Andrew Mountbatten Windsor might have been given his marching orders – but it’s business as usual for the Prince and Princess of Wales.
William and Kate have taken to social media to share their hopes for a ‘better world’ less than a day after the Prince’s uncle was unceremoniously shown the door.
The couple shared a post on their Kensington Royal X account detailing the final three finalists for the Earthshot Prize, William’s pet project that recognises and awards funds to groundbreaking environmental research projects.
A two-minute long video – which does not feature the couple – details how three projects in Barbados, the Bangladesh and the USA are helping to project people and mitigate against climate change.
This is the fifth day in a row that the Waleses have shared a video on Earthshot finalists, having posted a video each day this week since Monday detailing three different initiatives doing their part to save the planet.
And it seems not even the news around Andrew will deter the Prince of Wales from promoting the Earthshot Prize, a personal project that is close to his heart.
Writing on X, the Prince and Princess said: ‘We envision a world that’s a better, more sustainable home for everyone.
‘A world where greenhouse gas emissions are falling, and carbon-neutral economies help protect the most vulnerable. A world like this is within reach.’
They then began to post an ‘October rewind’, recapping their engagements over the last month including a visit by the Prince to the London Ambulance Service headquarters to mark its 60th anniversary.
The posts came less than a day after Buckingham Palace announced that the King had begun the formal process of stripping Andrew of his HRH style as well as his titles and honours.
Under the arrangement – understood to have come from the King himself, with no direction from the rest of the family or the government – Andrew will be required to vacate Royal Lodge at Windsor and has surrendered the right to be a ‘prince’.
He is now, effectively, in the words of one government minister, an ‘ordinary member of the public’ – but will live under his brother’s keep at Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, where the King was spotted earlier today.
In a decisively cold statement, the Palace said: ‘Prince Andrew will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.
‘These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him.’
Pointedly, it added of the King and Queen: ‘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.’
A Kensington Palace source said: ‘The Royal Family, including the Prince of Wales, fully support the King’s leadership on this matter. These decisions have been the King’s, with the support of the wider family.’
The decision to all but banish Andrew from royal life has prompted the family of Virginia Giuffre, who alleged to have been sexually assaulted by the ex-duke, to ‘come clean’ about his relationship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Andrew lied in his disastrously 2019 Newsnight interview that he had ceased contact with Epstein in December 2010, but bombshell emails obtained by the Mail revealed that he continued to keep in contact into 2011.
In one email, he even vowed to the convicted child sex offender that ‘we are in this together’ and that they would ‘keep in close touch’ and ‘play some more soon’.
Speaking to Sky News, Ms Giuffre’s sister-in-law Amanda Roberts said she would tell Andrew: ‘Think of your daughters [Beatrice and Eugenie]. They were the same age.
‘Think of what you would do had something like this happened to them. What would you want their perpetrator to do?
”I think it’s far beyond time to come clean. You were best friends with this man [Epstein] and there are so many things that you could help bring to light.
‘Virginia deserves that and every single survivor that has been entrapped in that sex trafficking ring deserves that from you. If you can give an inkling of justice, then it should be on you to do.’
Sky Roberts, Ms Giuffre’s brother, added that he would like to meet the King, and has urged Charles to lean on Donald Trump in order to see the so-called ‘Epstein Files’ released.
‘If the King says he stands with survivors and victims then meet with us and have a conversation with us,’ he added.
As a commoner, Mr Mountbatten Windsor is unlikely to enjoy the same level of protections that came with his princely status – and could even be compelled into visiting the US to testify on allegations against him, or his friendship with Epstein.
Trade minister Sir Chris Bryant told BBC Breakfast: ‘I think that just as with any ordinary member of the public, if there were requests from another jurisdiction of this kind, I would expect any decently–minded person to comply with that request.’
He added: ‘What I’m basically saying is that I think that if Andrew is asked to do something by a Senate committee, then I would have thought that he would want to comply.’
The 15 finalists for the Earthshot Prize were first announced by William on October 4 with a video showing him sat beneath a oak tree where he had sat shortly after launching the contest for the first time in 2020.
He said of warnings then that greenhouse gases needed to be cut by 2030: ‘Back then, a decade felt a long time. George was seven, Charlotte five and Louis two; the thought of them in 2030 felt a lifetime away.
‘But today, as we stand halfway through this critical decade, 2030 feels very real.’
