- - King Charles Allows Brother Andrew to Keep War Medal After Being Stripped of Titles and Honors

Meredith KileNovember 5, 2025 at 11:28 PM

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Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty; Anwar Hussein Collection/ROTA/WireImage

King Charles III; Prince Andrew -

The former Prince Andrew will be able to keep his military medal from the Falklands War, Buckingham Palace confirmed

The news comes a week after King Charles announced he will strip his younger brother of his royal titles and residence amid the fallout from multiple scandals

While he will keep his medal earned in service, Andrew will be stripped of his "last remaining title," his honorary rank as vice admiral in the Royal Navy

Following King Charles' decision to strip his younger brother, the former Prince Andrew, of his royal titles and residence, it has been determined that he will also lose his honorary rank as vice admiral in the Royal Navy. However, he will be allowed to keep his medals earned in service.

Defense Secretary John Healey confirmed the removal of Andrew's "last remaining title" to The Telegraph on Sunday, Nov. 2, but he said the government was following the King's lead when it came to his medals. On Nov. 5, Buckingham Palace confirmed the decision to allow Andrew to keep them.

The palace first announced that Andrew, 65, was officially being stripped of all of his titles, including prince, on Thursday, Oct. 30. He will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.

The move is the culmination of the fallout from multiple scandals, the most prominent being the former prince's relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Despite Andrew's repeated denial of claims of sexual assault made against him, PEOPLE understands that the King's decision came from the belief that his brother had serious lapses in judgment.

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Prince Andrew (L) is greeted by his parents, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip (R) after returning home from the Falklands

However, as Andrew served 22 years in the Navy and fought in the Falklands War, public opinion was divided on stripping him of his military honors.

“We need to get hold of our moral compass,” Simon Weston, a Falklands veteran who was severely burned when his troop was attacked during the conflict, told The Telegraph. “Andrew has been stripped of every bit of dignity and honour bestowed on him by his family and country. He has been stripped of being a prince, which was his birthright. Those were things given to him and inherited."

"But this is something that he earned from his own duty and action. That’s a line in the sand," Weston added.

Another veteran of the conflict who spoke with the publication anonymously agreed that taking Andrew's Falklands medal back would be an overreach by the government.

“Instinctively, if one does something brave, it seems extraordinary to then go and say someone hasn’t done something brave,” they said.

Andrew was just 22 years old when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a territory of the United Kingdom. He served as a Sea King helicopter co-pilot during the conflict, which lasted just over two months.

Despite the fact that he had only been with the 820 Naval Air Squadron for nine weeks when the war began, the former prince helped carry out anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, casualty evacuation and search and rescue missions.

For his bravery, he was awarded the South Atlantic Medal, known as the Falklands Medal. His honor included an additional rosette for his actions, which was given to only about a tenth of the 33,000 soldiers and sailors who received the medal.

Weston said stripping Andrew of the medal would be an insult to those who have served in the British armed forces. He also noted that other veterans who have committed crimes have not had their medals taken away.

"It’s trivialising what the medal stands for. It’s not a gift. It’s something you earn,” he said. “Who he has been involved with is abhorrent... but it’s not right to take his medal away.”

Samir Hussein/WireImage

Prince Andrew, King Charles III, Princess Anne, and Prince Andrew at Westminster Abbey for the State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II on September 19, 2022 in London, England.

Andrew was first stripped of his military titles and patronages by his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth, in January 2022, after he attempted to have Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre’s sexual assault lawsuit against him dismissed. The Duke of York repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and, in February 2022, settled with Giuffre out of court for an undisclosed sum.

Giuffre died by suicide on April 24, 2025. She was 41.

As a result of the Queen's decision, Andrew was the only one of his siblings not permitted to wear military dress during her state funeral on Sept. 19, 2022.

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In August, royal biographer Andrew Lownie released Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, which chronicled Andrew's scandals to date. In an interview with Sky News promoting the book, Lownie suggested that the loss of his titles, regalia and "royal status" was something that deeply bothered Queen Elizabeth's second son.

"That's what really sort of gave him his whole sense of identity... being able to put on his uniforms and strut around and being self-important," Lownie said.

"I don't think he has any public future. I would say his private future is pretty limited, too," the author added. "He plays golf, watches TV and presumably sees his grandchildren... He's living the life of a retired man."

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