🔗 Share this article

The Duke's removal from the last vestiges of royal life has not only altered his path - it's sending ripples through his family too.

Sarah Ferguson's New Status

His ex-wife has now surrendered her ducal status and will simply be known as Sarah Ferguson.

For Sarah, sixty-six, the transition will be the most apparent.

For all these years, she has kept the courtesy royal divorcee title Sarah, Duchess of York. Now, she returns to her maiden name of Ferguson.

"She will have lost a certain prestige over this," said one royal commentator. "She definitely utilizes the title – even her social media profile is @SarahTheDuchess."

But the relinquishment of her status may affect her much less than the controversy she's dealing with independently about her own connections to Jeffrey Epstein.

Last month, several charities removed her as patron after correspondence from 2011 showed that she referred to Epstein her "greatest ally" and seemed to apologise for her negative comments of him.

Business Ventures and Philanthropy

Away from her philanthropy, Ferguson also has multiple commercial enterprises.

And these, too, are more likely to be affected by the Epstein scandal than any change in title, says one monarchy analyst.

But Ferguson has been a remarkable endure in monarchical networks. She's kept bouncing back.

"She is the ultimate survivor and expert at transforming," commented one monarchy writer.

The Princesses

For the couple's two daughters, Beatrice, thirty-seven, and Eugenie, thirty-five, there's no official alteration.

They continue to be known as princesses, which they have been granted since birth.

Additionally there is no modification to the royal succession order.

The prince stays eighth position to the crown, followed by his daughters Beatrice and Eugenie, in ninth and twelfth place respectively.

But in reality their standing are "low down" and will likely become much further down as time goes on.

Future Prospects

The princesses are also currently non-official royals, and while they occasionally accept positions – Princess Eugenie was recently announced as a mentor for the monarch's charity network – experts also say they "don't envision a world" in which they would advance into royal duties.

"Regarding Beatrice and Eugenie go, I think there's an appreciation of the reality that this scandal isn't about them, and it's not fair for it to affect them directly in the separate paths they are building for themselves," says one royal commentator.

"Their daughters are most unfortunate affected parties, they've had to suffer in silence and have been composed in their silence," states another monarchy writer.

Final Impact

In the end, there appears to be little doubt that the person who will be most affected by these developments will be Prince Andrew himself.

For a man who consistently enjoyed the trappings of royalty, the pomp and the pageantry, the relinquishment of his honors is profoundly embarrassing.

Therefore lacking these, on a personal level, will really matter.