Line of succession on Royal Family’s website is finally updated to reflect removal of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s Duke of York title
The line of succession on the Royal Family’s website has finally been updated to reflect the removal of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s titles, the Daily Mail has revealed.
Buckingham Palace announced on October 17 that Andrew would cease using his remaining titles and honors and would no longer be known as the Duke of York.
Three days later Andrew’s title was deleted from his profile page on the royal website to reflect the loss of that dukedom due to the Jeffrey Epstein sex scandal.
On 30 October it was revealed that Andrew would lose his title of prince, but this was formally set in motion by the King, who also abolished the HRH style on 7 November.
However, until recently Andrew was listed eighth on the website’s succession page as ‘Duke of York’, behind Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet of Sussex.
Now that his public life has been effectively ended, the website has finally been updated and the probate entry appears as ‘Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’.
His profile page was already closed at the beginning of November with the following message: royal.uk/the-duke-of-york now it says: ‘The requested page was not found.’
This comes according to a poll in which three-quarters of Britons believe Andrew should give evidence to the US Congress about his links to pedophile Epstein.
Andrew and Sarah at the funeral of the Duchess of Kent at Westminster Cathedral on 16 September
Before and after: The Royal Family’s website has finally updated the order of succession, changing the entry from ‘Duke of York’ to ‘Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’.
American lawmakers have criticized the King’s 65-year-old brother for ‘hiding’ from them after the former prince ignored a request to sit down for a written interview.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer suggested at the weekend that ‘if you have relevant information you should be prepared to share it’ after Andrew missed the November 20 deadline to respond by members of the House Oversight Committee.
The King formally stripped his disgraced brother of his title of prince and removed his dukedom from the List of Nobles due to Andrew’s ‘serious errors of judgement’.
The move comes after Andrew’s accuser Virginia Giuffre posthumously published her memoirs and the US government released documents from Epstein’s estate.
It was revealed that Andrew sent an email to Epstein in 2011, saying “we are in this together”; Three months after she claimed to have broken off all contact with the pedophile.
The former Duke of York has faced allegations that he sexually assaulted young Ms. Giuffre, who was trafficked by Epstein for many years. Andrew vehemently denies the accusations.
On November 6, a letter signed by 16 members of Congress was sent to Andrew asking him to cooperate with the committee’s investigation into Epstein’s sex trafficking operations.
US politicians said the House Oversight Committee had identified ‘financial records containing phrases such as ‘massage for Andrew’ that raise serious questions’.
Epstein committed suicide in a New York prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.
On 30 October, Andrew’s new public name was announced as ‘Andrew Mountbatten Windsor’.
The Royal Family’s website was updated on 20 October to reflect Andrew’s loss of the dukedom, with his name changed from ‘Duke of York’ to ‘Prince Andrew’, before also losing the title ‘Prince’.
Ex-wife Sarah Ferguson no longer uses “SarahTheDuchess” on her X account
However, his surname includes Andrew’s late mother, Queen Elizabeth II. Missing was the hyphen that Elizabeth decided 65 years ago when she made the arrangements for her descendants to be called ‘Mountbatten-Windsor’.
Asked about the absence of the hyphen in reference to the Queen’s decision in 1960, a palace spokesman said at the time of the announcement confirming Andrew had lost his titles: ‘Apparently the name was Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.’
However, the palace later reviewed the 1960 Privy Council Declaration, which contained the hyphen, and sources confirmed on 12 November that they would use hyphens from now on.
Andrew remains a government advisor but the role was previously described as ‘inactive’.
Only ‘working members’ of the royal family were to be called upon to temporarily fulfill the monarch’s duties as advisors of state in case of illness or overseas travel.
Meanwhile, Mid and East Antrim Council this week agreed to begin the process of renaming Prince Andrew Way in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland.
A Country Antrim street was named after Andrew to celebrate his wedding to Sarah Ferguson in 1986.
Valerie Watts, the council’s interim president, cautioned that the council had no policy to change the name of the street and that it was possible, although not simple.
He said other agencies such as Royal Mail should be consulted and that council staff would carry out a full investigation into what was required and provide a full report to the council.
