Andrew Mountbatten Windsor will reportedly receive a substantial six-figure payout along with an ongoing annual stipend, as part of a “relocation agreement” following his departure from Royal Lodge.
The lump sum is intended to cover his move from Windsor to private accommodation in Sandringham, Norfolk.
This will be followed by regular payments designed to prevent him from “overspending on his new life as a commoner,” according to the the guardian newspaper.
The annual payment, said to be privately funded by King Charles, is said to be worth several times the value of his £20,000-a-year naval pension.
The payout report comes as claims suggest the decision to strip Andrew of his honors and titles was influenced by the Queen’s concerns about its impact on her work with victims of sexual abuse.
According to The Daily Telegraph, Camilla was dismayed by Andrew’s association with pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein and felt the ongoing dispute was getting in the way of her public duties.
The Queen has supported survivors of sexual assault and domestic abuse for years and it was recently revealed in a new book that she herself fought back against a man who groped her on a train when she was a teenager.
And The Times reported that Andrew agreed to leave Windsor after his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson made it clear she was leaving the property.
He will not be moving to Sandringham and will have to find his own property to live in.
The King stripped his younger brother of his titles as Prince and Duke of York in a dramatic move on Thursday night and a statement from Buckingham Palace emphasized that both he and Camilla were thinking of victims of abuse.
The statement read: “Their Majesties wish to make it clear that their thoughts and deepest condolences have been and will continue to be with the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”
The driving force behind the dismissal is understood to have been “serious errors of judgement” on Andrew’s part and the final decision was made by the King, with the support of his wider family, including the Prince of Wales.
In early October, it was announced that Andrew had agreed to stop using his titles but would remain prince and retain his dukedom ahead of the publication of memoirs by the late Virginia Giuffre, who had accused the former duke of sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager.
Andrew strongly denies the allegations.
The Daily Telegraph reported that the Queen was “deeply uncomfortable” about leading anti-abuse campaigns, including domestic abuse charity SafeLives, of which she is a patron, while Andrew remained a public figure.
The attack on Camilla in the 1960s was revealed in the book Power And The Palace: The Inside Story Of The Monarchy And 10 Downing Street by Valentine Low, a former royal reporter for The Times newspaper.
The King’s actions have effectively ended the public life of Andrew, who has also given up his 30-bedroom Royal Lodge home in Windsor and is moving to the private Sandringham estate, although he may not leave until the new year.
Queen Camilla is reportedly horrified by Andrews’ alleged links to Epstein (PA Wire)
Sandringham in Norfolk is the venue for the traditional Christmas gathering of members of the royal family and the delay will mean any potential meeting with Andrew over the festive period will be avoided.
A new YouGov poll found that while 79 per cent of people surveyed backed the King’s decision to strip Andrew of his titles, 58 per cent of 4,739 adults polled on Friday felt the royal family had moved too slowly to address the controversy.
There have also been a series of damaging allegations in the newspapers, including that Andrew tried to get the Metropolitan Police to dig up dirt for a smear campaign against Ms Giuffre.
The force previously said it is investigating the allegations after the Mail on Sunday newspaper claimed Andrew passed Giuffre’s date of birth and social security number to his taxpayer-funded bodyguard in 2011 and asked him to investigate.
The Public Accounts Committee has already confirmed it is writing to the Crown Estate, effectively Andrew’s landlord, and the Treasury asking for more information about the prince’s lease, which sparked a public outcry when it emerged he was paying a “peppercorn” rent.
Charles’ actions are already bearing fruit as Andrew’s name has been removed from the official list of the peerage, meaning his title of Duke of York will no longer be officially used.
In the coming days, the King is expected to send Lord Chancellor David Lammy the royal order, which affects the duchy, and letters patent that will formally remove Andrew’s right to use the title of prince and the style HRH.
Andrew stepped down from public duties in 2019, after his disastrous Newsnight interview about his friendship with Epstein, and as a non-working royal he does not serve as a state councillor, who can stand in for the monarch if he is abroad on an official trip or is ill.
He remains eighth in line to the throne, but in the highly unlikely scenario that Andrew was about to become monarch, public pressure is likely to intervene.
But there have been calls for legislation to stop any chance, however remote, of him becoming King.
York Central MP Rachael Maskell said Parliament should find time to remove Andrew from the line to the throne, saying: “I don’t think these things take a lot of time. They’re a couple of small clauses in a law.”
Downing Street said there were no plans for legislative changes when asked about the possibility of facilitating the removal of peerages in the future or removing Andrew from the line of succession.
The former duke had a “cast iron” lease for his Royal Lodge home and only after negotiations with the King’s representatives did he agree to give formal notice on Thursday to renounce the lease, which had more than 50 years left to run.
It has been reported that Andrew will not be moving to Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate, the property favored by the late Queen and her husband, the late Duke of Edinburgh, who preferred its cozy surroundings to Sandringham’s main house.
But there are other properties available, ranging from Park House, the birthplace and childhood home of Diana, Princess of Wales; to York Cottage, where King George V lived before becoming monarch.