The Grenadier Guards are rumored to want Kate Middleton to take over as their new colonel in place of Prince Andrew.
After the Queen deprived him of his HRH title, military and charity affiliations, the Duke of York lost his honorary position.
The office of colonel was reverted to Her Majesty by default, but senior officials are said to prefer the Duchess of Cambridge to fill it.
Kate, 40, would be the regiment’s first female colonel in its 366-year existence if she were to accept the position.
‘From straw polling across the ranks, they would all love it to be Kate,’ a senior source in the Grenadier Guards told The Times.
‘We all applaud how well she has blended in and behaved; she never seems to miss a beat.’
According to a military insider, the new colonel’s name was supposed to be disclosed on Monday but was postponed.
It ‘wasn’t the Duchess of Cambridge,’ according to the source, but the fact that no announcement was made implies they’ve been thinking about it again.
The regiment and the Queen, 95, who assumed Andrew’s job by default, choose the next colonel.
The Grenadier Guards, founded in 1656 by King Charles II, have participated in practically every major British Army operation, including the Napoleonic, Crimean, Boer, First, and Second World Wars.
When his father, the Duke of Edinburgh, retired from public life in 2017, Andrew, 61, acquired the honorary duty with the Grenadier Guards from him.
When he first stood down from formal duties in 2019, it was one of the positions he held to.
However, Andrew’s honorary status was revoked after he was deprived of his military titles as a result of a sex assault lawsuit filed by Virginia Giuffre in the United States.
Ms Giuffre claims she was forced to have sex with the prince three times as a youngster by convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. The charges are categorically denied by the Duke of York.
As a private individual, he must now defend himself in US courts against allegations of rape and sexual abuse.
Meanwhile, it was reported that Andrew, who was banished as a frontline royal, could lose his round-the-clock police protection as soon as next month.
The Metropolitan Police and the Home Office are doing a complete review of his protection, according to sources.
Andrew, who is still ninth in line to the throne, has been permitted to keep his state-funded police bodyguards, which cost the taxpayer £2-3 million every year.
This has prompted heated controversy, especially because his nephew, Prince Harry, was deprived of his police protection when he left the working royal family in 2020 and relocated to the United States.
‘Although no one will say publicly, this is a problem that the Met’s Royal and VIP Executive Committee is now actively discussing,’ a source told the Daily Mail.
‘The situation [with Harry] is uncomfortable, and a choice may be made sooner rather than later. Why should Andrew get protection in the UK while Harry, who is no longer a working royal, does not?’
Andrew, who resides in the Queen’s Windsor estate’s 30-room Royal Lodge, will always benefit from the round-the-clock security that comes with living near a royal house.
The protection that accompanies him away from the estate, however, will be the subject of dispute.
Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, his children, had their formal royal protection removed several years ago after public indignation over their globe-trotting antics, which included police following them on travels abroad.
Since their divorce in 1996, his ex-wife Sarah, Duchess of York, who still lives with him, has not received any formal taxpayer-funded protection.
Other royals’ protection has been reduced, notably Princess Anne and Prince Edward, and royal grandkids Zara Tindall and Peter Phillips have never had it as adults.
At the time, neither the Metropolitan Police nor the Home Office, nor a spokesperson representing Andrew, would comment.
‘It is a major move, although the likely risk is minor, and there would be good arguments to be made that he does not require “PPO” [personal protection officer] designation if he is no longer a working royal,’ said Dai Davies, a former head of royal security at Scotland Yard.
