Kinlight · The British Royal Line

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

1960 – · Generation XXXVIII · House of Windsor

Portrait of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, Duke of York, was born at Buckingham Palace on 19 February 1960, the third child and second son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. He was the first child born to a reigning British monarch since 1857, and until the birth of his nephew Prince William in 1982 he was second in line to the throne. He was educated at Heatherdown School near Ascot and at Gordonstoun in Scotland, with six months in 1977 as an exchange student at Lakefield College School in Canada.

He joined the Royal Navy in 1979, trained at Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, and qualified as a helicopter pilot in 1981. In 1982 he served in the Falklands War as a Sea King co-pilot aboard the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible, flying missions that included anti-submarine patrols, casualty evacuation and acting as a decoy for Exocet missiles. The Cabinet had wanted to move him to a desk job for the duration, but the Queen insisted that he stay with his ship. He later flew Lynx helicopters, served as a helicopter warfare officer, commanded the mine countermeasures vessel HMS Cottesmore in 1993–1994 and worked at the Ministry of Defence, retiring from active service in 2001 with the rank of commander.

On 23 July 1986 he married Sarah Ferguson and was created Duke of York on the same day. Their daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, were born in 1988 and 1990. The couple separated in 1992 and divorced in 1996. From 2001 to 2011 he served as the United Kingdom’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment, and he stepped down after scrutiny of his expenses and of his associations with controversial figures.

His long association with the American financier Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender, ended his public career. Virginia Giuffre alleged that Epstein had trafficked her and that she was forced to have sex with Andrew in 2001, when she was 17. He has always denied the allegations. After a BBC Newsnight interview about Epstein in November 2019 drew heavy criticism, he withdrew from public duties. Giuffre brought a civil claim against him in the United States in 2021, and in February 2022 it was settled out of court without any admission of liability. In the same year his military affiliations and royal patronages were removed and he stopped using the style His Royal Highness.

Giuffre died in April 2025. On 17 October 2025, days before her memoir was published, Andrew agreed after discussions with the King to stop using his titles and honours, including the dukedom, and on 30 October Buckingham Palace announced that Charles III had begun a formal process to remove them. Letters patent issued on 3 November took away the title of prince and the style Royal Highness, his appointments to the Order of the Garter and the Royal Victorian Order were annulled, and he now uses the family surname Mountbatten-Windsor. He also gave up his lease of Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park and in February 2026 moved to the King’s private Sandringham estate in Norfolk.

On 30 January 2026 the United States Department of Justice released a large batch of documents from the Epstein files. According to news reports, emails among them appeared to show that in 2010 Andrew had passed to Epstein confidential reports from his official visits as trade envoy. On 19 February 2026, his 66th birthday, Thames Valley Police arrested him at Sandringham on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He was released without charge about eleven hours later and, as reported in February 2026, remained under investigation. The King said in a statement that “the law must take its course.” Andrew did not comment on the new allegations at the time and has always denied wrongdoing. As of early 2026 he remained eighth in the line of succession to the throne.

Place in the family

  • Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is a son of Queen Elizabeth II.
  • Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is the third of 4 children of Philip Mountbatten and Queen Elizabeth II recorded in this archive.
  • The archive records 7 of his descendants, across 2 generations.

Images

One of 53 people of House of Windsor (from 1917) in this archive. The present house — it renamed itself Windsor in 1917, setting aside the German title Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Line of descent: Owen Tudor → Edmund Tudor → King Henry VII → Margaret Tudor → King James V of Scotland → Mary Queen of Scots → King James I → Elizabeth Stuart → Sophia of Hanover → King George I → King George II → Frederick Prince of Wales → King George III → Edward Duke of Kent → Queen Victoria → King Edward VII → King George V → King George VI → Queen Elizabeth II → Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

Read more on Wikipedia

Parents

Siblings

Partners

  • Married Sarah Ferguson (1959 – ) in 1986; the marriage was dissolved in 1996 — 2 children together

Children

Life

  • 1960 — Born
  • 1986 — Married Sarah Ferguson
  • 1996 — Separated from Sarah Ferguson

Sources

  1. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor · Encyclopaedia Britannica
  2. Former Prince Andrew arrested over suspected misconduct in public office · CBS News
  3. 5 things to know about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest and release · PBS News (Associated Press)
  4. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor · Wikipedia

Open Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in the interactive tree