Of course. How silly of me. The military’s version of The Onion (Duffel Blog) ran a headline every now and then about senior officers fired for misconduct being “forced to resign with O-5 pension and benefits.” Oh, the humanity!
The tradition in that family, for obvious reasons, is that almost everything goes to the Eldest Boy so, while Andrew would have received some inheritances (e.g. from the Queen Mother) they would have been modest compared to what his brother got and, more relevantly, compared to the demands of the lifestyle that he has been leading.
He would have some other sources of assets — e.g the house which Mummy gave him as a wedding present he later sold for £15 million to a shady central Asian businessman — and while he was a UK “special trade representative” he was reportedly the middleman in various shonky deals which may have netted him a few shillings here and there. Nobody really knows.
When he gave up the trade gig in 2011 Mummy gave him an annual allowance which, by the time of her death, was reportedly about £1 million. That, presumably, roughly correlates with the cost of the lifestyle he was leading. It’s unlikely that whatever he managed to save in the 1990s and 2000s, even if he hasn’t spent it in the last 15 years, amounts to enough to sustain that kind of life indefinitely.
Reports are that the king has now agreed to provide him not only with free accommodation at Sandringham but also with a living allowance — well, the man can hardly be expected to poach his own eggs of a morning, can he? — and I don’t think the allowance would be provided if it wasn’t necessary. So I’m guessing he doesn’t have (what the royal family would regard as) much in the way of accumulated assets.
My understanding is there are plenty of others who are guests of the crown provided with room and board, with someone cooking their meals etc and even providing clothing, for life, or at least for a term of years. However, their surroundings are much less posh.
I’m curious to what extent this aspect of the law has been tested in court. It makes sense, but I don’t recall reading anything about such cases. But then, it seems quite often the customers are not charged (by the police, that is…)
I’m stealing this.
Help yourself.
I make no claim that it’s never been said by somebody else before, but I did make it up on my own; it’s not something I read somewhere and repeated.
So, now that Andrew can never be King of England, who is next in line? Not Harry and his vamp wife, I hope. Maybe it’s time to abolish the monarchy altogether? How many scandals is it supposed to survive?
After Charles is William, then William’s kids, then Harry, then Harry’s kids. Andrew is after that. I don’t think that’s changed.
I’m genuinely curious now. Doesn’t Mr. Windsor still have some knighthoods? Shouldn’t he properly be described—in places that recognize such titles, obviously not the US—as Sir Andrew? Or does the fact those orders were awarded to him purely because he was a member of the royal family mean that title could not apply? I believe, for example, that when an honorary knighthood is awarded to a “foreigner” (scare quotes, because sometimes the “foreigner” is an American, not foreign to me), they are allowed to apply the post-nominal to their name, but not the prefix/title “Sir” (or Dame).
Or were the knighthoods (or just their titles?) revoked with the rest of it?
Thanks, I lose track of this stuff! LOL
Speaking of losing track, I’m sure it’s somewhere in this thread, but what is Andrew accused of?
Sex with prostitutes?
Sex with underaged women?
Rape? (Other than statutory)
Being physically abusive?
Kidnapping?
Drug offenses?
Being overly friendly with a sleazeball?
Something else?
For now he can; only an Act of Parliament can amend the line of succession, and he’s still #8 in it. It seems that we’re now going to see a reenactment of the Titles Deprivation Act 1917, in the form of an Act of Parliament that revokes Andrew’s peerage, and of course while they’re doing that they could also include a clause in the statute eliminating him from the line of succession. But to be on the safe side they’d need concurrent legislation saying the same in all the other Commonwealth realms, so I would imagine they won’t bother doing that and just hope that his rank in the line of succession is so remote they might as well accept the tail risk of leaving him there.
Nitpick: King of the United Kingdom, not England. There hasn’t been a king or queen of England since 1707 when the kingdoms of England and Scotland were merged to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, and later, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
In any event, according to one of the articles I read this morning, the one thing that has not yet been changed is Andrew’s line in the succession. That would require an act of Parliament, which may well happen at some point, but hasn’t yet.
From what I understand, all of his titles, honors, and privileges were revoked, including knighthoods.
They’ll also need an Act of Parliament to revoke the peerage. This isn’t urgent because he’s already stopped using the title, but as I understand it they’re still going to do it.
Thanks for picking that nit. Too many people, including me up to now, use the same incorrect terminology.
So, if I’m understanding this correctly, Elizabeth I was the Queen of England and Mary was the Queen of Scotland because that was before the merger. It changed because Scotland and England merged in 1707.
That’s correct. A century prior to that (in 1603), King James VI of Scotland (who had reigned in Scotland since 1567 upon the forced abdication of his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots) became king of England as well (upon the death of Elizabeth I), taking the title King James I of England.
So this resulted in the union of the Scottish and English crowns, with the same person reigning as monarch of two separate kingdoms. But in 1707, the kingdoms were merged.
So, instead of being King of Great Britain he was, in essence, 2 separate kings of 2 separate kingdoms? I’ll stop here because this is getting away from the OP, but I definitely have some questions about that.
So: HM is acting to remove de jure Andrew’s remaining ranks and titles (not just “stop using them”), and those that the King could just pull on his own w/o Parliament/Government he has already.
The order of succession though as mentioned stands irrespective of “good character” of the individual unless there is a specific Act of Parliament to the contrary, as they did in accepting Edward VIII’s abdication, and as mentioned it would require all the parliaments of the Realms to agree on it. I agree that as Andrew is by now well back in the queue behind Lilibet they may not bother, or some cheeky island may even go ahead and do a troll enactment saying “if it ever gets to THIS guy getting the throne, hello Republic”.
Yes. Two parliaments, two very different State Churches, etc., one person with different regnal numbers if the name was duplicated.
In the 50s Churchill proposed that going forward the numbering of any future monarch whose name had been used in both England and Scotland get the higher applicable number. We’d have to wait a while to see if anyone takes that up.
Yes. He was King of England, Scotland and Ireland [he also used the nominal title of King of France]. England (with Wales) and Scotland were two separate legal entities, and Ireland was a client kingdom of England under the same thing.
James personally liked to style himself “King of Great Britain” (Great Britain covering England with Wales and Scotland) - he liked the idea of merging the two kingdoms, but Parliament wouldn’t let him merge them. So the former was an alternative style of the King that he liked to use.
This is not so different from today’s situation, where Charles is simultaneously King of the UK, of Australia, of Canada, and a whole range of other Kingdoms. The term you want to google for this set-up is “personal union” (as opposed to a “real union”, where the different kingdoms are merged rather than simply sharing the same monarch while staying legally distinct).