The brother of Britain’s King Charles III is to be stripped of his princely title. Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, as he will now be known, is also being evicted from his 30-room mansion, Royal Lodge, and will take up residence in private accommodation owned by King Charles in Sandringham – an estate some 100 miles north of London.
The news, carried by multiple media outlets, is the latest development in the furore engulfing the British royal family since the publication of the posthumous memoir of Virginia Giuffre.
In Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, Giuffre said that Mountbatten-Windsor had sex with her three times when she was a 17-year-old trafficking victim of late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his jailed accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
It has also been reported that Mountbatten Windsor hosted Epstein at Royal Lodge during Princess Beatrice’s birthday celebrations in 2006, even though a US arrest warrant had been issued against Epstein two months prior for the sexual assault of a minor.
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The disgraced former prince has consistently denied all accusations against him, but gave Giuffre an out-of-court settlement in 2022, thought to be in the region of £12 million (US$16.3 million).
In a statement, Buckingham Palace expressed support for victims of “any and all forms of abuse,” but it remains to be seen whether the stripping of Mountbatten Windsor’s title, and his eviction, will be enough to quell vehement calls for justice for Giuffre, who died by suicide earlier this year. Also unanswered are questions on how much the British royal family knew about Mountbatten Windsor’s relationship with Epstein and their activities.
A UK anti-monarchy group says it has asked its lawyers to launch a private prosecution against Andrew “over accusations of sexual offences and misconduct in public office.”
Graham Smith, who heads the group Republic, said that Mountbatten Windsor was still not “being held to account,” adding: “This isn’t about William and Charles taking a tough line. It’s about William and Charles protecting their position by putting as much distance between them and Andrew as they can. We need to see Andrew face justice, because we need to know that the royals are not above the law.”
