Queen Victoria

Oct. 17 (UPI) — Prince Andrew, facing scrutiny of his ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, on Friday said he will relinquish his royal titles, including Duke of York, and end his membership of the Order of Garter.

Andrew, who made the announcement after meeting with his brother, King Charles III, will only retain the title of prince, which is required because he was born the son of a queen, Elizabeth II.

Andrew, 65, remains eighth in line to the throne. His other siblings are Princess Anne and Prince Edward.

The last time a duke title was taken away was more than 100 years ago, historian Anthony Seldon told BBC News TV. In 1919, Prince Charles Edward, who was one of Queen Victoria‘s grandsons, lost the title of Duke of Albany for fighting on the German side during World War I.

“In discussion with The King, and my immediate and wider family, we have concluded the continued accusations about me distract from the work of His Majesty and the Royal Family,” Prince Andrew said in a statement released by Buckingham Palace. “I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first. I stand by my decision five years ago to stand back from public life.”

In 2019, he was stripped of his military titles and positions on several charities.

Andrew has denied accusations against him by Virginia Giuffre in a 2015 lawsuit, and has never been arrested in connection with the abuse allegations. They reached an undisclosed out-of-court settlement in 2022.

“With His Majesty’s agreement, we feel I must now go a step further. I will therefore no longer use my title or the honours which have been conferred upon me,” Andrew said on Friday. “As I have said previously, I vigorously deny the accusations against me.”

Other members of the royal family were consulted during the discussions, including William, the Prince of Wales, and son of Charles, CNN reported.

“Things are simply not going away,” Robert Hardman, who has written a biography of KingCharles, told the BBC.

“Nothing really has changed constitutionally. What has changed is that he’s not going to use these titles.”

Andrew’s former wife, Sarah, the Duchess of York, will be known as “Sarah Ferguson.”

Their daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, will not be affected by the decision.

Andrew will no longer attend any royal family’s Christmas events, a source told CNN, but will continue to reside at the Royal Lodge in Windsor in a private tenancy agreement.

Giuffre, who died on April 25 by suicide at 41, alleged Epstein trafficked her and forced her to have sex with friends in 2001, including Andrew. She said Andrew was aware she was underage at 17.

Giuffre also said Andrew sexually abused her on Epstein’s private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, his mansion in Manhattan and at his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell’s home in London.

The Guardian this week published extracts from the memoir of Giuffre. She claimed the prince “believed that having sex with me was his birthright.”

Andrew also faced scrutiny of his links to an alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo.

A tribunal hearing in December upheld an earlier decision to bar Yang from the British. It was revealed Yang was authorized to act on Andrew’s behalf during business meetings with potential Chinese investors in Britain.

SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL said: “Courage is rightly regarded as the foremost of the virtues, for upon it all the others depend.”

The truth of those words is highlighted by the heroics of RAF Flight Lieutenant John Cruickshank, who has died at the age 105.

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It was 81 years ago that he performed an extraordinary act of sustained bravery, as he defied the agony of multiple severe injuries to bring home his badly damaged plane after a lethal encounter with a U-boat off the coast of Norway.

For this deed he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

He was one of four Coastal Command airmen to receive this award, but his case was unique.

The other three had died in action and were honoured posthumously.

He had survived but it was a mighty close-run thing.

It was appropriate that this Scotsman of rock-hard resilience should hail from Aberdeen, long known as “the Granite City”.

He had left school in 1938 to become an apprentice in banking.

But the drumbeat of war was echoing across Europe so he volunteered for the Territorial Army, enlisting in the Royal Artillery.

Called up for service with this regiment in 1939, he transferred to the RAF two years later then went through initial flight instruction in Canada and the US.

Back in Britain, having won his wings as a pilot, he continued his training until March 1943 when he was assigned to 210 Squadron in Coastal Command, based at Sullom Voe in the Shetland Islands.

Man of modesty

His squadron’s main duty was to protect Allied ships from U-boats and they were equipped with the rugged and reliable American-built twin-engine Catalina flying boat.

It was on July 17, 1944, soon after D-Day, that the incident occurred which lifted John Cruickshank into the record book, but almost killed him.

He was piloting an anti- submarine patrol off Norway when his radio operator John Appleton picked up a blip on the Catalina’s equipment.

John began to home in on the target, whose status as a U-boat was confirmed by fire from its 37 mm gun.

Appleton wrote in his memoir: “The skipper manoeuvred into a perfect attacking position astern of the submarine, just out of range of the enemy gunfire. He gave a blast on the klaxon and started the attack run-in from about two miles.”

As the plane got closer, flak from the U-boat intensified and was reinforced as its two pairs of 20mm cannon opened up.

