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Deep rifts, humiliation and anger: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is now one of the many royals who have lost their beloved titles.
Disgraced Andrew was stripped of the last of his remaining titles on Monday, leaving him as a simple commoner.
The King’s brother had already lost his Duke of York and prince monikers, and is now no longer a member of the Order of the Garter, or a Knight of the Grand Cross of the Royal Victoria Order.
Royal commentators and even a palace butler say other royals who suffered a similar fate have struggled to ever adjust and remained bitter for decades.
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Expert Richard Fitzwilliams told Metro: ‘It is a unique humiliation. Titles shouldn’t mean as much as they used to, but they do.
‘The reason for this is a title if it is part of you, whether you have married into it or not. It is personally precious.’
Butler Grant Harrold, who served the then Prince of Wales at his private residence at Highgrove from 2004 to 2011, said: ‘Royals do have a problem adjusting to life without their titles as they believe their titles are a given right.’
He revealed the King once told him: ‘When you acknowledge or bow or courtesy, it is not to the person, it is to the title.’
Metro take a look at the people who left The Firm – and how they’ve fared.
One of the most famous title losses in British history saw King Edward VIII abdicate over his marriage to twice-divorcee Wallis Simpson.
His successor, King George VI, made Edward the Duke of Windsor and Wallis the Duchess of Windsor, but Wallis was denied the style ‘Her Royal Highness’ (HRH).
This decision was against royal practice and triggered a lifelong animosity from the pair that caused chaos for the royals.
Mr Fitzwilliams explained: ‘He never forgave it. His later behaviour towards the royal family was heavily influenced by what he saw as a deliberate personal swipe.
‘It is reported that on his deathbed, he requested that Queen Elizabeth give Wallis the title.’
The Duke vowed never to return to England unless Wallis was an HRH.
While he did come back, alone for his brother’s funeral, Wallis never got the title she sought.
After her divorce with then Prince Charles was finalised in 1996, Diana lost her HRH (Her Royal Highness) title.
The loss of this honour sent her down the proverbial pecking order and meant she was no longer entitled to curtseys, bows and other acknowledgements.
It was reported at the time that technically Diana had to curtsy to those who still had the HRH title, including even her own children and ex-husbands.
She was reportedly upset by the decision, with reports also claiming then 14-year-old William has vowed to give it back to her.
Despite this, the Princess of Wales still received many of the same formalities from members of the public.
Mr Harrold, who also worked as a butler for Harry and William, explained: ‘Once you have been a royal, even if you have lost your title, people still treat you like a royal.
‘You still get VIP treatment. You are still a celebrity and carry that status. I have witnessed it first hand.
‘Diana was always seen as the Princess of Wales. People may not have referred to her as ‘Your Royal Highness”, I still saw people bowing and curtseying to her. This showed people still saw her as a royal.’
After stepping back as working royals in 2020, Prince Harry, together with his wife Meghan retained their titles of Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
However the pair agreed not to use ‘HRH‘ and to give up official royal duties and funding.
This has become a sticking point for the pair, who are often accused of trying to cache in on their royal status.
This was thrown into the spotlight when it was revealed in a Harper’s Bazaar interview with Meghan revealed a house manager called out ‘Duchess of Sussex’ when she entered a room.
Mr Fitzwilliams says the couple have ‘capably skated around that’ agreement as much as they can because they ‘know what cachet titles have’.
The commentator branded the moment ‘ridiculous’, while other royal experts leapt to Meghan’s defence, saying Americans ‘get very excited’ about titles.
Mr Harrold, who spent years inside the fold, reckons the former Prince might struggle with the loss of his titles.
He said: ‘Andrew will find it difficult. He will begrudge no longer having the royal trappings.’
One issue which remains for the royal family is Andrew’s dukedom in York.
Mr Fitzwilliams believes it will take a very long time before that title is ever handed to another royal.
He explained: ‘The extraordinary thing about certain titles is that they are associated with those who held it. The York title is identified with Andrew.
‘In any road or school which is named after Andrew, they are now trying to change it.
‘It will be a long time before those titles are used again.’
Andrew is still eighth in line for the throne, and the government says it has no plans to pass a law to formally remove Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from the order.
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After a long working week, Deborah Joseph walked through the door of her London home at 7pm – and then immediately U-turned at a question millions of working mothers are sick of hearing.
‘My husband asked, “what’s for dinner?” My kids were screaming and fighting,’ she tells Metro. ‘I literally walked out the house and went for a two-hour drive, and ended up not doing dinner, not doing anything. I just thought: “‘I can’t. Something’s got to change.”’
And it did. Her husband committed to taking on more of the household’s mental load, joining the school Whatsapp groups for a start. In turn, Deborah promised herself she’d take on less. 30% less, to be precise.
