ANDREW STRIPPED OF MILITARY TITLES AND PATRONAGES

Prince Andrew, the second son of Queen Elizabeth II, has been forced to relinquish his military titles and royal charities, Buckingham Palace said on Thursday, a stinging rebuke by the British royal family a day after a federal judge in New York allowed a sexual abuse case against him to go ahead.

The palace said that Andrew, 61, who has been accused by Virginia Giuffre of raping her while she was a teenager, would also no longer use the title “His Royal Highness,” a prized symbol of his status as a senior member of the royal family.

“With The Queen’s approval and agreement, The Duke of York’s military affiliations and Royal patronages have been returned to The Queen,” the palace said, using the prince’s formal title. “The Duke of York will continue not to undertake any public duties and is defending this case as a private citizen.“

Andrew has denied Giuffre’s allegations, which date from a period in which he was friendly with the financier and convicted sex predator Jeffrey Epstein. The duke’s lawyers tried to get her lawsuit dismissed, but the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, ruled against him on Wednesday.

The decision by Buckingham Palace completes a stunning fall from grace for a man who was once one of the royal family’s most popular members — a dashing war hero and eligible bachelor — but who has since become a disgraced figure, left to explain why he associated with a convicted criminal like Epstein.

The announcement by Buckingham Palace came after extensive discussions within the royal family, according to people with ties to the palace. It was designed to head off an effort by Andrew to rehabilitate himself, according to one person. The language in Buckingham Palace’s statement, officials said, was meant to underscore the permanence of the sanction against him.

Andrew had been largely banished from public life since November 2019, when he gave a disastrous interview to the BBC in which he insisted he had never met Giuffre and made several claims to deflect her charges, among them that he was medically incapable of sweating, as she had asserted.

But the prince, who served as a helicopter pilot in the Falklands War, continued to hold several honorary military titles, some of which he had inherited from his late father, Prince Philip. That aroused protests from veterans of those units, who said it was unseemly to be under the command of someone with such charges hanging over him.