Degradation is the formal term for removal of a

knighthood A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

or other honour. The last knight to be publicly degraded was Sir Francis Mitchell in 1621. More recent examples include Sir Roger Casement, whose knighthood was canceled for

treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state (polity), state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to Coup d'état, overthrow its government, spy ...

during the First World War, and Sir Anthony Blunt, whose knighthood was withdrawn in 1979. The most recent degradations centre on the fallout from the banking crisis at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century. Examples include Sir Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of the

Royal Bank of Scotland The Royal Bank of Scotland Public Limited Company () is a major retail banking, retail and commercial bank in Scotland. It is one of the retail banking subsidiaries of NatWest Group, together with NatWest and Ulster Bank. The Royal Bank of Sco ...

, who lost his knighthood in 2012 over his role in the bank's near-collapse in 2008 and Sir James Crosby, the former chief executive of

HBOS HBOS plc is a banking and insurance company in the United Kingdom, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Lloyds Banking Group, having been taken over in January 2009. It was the holding company for Bank of Scotland, