The King is reportedly considering the removal of Prince Andrew from the Order of the Garter with a sense of urgency, the Daily Mail has learned.

High-level discussions are currently taking place at Buckingham Palace following recent controversies surrounding the Duke of York.

There is even a possibility that an official statement might be released by the end of the day.

The Order of the Garter, established by Edward III in 1348, represents Britain’s most prestigious chivalric order.

This honor holds significant importance for Andrew, and losing it would be a considerable setback for him.

While the monarch holds the authority to revoke this honor, it is believed that King Charles would prefer if his brother chose to step down voluntarily.

As well as losing his membership of the Order of the Garter, tonight it emerged that Andrew could even give up all of his titles, including the Duke of York.

Andrew and Charles at Westminster Cathedral last month after the Duchess of Kent’s funeral

It was claimed he could put his titles ‘in abeyance’ – but would remain a prince, having been born the son of Elizabeth II.

It is understood Andrew has come under huge pressure from the King.

It was also claimed that the Duke’s ex-wife, Sarah, Duchess of York, could relinquish her title as well.

The final straw for the King is understood to have been The Mail on Sunday’s exclusive revelation last weekend that Andrew responded to the paper’s original report about his alleged sexual encounter with Virginia Giuffre by emailing Jeffrey Epstein and saying ‘we are in this together’.

Of course now the Duke claims never to have met Virginia and insists The Mail on Sunday’s extraordinary photograph of him with his arm around the then-17-year-old’s midriff was fake. 

One of the last people to be removed from the Order of the Garter was Emperor Hirohito of Japan after his country joined the Second World War in 1941.

Another option could be to strip Andrew of his Duke of York title, but this would involve an Act of Parliament and considerable parliamentary time, so is much less likely.

REBECCA ENGLISH: Why Andrew should spare his brother the anguish and fall on his sword

By REBECCA ENGLISH, ROYAL EDITOR 

There have been many ‘bad weeks’ for the Duke of York in recent years.

But this one feels different from others.

For a start it has seen incontrovertible proof, thanks to a world exclusive in The Mail on Sunday, that Prince Andrew out-and-out lied when he claimed to have only met convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein in December 2010 to break the news he could have nothing to do with him again.

Andrew told the BBC he felt meeting his friend face-to-face was the ‘honourable’ thing to do and he never had contact with him again.

Now we know that just 12 weeks later he secretly emailed the billionaire predator to reassure him, the day after a picture of them with alleged teenage sex victim Virginia Giuffre was first published, that ‘we are in this together’ and would have to ‘rise above it’.

Sickeningly he concluded: ‘Otherwise keep in close touch and we’ll play some more soon.’

It was signed ‘A, HRH The Duke of York, KG’, the final letters of which I will return to.

So much of the saga of recent years concerning the late Queen’s (allegedly favourite) son, Epstein and Mrs Giuffre – who tragically took her own life earlier this year but whose eviscerating beyond-the-grave memoir has also just been released – has focused on what amount to little more than claim and counter-claim.

Virginia Giuffre photographed with Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell in London in 2001 

The revelation of the email that he sent to the paedophile changes that.

Added to the latest unwelcome revelation that Andrew invited the senior Chinese official at the centre of the current Beijing spy case into Buckingham Palace for lunch in 2018 (one of too-many-to-mention scandals involving his shady business activities), it is fair to say that the situation has prompted crisis talks at Buckingham Palace.

My understanding is that ‘all options are on the table’ and that ‘active consideration’ is being given to everything from stripping him of his dukedom to finally kicking him out of the Order of the Garter, the country’s most ancient order of chivalry that most senior members of the Royal Family belong to for their loyal service to the Crown. This is given in the gift of the King.

Andrew also remains a Counsellor of State, able to step in and act for the monarch should he become incapacitated.

In reality, the chances of this happening are slim, but it is still a position of authority he holds.

Indeed, Andrew still – unbelievably – remains listed on the website as a member of the Royal Family, albeit with a significantly smaller profile alongside that of fellow royal troublemakers, Harry and Meghan.

When serious allegations first began to seep out against the prince more than 15 years ago, the Royal Family and their advisors were initially abysmally slow to act.

In 2011 Andrew was forced to step down from his roving role as a trade and industry ‘ambassador’ – seen by many as little more than a fig leaf to enjoy foreign jaunts and line his own pockets – after years of scandals.

But it wasn’t until January 2022 that Queen Elizabeth finally stripped him of his military titles and royal patronages and use of his HRH title following a judge’s ruling that he must defend a civil sexual assault claim brought by Mrs Guiffre in the United States. He eventually settled out of court without any admission of liability.

King Charles has similarly taken up cudgels against his younger brother in a private capacity, despite friends repeatedly emphasising that it is impossible for him to ‘sack’ him as a member of his family.

Shortly after acceding the throne, he quietly stripped Andrew of his private family allowance (he lost any remaining official tax-payer funding when he was forced to quit as a working royal) in a bid to ‘smoke’ him out of Royal Lodge, the 30-room mansion he still lavishly occupies with his ex-wife Sarah, Duchess of York at Windsor.

The feeling in the King’s camp is that Andrew’s pig-headed insistence on remaining in his Berkshire palace (for which he holds a 100-plus year lease) is placing him even more at risk from his own hubris – and at the mercy of forces hostile to the UK who will happily exploit both his stupidity and his desperation for money.

Should Andrew have accepted his offer of a smaller, more manageable property on the royal estate, Charles was even willing to reinstate his stipend and pay out of his own pocket for the prince to have private security guards.

But as a friend told me earlier this year: ‘There is only a limited amount that the king can do given that his brother is a grown man and a private individual now. He has cut him off financially, he no longer holds any official royal role, he has tried to help him – but that has all been rejected.’

The only option remaining to the King now is to strip his younger brother of every last vestige of respectability or links with public life.

Andrew, who was promoted as a Knight of the Order of the Garter in 2006, has always taken great delight including the letters KG after his name. It was in his sign off to that now-infamous email to Epstein and is something I am told he still uses today. 

Until now honours such as the Order of the Garter have only ever been taken away for treason or heresy.

But there is a growing feeling that, while no charges have ever been laid against him formally, Andrew’s cumulative behaviour over the years amounts to clear dereliction of his duty to both Crown and country.

As I said on the Daily Mail’s Palace Confidential show just this week, it would be a final act of public censure – and our viewers at least are clearly clamouring for the king to act.

Perhaps Andrew will save his brother the agony, do the decent thing and recuse himself?

Certainly it’s what the King has always hoped for.

‘The Garter is, of course, our highest honour of chivalry. How ironic it would be if the first time that quality was demonstrated by the Duke was in its voluntary forfeiture,’ one courtier said to me recently. ‘People might, just might, even respect him for it.’