King Charles III on Thursday stripped his disgraced brother Prince Andrew of his remaining titles and evicted him from his royal residence after weeks of pressure to act over his relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Buckingham Palace said.
After the king’s rare move, which follows years of shameful scandals, he will be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and not as a prince, and he will have to vacate his Royal Lodge mansion near Windsor Castle.
Demand had been growing on the palace to oust the prince from Royal Lodge after he surrendered his use of the title Duke of York earlier this month over new revelations about his friendship with Epstein and renewed sexual abuse allegations by one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, whose posthumous memoir hit bookstores last week.
But the king went even further to punish him for serious lapses of judgment by removing the title of prince that he has held since birth as a child of a monarch, the late Queen Elizabeth II.
“These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him,” the palace said. “Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”
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