King Charles stripped his brother of every royal title in late October. Two weeks later, Buckingham Palace realized they got the punctuation wrong.
The former Duke of York will now be styled as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, not Andrew Mountbatten Windsor as initially announced. Palace officials confirmed the change in mid-November after reviewing Queen Elizabeth II’s 1960 Privy Council Declaration, which explicitly stated the hyphen belongs there.
Royal historian Ian Lloyd said he was surprised the original announcement omitted it. “I was quite surprised when the Palace statement came out giving Andrew’s name without a hyphen, given the historic precedent for one,” Lloyd told The Times.
According to The Times, Andrew wanted his name written without the hyphen. He lost that argument too.
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How Queen Elizabeth Created the Mountbatten-Windsor Surname
The hyphenated surname came into existence on February 8, 1960, eleven days before Andrew was born. Queen Elizabeth issued a Privy Council Declaration after years of tension with her husband over family naming conventions.
When Elizabeth became Queen in 1952, she decided the royal family would continue using Windsor as their surname. Prince Philip was reportedly furious. He complained about being “the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his children.”
Eight years later, Elizabeth offered a compromise. Her 1960 declaration stated: “My descendants other than descendants enjoying the style title or attribute of Royal Highness and the titular dignity of Prince or Princess and female descendants who marry and their descendants shall bear the name of Mountbatten-Windsor.”
The name combined Windsor (chosen by King George V in 1917 to distance the family from its German roots) with Mountbatten, the surname Prince Philip adopted from his mother’s family when he became a naturalized British citizen in 1947.
Other Royals Already Use the Hyphenated Version
Princess Anne’s 1973 marriage certificate lists her full name as Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise Mountbatten-Windsor. When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle registered their son’s birth in 2019, the certificate read Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. Prince Edward’s children, Lady Louise and James, Viscount Severn, both use the hyphenated surname.
Andrew became the first royal baby filed under Mountbatten-Windsor when he was born in February 1960. Now, 65 years later, he’s using it again after losing the title he held since birth.
The Epstein Scandal That Brought Him Down
The title removal followed years of mounting pressure over Andrew’s relationship with convicted s*x offender Jeffrey Epstein and allegations from Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of sexual abuse when she was 17.
Giuffre published a posthumous memoir titled “Nobody’s Girl” on October 21, 2025. She died by s*icide six months earlier at age 41. The 400-page book detailed allegations that Epstein trafficked her to Andrew on three occasions, including one encounter she claimed involved Epstein and eight other young women.
Three days before the memoir’s release, reports emerged that Andrew had instructed a taxpayer-funded bodyguard to investigate Giuffre, including obtaining her Social Security number and birth date.
On October 17, Andrew announced he would stop using his Duke of York title. The palace initially framed this as voluntary. It wasn’t enough.
King Charles Made It Permanent
On October 30, Buckingham Palace issued a statement confirming King Charles had “initiated a formal process to remove the Style, Titles and Honours of Prince Andrew.” The statement added: “These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him.”
The same announcement served Andrew with formal eviction notice from Royal Lodge, the 30-room mansion in Windsor Great Park where he’d lived for over 20 years. He paid ยฃ1 million for a 75-year lease in 2003 and spent ยฃ7.5 million on refurbishments. His annual rent: one peppercorn “if demanded.” Essentially free.
The arrangement became public through a Freedom of Information request filed by The Times in October. Public anger over the sweetheart deal added fuel to calls for his removal.
Andrew will move to a property on the Sandringham estate. King Charles will fund the accommodation privately. His ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, who lived with him at Royal Lodge, is making separate arrangements.
What Andrew Still Keeps
He remains eighth in line to the throne. Removing someone from the line of succession requires consent from all 14 Commonwealth realms under the Statute of Westminster 1931. The government has shown no interest in pursuing that lengthy process.
When succession law was changed in 2013 to introduce gender equality, it took 18 months of negotiations with Commonwealth governments. No one wants to repeat that exercise for Andrew.
The last time a British prince lost his title was over a century ago. Prince Charles Edward, one of Queen Victoria’s grandsons, had his Duke of Albany title stripped by Parliament in 1917 after fighting for Germany in World War I.
A Small Correction to a Larger Disgrace
The hyphen correction came quietly through palace sources speaking to British media outlets in mid-November. No formal statement. No explanation for why they got it wrong initially.
Giuffre’s memoir has spent eleven consecutive weeks on the New York Times bestseller list as of January 2026. Andrew’s name, hyphenated or not, remains tied to one of the most damaging scandals in modern royal history.
He wanted Mountbatten Windsor. He got Mountbatten-Windsor. Queen Elizabeth’s 1960 declaration, written days before his birth, had the final word on how her third child would be known after losing everything else.