The skipper manoeuvred into a perfect attacking position astern of the submarine, just out of range of the enemy gunfire. He gave a blast on the klaxon and started the attack run-in from about two miles

John Appleton

John flew on and appeared to have released the depth charges at the right moment.

But the bombs had hung up, so he then took the plane out of range of the U-boat, while his crew rearmed their own guns and checked the bomb-release mechanism.

“Everyone ready! Here we go again,” said John over the intercom.

Of the second attack, Appleton recalled: “This time all the flak was bursting much closer to us and I was surprised at how thick it could be.

“We seemed to be flying into a wall of black explosions.”

But again, John descended upon the target without hesitation.

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This time the depth charges hit their target with deadly accuracy. Seconds later, the U-boat began to sink. None of the 52 men on board had a chance of survival.

But by now John’s plane, caught by more enemy fire, was in serious trouble.

Flames and smoke began to fill the aircraft. The radar was wrecked and the nose canopy shattered.

One crewman was dead and four others were badly wounded, including John, who had been hit in his chest and legs and was bleeding heavily.

But all was not lost. With the use of extinguishers, some of the uninjured crewmen put out the fire.

As the co-pilot took over the controls, John was carried to the back of the plane.

Throughout, he set an example of determination, fortitude and devotion to duty in keeping with the highest traditions of the service

Citation from Victoria Cross ceremony

Lapsing in and out of consciousness, he was in tremendous pain but refused any morphine from the emergency safety kit because he wanted to keep alert so he could help bring the Catalina boat plane home to Sullom Voe.

With almost superhuman fortitude, he returned to the cockpit to oversee the final descent just as dawn was breaking.

After landing successfully on the water, he ran the shattered plane on to the beach.

He had to be given an emergency blood transfusion before being taken to Lerwick Hospital, where he was found to have suffered 72 wounds.

Yet, by September, he was fit enough to receive the Victoria Cross from King George VI in Edinburgh, the first time Holyrood House had been used for an investiture since the reign of Queen Victoria.

His citation read: “Throughout, he set an example of determination, fortitude and devotion to duty in keeping with the highest traditions of the service.”

From a generation that never sought the spotlight

Barney Crockett

But he was a man of profound modesty who hated talking about his exploits.

Even at his investiture, he crept out of a side door afterwards to avoid the attention of the press and public.

In the same vein, when he had regained consciousness in the stricken Catalina, the first thing he said was: “How are my crew?”

Though he had recuperated imp-ressively in hospital, the legacy of his injuries was too severe to allow him to return to flying duties, so for the rest of the war he held a staff job at Coastal Command HQ.

Later, on demobilisation at the end of the war, he resumed his career in banking, eventually working in international finance before he retired in 1977.

Happily married, he lost his beloved wife Marion in 1985.

In his final years, in sheltered accommodation, he disliked any fuss, whether about his VC or his birthdays.

Barney Crockett, the former Lord Provost of his native Aberdeen, once said John was “from a generation that never sought the spotlight”.

But it was also the generation that saved the world from tyranny.

June 24 (UPI) — The international architecture firm Foster + Partners was announced as the winner of a multi-million-dollar competition to design a national memorial to the late Queen Elizabeth II in London.

Norman Foster‘s firm beat out five other finalists with its pitch for a new cast-glass bridge inspired by Elizabeth’s wedding tiara as part of a commemorative garden in St. James’ Park, with spaces for visitors for quiet reflection.

The proposals also feature a statue of Elizabeth on horseback and a cast of her and her husband of 73 years, Prince Philip, who died in 2021, at a new Prince Philip Gate.

“We showed them together and, in a way, there was this inseparable quality which we sought to convey,” Foster said.

“Our design reflects Her Majesty’s love of history and tradition, while introducing a gentle, unifying intervention that respects the park’s nature and legacy.”

Foster added that the concept also recalled the informality the queen was known for in her interactions with people.

He stressed that the project would have minimal impact on the nature and biodiversity of the park and that the work would be conducted in phases, allowing the public to continue enjoying the existing amenities.

The new memorial will be built close to the statues of Elizabeth’s mother and father, the Queen Mother and King George VI, and not far from the statue of Queen Victoria in front of Buckingham Palace.

“Foster + Partners’ ambitious and thoughtful masterplan will allow us and future generations to appreciate Queen Elizabeth’s life of service as she balanced continuity and change with strong values, common sense and optimism throughout her long reign,” said Lord Robin Janvrin, head of the Queen Elizabeth Memorial Committee Chair.

The project is expected to open to the public in April in what would have been Elizabeth’s hundredth year. She died in September 2022 at the age of 96.

Famous and iconic designs of Norman Foster around the world include the Reichstag building in Berlin, “The Gherkin” building in the City of London, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank building on Hong Kong Island and the Hearst Building on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan.