The Prince and Princess of Wales are often praised for their efforts to protect their three young children from the weight of their futures. As Prince George prepares to one day become King, Prince William and Princess Kate are ensuring that Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis are given the opportunity to carve out their own paths without being shadowed by their older brother’s royal duties.
Following the release of Prince Harry’s memoir Spare, royal expert Jennie Bond claimed that William and Kate are ‘acutely’ aware of the challenges that their younger children face, telling The Mirror last year that the couple has ‘already shown that they have a different and modern attitude to bringing up royal children’. While Charlotte is ‘likely’ to become a working royal, insiders had previously suggested that Louis would receive the Duke of York title when William becomes King, as it’s traditionally handed down to the monarch’s second son.
The late Queen Elizabeth II gifted the Dukedom to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his wife, Sarah Ferguson, when they married in 1986, and it reportedly held sentimental value for her as her father, King George VI, and her grandfather, King George V, both held the title. However, in light of the fact that Andrew was recently stripped of his titles, royal expert Hilary Fordwich claims that the Duke of York title may not be handed to Louis at all given it’s association with his great-uncle.
Theorising that it could remain unused for many years, she told Fox News Digital: “The terribly tarnished title of Duke of York will not be offered to Prince Louis or, for that matter, any other royal, probably in our lifetimes, nor in the foreseeable future. It will most likely be put in abeyance to die with Prince Andrew. Tradition should be abandoned to restore public trust and to demonstrate moral clarity.”
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Fordwich adds: “The break with centuries-old tradition is a result of the severity of Andrew’s scandal. William won’t wish his son to be tarnished by any memories of his disgraced great-uncle.”
The Prince of Wales has been vocal about his desire to make impactful changes within the monarchy when he becomes King, and recent reports suggest that Princess Kate was ‘instrumental’ in the decision to remove Andrew’s titles.