brothers consulted, Andrew acted preemptively.
“We have concluded the continued accusations about me distract from the work of His Majesty and the Royal Family,” Andrew said in a two-paragraph statement. “I have decided, as I always have, to put duty to my family and country first. I stand by my decision five years ago to stand back from public life.”
In the 2019 BBC interview, Andrew claimed to have severed links with Mr. Epstein, who hanged himself in his prison cell in New York earlier that year, after they were photographed together in New York in 2010. But details have since filtered out which suggest he stayed in touch with Mr. Epstein after he claimed to have cut off ties.
In 2022, Andrew was stripped of his military titles after Virginia Giuffre, a victim of Mr. Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring, accused the prince of raping her when she was a teenager, a charge he denied. He settled a lawsuit brought by Ms. Giuffre in 2022 for an undisclosed amount, with no admission of guilt. A memoir by Ms. Giuffre, who died by suicide in Australia in April, will be published this month, recounting the story of how she was introduced to Andrew through Mr. Epstein.
Andrew has also been drawn into a scandal involving Chinese spying efforts in Britain, with revelations that he met on multiple occasions with Cai Qi, a senior Chinese official who is close to China’s president, Xi Jinping.
Mr. Cai is believed to have received information collected by two British men who worked with members of the British Parliament who were active in Chinese affairs. Prosecutors dropped a spying case against the two men, which has mushroomed into a political crisis for Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
As the son of a monarch, Andrew will remain a prince, palace officials said in a briefing on Friday. His mother had conferred the title of Duke of York on him when he got married in 1986. Historians say it is extremely rare for a member of the royal family to give up such a title. Prince Harry, who withdrew from royal duties and moved to the United States in 2020, remains the Duke of Sussex.
Andrew’s daughters will retain their titles as Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie. But his former wife, Sarah Ferguson, will no longer use the title of Duchess of York, which she had retained after the couple divorced.
Andrew had already ceased using the honorific, His Royal Highness. And he had been stripped of more than a dozen military titles, including Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, a storied infantry regiment in the British Army.
For all of Andrew’s disgrace, the queen still included him in family rituals and celebrations. After her death in 2022, however, he became more isolated. Now, Andrew will also be banished from the family Christmas celebration at Sandringham, in Norfolk, northeast of London, according to the palace officials. The annual event is a staple in the royal calendar.
In a not-so-small consolation, Andrew will continue to live in the Royal Lodge, a grand royal residence on the Windsor estate, west of London. Royal watchers have long speculated that Charles would evict his brother from the residence. But palace officials said Andrew had a private tenancy agreement with the Crown Estate, which was unaffected by his decision to stop using his title.
Mark Landler is the London bureau chief of The Times, covering the United Kingdom, as well as American foreign policy in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He has been a journalist for more than three decades.
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