'A living hell' How Andrew Mountbatten Windsor will cope with being a commoner

In The Queen and I, the novelist Sue Townsend imagined the monarchy being abolished and the royal family banished to a council estate, on a street known locally as Hell Close. That was wild, hilarious fiction.

- Mark Brown

Today it is a stone-cold fact that Prince Andrew has been abolished and banished. It's quite different from seeing out his days in a council house, but few imagine that his new life, somewhere on the lush Sandringham estate, will be anything other than a private hell.

Andrew is a commoner, but what will that mean? What will life be like for 65-year-old Andrew Mountbatten Windsor? Will it bring an end to the questions still being asked about his dealings with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein?

Royal observers believe Thursday's announcement represents nothing short of "absolute humiliation" for Andrew. Richard Fitzwilliams, a royal author and commentator, told the Guardian: "I think it will be pretty well a living hell for him, given his particular fondness for titles and his entitled attitude."

Andrew has never done himself any favours, Fitzwilliams says. The public have rarely warmed to him. "People see him as entitled, greedy and also unbelievably bovine because of that extraordinary Newsnight interview," he said.