It quickly became apparent that the Duke of York’s dedication on 17th October to cease the use of his titles and honours was not enough to satisfy the public mood and so, not even a fortnight later, a further announcement was made that His Majesty would be taking measures to enact these changes in a formal way, and also that the changes would go further by removing his princely title as well so that he became Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. No notice to this effect has yet appeared in the London Gazette, but then it is fairly normal for that publication to lag by a few days and indeed for these processes themselves to take a few days to carry out. This is the first time since 1917 that a Prince of the United Kingdom has had that dignity removed in this way.

Less than a day after this announcement it was noted that the Roll of the Peerage had been updated to omit his name*. This is not actually a roll of parchment but rather a PDF. It is uploaded on and accessed through the website of the College of Arms but is actually controlled by the Ministry of Justice. As the page explains, the Roll was created as a government register of everyone who possessed a peerage of any rank of the United Kingdom or its predecessor states, the Roll of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal having been rendered quite inadequate for that purpose following the House of Lords Act 1999. Newly-created peers are added to the Roll automatically but those who have inherited their titles but those who inherit their titles are responsible for writing to the Secretary of State with the necessary documentation to prove their succession. It is also possible for those already listed to request their own removal. The absence of a peer from the Roll does not actually cause his peerages to cease to exist but does effectively mean that the state in its official capacity will cease to recognise him as holding them. This is probably as close as Andrew can get to fully giving up his dukedom and its subsidiaries without an Act of Parliament being passed specially for that purpose.

This has of course led to another flurry of edits on the former prince’s Wikipedia page. Some commentators noted how quickly the page had been moved from “Prince Andrew” to “Andrew Mountbatten Windsor“, but actually this was against procedure so the page name was reverted and not moved again until editor consensus was established. It would have been a lot more convenient for us if both of last month’s announcements had been made as one so that two separate page moves (and thus two separate discussions) would not have been needed. Of course, this still doesn’t entirely resolve matters because there is still some confusion as to whether “Mountbatten Windsor” needs a hyphen, as the royal warrant from 1960 includes one but the recent announcement does not. There is a further important, if largely academic, point to be made that even if Andrew has agreed to simply go by Mr from now on, he could still be called Sir until his knighthoods are fully removed, or indeed Lord as the younger son of a duke.

FOOTNOTES

*Contrast this version (archived on 16th December last year) to this one (archived yesterday): The first two pages list the principal peerages of members of the royal family, then the rest of the document lists all the non-royal peers. Within both groups the titles are listed alphabetically, so “York” was previously the last of the royals. Now he doesn’t appear at all. I note that the current version omits the “Latest revision” date underneath the Crown Copyright line on the first page, which makes me think that yesterday’s update was done in a hurry.

EXTERNAL LINKS

• Erasing the Duke of York: The Roll of the Peerage and the limits of removal (Jason Loch, A Venerable Puzzle)
• Is (Prince) Andrew now a commoner? (Allan Barton, The Antiquary)

UPDATE (5th November)

The Gazette website has now published (as of noon today) notices confirming the removal of Andrew’s titles:

• THE KING has been pleased by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Realm dated 3 November 2025 to declare that Andrew Mountbatten Windsor shall no longer be entitled to hold and enjoy the style, title or attribute of “Royal Highness” and the titular dignity of “Prince”.
• THE KING has been pleased by Warrant under His Royal Sign Manual dated 30 October 2025 to direct His Secretary of State to cause the Duke of York to be removed from the Roll of the Peerage with immediate effect.

The first appears only in the London Gazette, while the second also appears in the Edinburgh and Belfast. So far I have not seen any of the usual experts dissecting these, although that will likely come in a few days. These are of course only the Gazette notices and not the full texts of the relevant documents, for which I have already seen some of them say they will file FOI requests. I will note that the removal of princely titles does not take the form of a royal licence, and refers to its target as already being named Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. The second, despite its triple publication, only refers to the Dukedom of York so the removal of the subsidiary earldom and barony must be read as implicit. It says that His Majesty directed the action rather than the Duke himself requesting it as the original warrant laid out, so presumably the new warrant must be amending the original in some way.