Prince Andrew has been forced to finally relinquish all his remaining titles – including the Duke of York – following another week of damaging scandal under pressure from his older brother, King Charles.
The prince is handing back all the remaining honours he clung onto despite being stripped of his HRH title and public duties by the late queen in 2020.
It comes just days before the publication of a memoir by Andrew’s late alleged victim, Virginia Giuffre, to whom he paid millions to settle a civil sexual assault case, and after relevations he had held three meetings with a senior Chinese Communist Party official at the heart of the China spy case scandal.
Andrew will remain a prince, as he has been since birth.
His ex-wife, Sarah, with whom he still lives in a sprawling house near Windsor, will return to plain Sarah Ferguson – as she was prior to their royal wedding in 1986.
In a statement released by Buckingham Palace, Andrew said that in discussion with the King and his immediate and wider family, they decided “the continued accusations about me distract from the work of His Majesty and the royal family.”
“I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first,” he said. “I stand by my decision five years ago to stand back from public life.
“With His Majesty’s agreement, we feel I must now go a step further. I will therefore no longer use my title or the honours which have been conferred upon me. As I have said previously, I vigorously deny the accusations against me.”
Andrew will retain the dukedom, which can only be removed by an Act of Parliament, but not use it.
He will also give up his knighthood as a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) and his Garter role as a Royal Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter.
Prince Andrew held meetings in 2018 and 2019 with Cai Qi, currently the first-ranked member of the Secretariat of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and de facto chief of staff to Xi Jinping.
Mr Cai was suspected of being the recipient of sensitive information allegedly passed to China by two British nationals accused of spying for Beijing.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) dropped charges against suspected spies Christopher Berry and Christopher Cash last month, citing a lack of evidence. Both have denied any wrongdoing.
Prince Andrew met the senior CCP figure at least three times, according to The Telegraph, in both London and Beijing during the time period when Mr Berry and Mr Cash were allegedly recruited for espionage.
Meanwhile, an extract from the posthumous memoir of Virginia Giuffre, published on Wednesday by The Guardian, alleged that she had three separate encounters with the Prince.
Ms Giuffre settled a sexual assault lawsuit against the Duke of York, who has always vehemently denied any wrongdoing, in February 2022. Ms Giuffre died earlier this year.
Giuffre described the prince in the book, Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir Of Surviving Abuse And Fighting For Justice, as “friendly enough, but entitled” as she had sex with him on various occasions, including while staying at the house of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend, near Hyde Park, London, in March 2001.
The extract states: “Maxwell woke me up that morning by announcing in a sing-songy voice: ‘Get out of bed, sleepyhead!’ It was going to be a special day, she said. Just like Cinderella, I was going to meet a handsome prince!”
Removal of Andrew’s dukedom could be well received publicly, as a YouGov poll this summer showed 67 per cent of people favour stripping him of the title.
The process could take up parliamentary time with procedural difficulties, according to The Times, who cited a source hoping that he might act with “honour” and give up his titles voluntarily.
This would be the strongest line the palace has taken with the Prince since the late Queen stripped him of his royal role in 2019.
The Independent has contacted Buckingham Palace and the Duke of York for comment.
