Prince Andrew will keep his Freedom of the City of London honour after a formal review concluded that, legally, there is no way to take it away from him. The decision leaves the distinction as one of the few significant honours still attached to the King's younger brother, who has already lost his royal titles, his military patronages, and his public duties in the wake of the Epstein scandal.
The review was prompted by the most serious development yet: Andrew's arrest in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office, following allegations that sensitive information may have been shared with Jeffrey Epstein. He denies the allegations and has not been charged in connection with them. Police reportedly held him for around eleven hours while officers searched properties tied to him, including his residence on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk and Royal Lodge in Windsor, the Berkshire home he occupied for decades before being ordered out.
Granted by Birth, Untouchable by Design
The reason for the review's conclusion lies in how the honour was originally given. Andrew received the Freedom of the City of London in 2012 through a process known as patrimony, meaning it was conferred automatically because his father, Prince Philip, had already held the same status. No council voted. No application was judged. The honour flowed to him the way titles flow through a family line.
According to a spokesperson speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, that origin is precisely what makes removal impossible. Applications granted by patrimony are not considered by elected members of the City of London Corporation, and because no elected body ever awarded the honour, no formal mechanism exists to withdraw it once granted. The honour is treated as a legal status rather than a revocable award, and revoking something never consciously given has, apparently, no established procedure.
An Ancient Honour With Odd Privileges
The Freedom of the City of London is one of the oldest traditions connected to the capital, regarded as the highest civic honour the Corporation can bestow. In modern times it usually recognizes notable contributions to public life, business, or the city itself, with recipients nominated by council members and approved through a vote. Famous recipients across the centuries include statesmen, scientists, and cultural figures, alongside assorted royalty.
The honour also carries a collection of ceremonial privileges accumulated across centuries, most famously the theoretical right to drive sheep across London Bridge, a tradition still occasionally performed for charity and cameras. Recipients are also traditionally entitled to be escorted home by the city's police if found drunk, a mythic perk more beloved in retelling than in practice. Few of these rights function today, but they illustrate how the Freedom exists in a legal category older, and stranger, than ordinary civic awards, one governed by custom and medieval precedent rather than by the modern rules that govern royal titles and patronages.
The Symbolism Problem
That legal technicality creates an uncomfortable public contradiction. An institution can strip a prince of his dukedom, his style, and his role in the armed forces, yet the ancient Corporation of London cannot remove a purely ceremonial honour. Critics argue the Corporation could still censure Andrew symbolically or request he relinquish the honour voluntarily, as some honorees have done in other controversies. So far, no such request has been made, and Andrew has shown no indication of surrendering the last significant formal recognition he still holds, even as every other honour and affiliation has fallen away around him.
Defenders of the decision note that the Corporation followed the law rather than sentiment, and that inventing a retroactive revocation procedure for one individual would undermine the rules protecting all honorees. The episode nevertheless illustrates the awkward patchwork of British honours: some are gifts that can be reclaimed, some are inherited statuses that cannot, and the public often cannot tell the difference until a scandal reveals it.
What It Means Going Forward
In practical terms, the Freedom changes little. It carries no income, no property, and no duties, and Andrew cannot perform public ceremonies in any official capacity. Its value to him is almost entirely symbolic - the last formal thread connecting him to a public life that ended in disgrace. For the City of London, the review closes a politically uncomfortable chapter as cleanly as the law allows.
The broader story is one of shrinking options. As investigations connected to the Epstein files continue, further scrutiny seems inevitable, and each institution that once honoured Andrew has now either cut ties or explained why it cannot. The Freedom of the City falls into the second category, preserved by an accident of birthright. A man stripped of nearly everything retains, by legal technicality, the ancient right to march sheep over a bridge in the capital - a detail almost too perfect for the strangest royal downfall in living memory.
