What does it mean to be plain old Andrew Mountbatten Windsor? 

Experts claim that despite being "humiliated," the prince-turned-commoner is still eighth in line for the British throne. Novelist Sue Townsend envisioned the abolition of the monarchy and the exile of the royal family to a council estate on a street known as Hell Close in her book The Queen and I. 

That was hilarious, crazy fiction. The fact that Prince Andrew has been exiled and abolished is a cold reality today. Few people think that his new life, somewhere on the opulent Sandringham estate, will be anything other than a private hell, but it's very different from living out his days in a council house.

What will it mean that Andrew is a commoner? How will Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, 65, live his life? Will it put a stop to the ongoing enquiries concerning him and his interactions with the late, disgraced financier and sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein? 

The announcement on Thursday, according to royal observers, is nothing less than "complete humiliation" for Andrew. "I think it will be pretty well a living hell for him, given his particular fondness for titles and his entitled attitude," royal author and commentator Richard Fitzwilliams told the Guardian.