Andrew gives Charles his 'first genuine royal crisis' as King

As each day passed over the last little while, there was a growing sense that something had to give in the circumstances surrounding the man who will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.

In a move with little — if any — royal precedent, Buckingham Palace said Thursday that King Charles has started the formal process to strip his younger brother of his title of prince.

Andrew, 65, is also being evicted from the 30-room mansion he leases from the Crown Estate near Windsor Castle and relocating to one of the King’s private estates in the fallout from the scandal and controversy around his association with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

That controversy had become a crisis for the Royal Family. In Charles’s handling of it — particularly Thursday’s statement regarding Andrew’s titles and housing — there could be signals of the kind of monarchy the King is hoping to lead.

“This is one of the most significant events for the monarchy in the 21st century,” said Justin Vovk, a royal historian and member of the advisory board of the Institute for the Study of the Crown in Canada. “It sends very clear signals that the reign of King Charles wants to be one of modernization and adapting to developing circumstances."

Andrew had stepped back from official royal duties after his disastrous BBC interview in 2019 regarding his friendship with Epstein. Andrew, who has continued to deny all allegations against him, had also agreed to settle a lawsuit in which he was accused of sexually abusing Virginia Giuffre.

Recently published excerpts from a posthumous book by Giuffre accused Andrew of being “entitled — as if he believed having sex with me was his birthright."

Other reports had emerged recently that he told Epstein in an email “we are in this together” after a photo of the royal with his arm around a teenage Giuffre was published in 2011.

“This has been ... the first genuine royal crisis of the King's reign,” Craig Prescott, a constitutional expert and lecturer in law at Royal Holloway, University of London, said in an interview earlier this week. “This will be one of those moments that is sort of pointed out as a particular issue for the monarchy that it struggled to deal with."

When you look at most crises about the monarchy, Prescott said, “it's when the monarchy is out of step with public opinion and out of step with parliamentary opinion."

U.K. parliamentarians had been starting to raise questions about Andrew’s accommodation arrangements at Royal Lodge. Charles was heckled by a protester earlier this week about Andrew’s relationship with Epstein, although the heckler was met with vocal support for the King, the BBC reported.

The palace’s latest moves could perhaps lean toward countering any split with broader public and parliamentary opinion.

“The statement from the King was clear, especially when saying, ‘these censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that [Andrew] continues to deny the allegations against him,’” Prescott said via email late Thursday night.

“It’s clearly distancing Andrew from the rest of the monarchy, which is reinforced by moving him to Sandringham. This move has put the monarchy back in step with public opinion and opinion in Parliament."