New documents in a case involving convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were unsealed this week, bringing names that had been connected to him back to the forefront. As we already knew, Prince Andrew was one of those names, as his previous encounters with Epstein and his associates have been well-documented.
And while the prince’s connections to Epstein have led to consequences for him from within the organization of the royal family, there is one thing that likely won’t happen, even if people want it to. As of right now, there is no plan to strip him of his royal titles, and if it does happen, it likely won’t come from his brother King Charles.
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New documents in the Epstein case have been unsealed, and Prince Andrew is named in them.
A new collection of court filings released in early January come from Virginia Giuffre’s 2015 lawsuit against Epstein, who died by suicide awaiting trial on federal conspiracy and sex trafficking charges. In the uncovered filings, Johanna Sjoberg alleged that Prince Andrew put his hand on her breast while posing for a picture. Giuffre, Epstein, and Ghislaine Maxwell were also in the picture, as well as a puppet bearing the prince’s likeness.
Prince Andrew stepped back from his royal duties in 2019 due to his connections to Epstein.
Prince Andrew has admitted to knowing Epstein, but has denied any wrongdoing. He sat down for a BBC interview in 2019, where he said he had "no recollection of ever meeting" Giuffre. On the other hand, Giuffre alleges that she was forced to have sex with the disgraced royal three times between 1999 and 2002, when she was a teenager.
After the interview, Prince Andrew announced his plan to step away from his post as a working senior royal.
He was stripped of his military titles in 2022, a year before Queen Elizabeth's death.
Giuffre filed a civil sexual assault lawsuit against Prince Andrew, and as a result, Queen Elizabeth stripped him of his military titles and patronages in 2022. The Queen’s decision was "widely discussed" among the senior members of the royal family, which would have been the Queen, the then-Prince Charles, and Prince William, a source told People.
In February 2022, an out-of-court settlement was reached with Giuffre for an undisclosed amount.
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King Charles doesn't have the power to strip his brother of his royal titles.
Andrew has retained his title as the Duke of York, even though he stepped back from his public duties and lost his military affiliations. He has also kept his place as eighth in the line of succession, following Prince Harry’s two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. Despite this, he can’t use the title "His Royal Highness" in any official capacity.
Because Queen Elizabeth never made any attempt to strip Prince Andrew of his remaining title, it’s unlikely that King Charles will either. But even if he did want to, he doesn’t have the power to.
Only the British Parliament has that kind of power.
"Parliament can remove titles. But they will find it difficult in this case. The legislative branch (Parliament) or executive branch (Honors Forfeiture Committee) don’t have the powers to decide if someone is guilty of a crime," blog Gerts Royals said in a tweet on X (formerly Twitter). "It is the judicial branch (Courts)’s job to determine if someone is guilty. And then other branches can act on that decision. And since there have never been any charges or conviction against Prince Andrew, in the eyes of the U.K. government, he is innocent."
Currently, there is a bill that would allow a monarch to have the power to remove titles, but there are multiple steps it has to go through to be enacted.
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