Kate Middleton and Queen Camilla Reportedly Added a “Female Touch” to the Decision to Remove Prince Andrew’s Titles

The Gist

• On October 30, the landmark decision came down that Prince Andrew had lost all of his royal titles and privileges as well as his 30-room mansion, Royal Lodge.

• In a statement released that day, a source said they could sense “a female touch” in the wording of the release.

• The move was a “family decision,” involving not just King Charles and Prince William but also Queen Camilla and Kate Middleton.

The decision to remove the former Prince Andrew’s royal titles and privileges seems to truly have been a family affair, one involving not just King Charles and his heir to the throne, Prince William, but also Queen Camilla and Kate Middleton.

After the statement from Buckingham Palace came down that Andrew would now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, it was also revealed that the former Duke of York would also be vacating Royal Lodge, the 30-room mansion he shared with his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson. Andrew will now reside on the Sandringham estate, hours away from the Windsor estate where he has lived in Royal Lodge since 2003.

Of the decision, Charles “would have been really exasperated with it,” a source told People. “Andrew had been given so many chances and opportunities to do the right thing, and he would be exasperated that he had to make a difficult decision rather than Andrew dealing with it. He would find it quite painful.”

Though Charles and Andrew are reportedly not especially close, Andrew “is his brother, and he will feel some care and affection and concern for him,” the source said. “But he wouldn’t have wanted to make that decision. He would rather Andrew dealt with it.”

An insider told the outlet that they “sensed a female touch” in the statement released Thursday, speculating that Camilla and the Princess of Wales were also involved. Specifically regarding Camilla’s longtime work with victims of abuse and sexual assault, the closing paragraph of the statement is telling: “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,” the statement read.

“I would think the Queen had a hand in that,” the source said. “There would have been a push from Camilla and Catherine, and there was pressure from William, who would not want to inherit the headache.”

“It was a family decision,” the insider continued, adding the statement “was quite strong, and I was quite proud when I heard it.”

The Telegraph reported that Camilla expressed concerns that Andrew’s association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was undermining her work supporting sexual abuse victims, and that this was a part of the decision-making process that led Andrew to be stripped of all of his titles.

“The Queen is an extremely good judge of where the public mood is at any one time, and likewise the King is very tuned in to public sentiment because he meets so many people every day and is always out and about, so he knows what the temperature is,” a former courtier said. “Both of them know that they have to have the trust of the public because without that, they don’t have the agency to do their job.”

“This was an issue that was beginning to infect the whole institution’s ability to do its job,” the courtier added. “They could see that trust in the institution was being impacted.”

Andrew “had been dragging his heels,” a source told People, and a former courtier speaking to The Telegraph said, “It took a while to get everything sorted out because it was a complex process—you can’t always move at the speed of the media. But the King is acutely aware of when enough is enough.”

The King “has great integrity, and he’s had to balance family and fraternal love and what the institution and country needs and what is seen to be done,” a source speaking to People said. “At the end, he has got there and it is a tribute, with help from William, that they have. And they haven’t waited too long.”

Read the original article on InStyle