King Charles III cuts Prince Andrew’s security and $2 million allowance amid growing row over Royal Lodge

Prince Andrew has been cut off financially by the King, marking a new low in relations between the brothers.

Despite the Duke of York’s attempts to call the monarch’s bluff over funding, Charles has acted decisively.

An updated biography by acclaimed royal writer Robert Hardman, serialised in the Mail, reveals the King has told the Keeper of the Privy Purse to sever his beleaguered brother’s annual personal allowance – believed to be £1 million ($2 million) a year.

He has also stopped paying the seven-figure sum for Andrew’s private security detail.

“The Duke is no longer a financial burden on the King,” a source confirmed.

The King, who has also long made it clear he wants Andrew to move out of his vast 30-room mansion at Windsor, Royal Lodge, has now placed the ball firmly back in his brother’s court.

In doing so, he has, Hardman also reveals for the first time, made good on his late mother’s determination to solve the “Andrew issue” once and for all.

Impeccably placed sources reveal that, had she lived another year, Queen Elizabeth II - who was accused of being reluctant to take action against her rumoured favourite son – would have forced Andrew to leave his family home and downsize to Frogmore Cottage, the former residence of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

“It was her plan to move him out. It was mainly a money thing, as she could see it was becoming unsustainable,” a former royal adviser says.

A new edition of Hardman’s bestselling biography, Charles III: New King. New Court. The Inside Story, which was published earlier this year, includes three new chapters packed with fascinating detail.

Among the revelations is how Prince Harry’s determination to pursue legal action against the Home Office over its decision to withdraw round-the-clock security when he quit royal duties has driven a wedge between father and son.

Royal insiders have also hit back at suggestions that they failed to help Harry’s wife Meghan when she joined the Royal Family, saying it was she who threw their offer back in their faces.

As for Andrew, his attempts to play a dangerous game of high-stakes poker over Royal Lodge have backfired.

Sources close to the Duke of York have long argued that he has a cast-iron, long-term lease on the late Queen Mother’s former home in Windsor Great Park.

Although he no longer undertakes royal duties and has been stripped of his patronages and military associations and effectively barred from using his HRH title in public over his association with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Andrew has been determined to cling to the vestiges of his former life, most notably his home.

He has made clear to the King’s advisers that they have no right to force him to downsize and has rejected Frogmore Cottage which, although smaller at five bedrooms, appears adequate for his needs and is inside Windsor Castle’s “ring of steel” security.

Despite her adoration of him, Queen Elizabeth could see the situation was deeply problematic in the long term, given Andrew’s lack of obvious income and public-image problems.

“Had she lived another year, he would have been out,” a former adviser to the late Queen is quoted as saying. Andrew now has to find the money for the upkeep of the huge property, as well as his security detail, with no visible sign of independent income.

The Duke has repeatedly said he can pay for his upkeep, claiming to have found “other sources of income” related to his contacts in international trade.

But His Majesty will be watching with interest.

“It would obviously need to be an acceptable source of funding,” adds an insider, a thinly veiled reference to some of the Duke’s more dubious business dealings over the years.

“If he can find the money, then that is up to him, but if not, he will find that the King does not have unlimited patience.”