That night in 2019, she committed to living a ‘70% life’, a term she’s since patented. It’s all about living 100% of your life, 70% of the time. You ditch the other 30% and quit chasing a warped picture of perfection.
‘I don’t think you can do 100% in life, and if you do, you end up burnt out, miserable and actually not doing anything well,’ says Deborah, who was Editor-In-Chief of GLAMOUR at the time of her epiphany.
‘I tried to do 100% because that’s how I’d been brought up, to think you have to be good at everything and achieve everything and succeed at everything. And actually, I ended up feeling I wasn’t succeeding at anything.’
For Deborah, shaving off 30% meant getting extra childcare help for her kids, who were two, four and six at the time. Other parents have since co-opted the idea of 70/30 parenting, focussing on the big stuff and giving themselves a break on the remainder.
That might mean following through with ‘gentle parenting’ 70% of the time, but cutting yourself some slack if you occasionally falter. Or, it might mean popping your toddler in front of the Teletubbies after a day of tantrums that’s left everyone exhausted.
‘They are not going to be in counselling slagging you off in 30 years’ time because you put them in front of the TV for an hour,’ Deborah reassures me, after I recall a day last week that left me in tears.
‘I think women sometimes think, “oh, it’s not good for my child”, but actually, if you’re not in a good way mentally, then you can’t be the best mother for them. So sometimes, you have to put yourself first in order to be the best parent.’
Deborah’s take on 70% parenting centres on prioritising the ‘overall picture of what kind of parent and family you want to create for your child, and then accepting that there are some things you aren’t able to do’.
Parenting author and mum-of-four Sarah Ockwell-Smith takes this concept one step further, claiming that 70/30 parenting allows your children to see vital ‘flaws’.
‘If you’re always perfect, that’s a really unrealistic role model for your kids,’ she recently told the BBC. ‘They’ll never learn how to make mistakes or know how to apologise.’
Psychotherapist Julia Goodall backs this up, saying it’s ‘really important for children’s sense of self’ to see ‘imperfect’ parents.
‘When they see someone they admire and love making manageable mistakes and coping with these with a mixture of self compassion, and/or humour, it will help them to build the belief that they too can make mistakes and will be alright,’ she tells Metro.
‘Importantly, this does not mean showing no emotion — it might be that parents demonstrate manageable anger/disappointment/sadness but are able to move through this rather than shutting down or lashing out. Even when we don’t manage this, narrating the experience for our kids also helps them to feel okay about dysregulation being a normal part of being human.’
Research suggests that ‘getting it right’ 70% of the time is even aiming quite high.
‘Early attachment research shows that for children to be securely attached, parents only needed to be ‘getting it right’ 30% of the time. This means that 30% of the time caregivers needed to be correctly reading a baby’s cues of hunger/thirst/tiredness/discomfort and responding appropriately,’ Jullia says.
‘It is so good for our children to see us cry now and then!’ says Julia. ‘It shows them that we are human too, and that feelings are to be FELT not controlled. It also models learning about your own limits for them, that this is lifelong work and not something everyone is taught.
‘In your instance you could narrate this to them saying something like ‘I felt so overwhelmed this morning! I planned too many things for today and didn’t notice that my body was telling me to slow down, or to ask for help. I’m not always very good at knowing when my body needs a rest, but I’m learning to be better at listening to my body.’ You could even go quite granular here and ask them if they know when their body is feeling overwhelmed—saying something like ‘I sometimes feel my heart beating very fast, or feeling a bit hot’.
‘Letting kids in on the messiness of life early on will make it much easier for them to read their body’s cues and show themselves compassion when big feelings arrive. You could give them an easy to remember line like ‘all feelings come and go, it’s safe to feel them and then let them go’.
Deborah is now a freelance writer, working on a book, and now that her children are older, the ‘30%’ she lets go of is largely around picking her battles.
She’s stopped commenting on what her teenage daughters wear when they leave the house, deciding that to focus on ‘positive conversations’, rather than their skirt length. She’s also made a conscious decision to stop the daily rows about untidy bedrooms. After all, she can just close the door.
‘I try to focus on making sure they eat healthily, or spending time with them one on one,’ she says. ‘I think those things in the long run are more important than whether their room is tidy.’
Most importantly, she doesn’t allow society to shame her for her chosen ‘70%’, because she’s finally confident in her own decisions.
‘I don’t know what an ideal parent looks like, because one person’s idea of an ideal parent isn’t another person’s idea of an ideal parent,’ she explains.
‘You might look at my 70% and think “I don’t agree with that”, or I might look at yours and think “I don’t agree with that”, and that’s absolutely fine.
‘It’s just a personal decision for every single woman about how they want to live, and how they want to bring up their kids.’