LONDON (AP) — With prestige but not power, the British monarchy is keenly attuned to public sentiment.
This was evident in the disgrace of Andrew Mountbatten of Windsor, who was stripped of his princely title and spacious home by his brother King Charles on Thursday. The ouster has left the disgraced royal increasingly vulnerable to political and legal scrutiny over his finances and friendship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
After years of scandals surrounding Andrew, Charles took perhaps the biggest step of his reign by seeking to shield the monarchy from any further scandals surrounding Andrew and his links to Epstein, who killed himself in prison in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, more than a decade after his initial conviction.
This is not the first time the current version of the British monarchy – the House of Windsor – has faced crisis in the last century and the future of the institution has been at risk.
First World War
George Grosz, a royal expert at King's College London, said the most recent precedent for what happened to Andrew was the Dispossession Act of 1917, which “led to various members of loosely associated royals, dukes and members of the peerage losing their titles if they sided with Germany in the First World War.”
The royal families of Europe are intertwined, and Britain's is largely German, especially after Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, with whom she had nine children.
When Britain and Germany went to war in 1914, some members of the British royal family found themselves on opposing sides.
Britain's King George V changed the surname from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor in 1917 and initiated legislation to abolish the titles of princes and lords “who, during the present war, have taken up arms against His Majesty or His allies or have joined His Majesty's enemies.”
One of the targets was Prince Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, a member of the British royal family and also Prince of Hanover. His title was stripped of his title as Enemy of Britain under the 1917 Act, which was passed in 1919 after the end of the war.
According to the House of Commons Library, “this was the first and only time such a title had been removed in this manner.”
Renunciation
The relationship between Edward, Prince of Wales, and American socialite Wallis Simpson was a headache that developed into a constitutional crisis. Simpson was twice divorced, and Edward, heir to the throne, was destined to become the ceremonial head of the Church of England, which did not allow divorced people to remarry in the church.
The prince became King Edward VIII when his father, King George V, died in early 1936. He continued to say he wanted to marry Simpson, despite the British government's opposition.
Forced to choose between duty and passion, he abdicated the throne in December 1936, declaring in a radio broadcast that “I have found it impossible … to perform my duties as king as I would like, without the help and support of the woman I love.”
This news came as a surprise to many in Britain, but nothing more. British newspapers did not write about the relationship, and American magazines cut offending articles before going on sale.
The abdication set the monarchy on a new course. Edward's younger brother ascended the throne as King George VI. He was succeeded by his daughter, Queen Elizabeth II, and, after her 70-year reign, by her son, King Charles III. Everyone focused on the idea that the main attribute of a monarch should be a sense of duty – something that, in the popular imagination, Edward lacked.
Edward and Wallis, now the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, suspected by some of Nazi sympathies, were sent to the Bahamas, where he served as governor. After the war they largely stayed away from Britain, leading a nomadic life of luxury.
Death of Princess Diana
The death of Princess Diana – Charles's ex-wife – in a car crash in Paris in 1997 at the age of 36 shocked the world and left her family in mourning, including sons William and Harry, then aged 15 and 12.
The strength of public opinion took the royal family by surprise. Piles of flowers lined the gates of Buckingham Palace in memory of the princess, who was ostracized by the royal family after her divorce from Charles in 1992.
The Queen was at Balmoral in Scotland for the summer holidays with her husband Prince Philip, Charles, William and Harry. The family kept their grief private and stuck to a daily routine, taking the ash-faced boys to church on Sunday mornings and the Queen making no announcement for several days.
She was advised to publicly demonstrate her grief by Prime Minister Tony Blair, who perfectly captured the public mood by calling Diana “the people’s princess.”
Following newspaper headlines calling for “Talk to us, ma'am” and “Show us you care”, the Queen made a live televised address to the nation ahead of Diana's funeral.
“What I say to you now, as your queen and as your grandmother, I say from the bottom of my heart,” the queen said, acknowledging the country’s grief, praising Diana and promising to cherish her memory.
The problem with Harry
Until the Epstein scandal broke again last year, Andrew tried to win back the family's affections. He may have indirectly benefited from problems with Prince Harry, who was the source of much of the drama at the time, on top of the family's high-profile medical problems.
Harry became estranged from his father and older brother, Prince William, the heir to the throne, when he and his wife Meghan quit their jobs and moved to California in 2020. The couple famously aired their grievances against the royal family in a tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey and in a revealing Netflix series. Harry, also known as the Duke of Sussex, then fueled tensions by revealing private conversations in his memoir, The Spare One.
Harry also broke royal protocol by going to court to resolve his legal issues. He became the first senior member of the royal family to give evidence in court in more than a century in his successful phone hacking claim against the Daily Mirror.
However, a failed legal attempt to restore his police protection, which was stripped from him when he left the royal job, was seen as an attack on his father's government.
When the courts finally rejected the lawsuit, it opened the door for father and son to reunite. In September, they had a cup of tea at Charles's London residence, Clarence House. This was their first meeting in more than a year. It lasted less than an hour.
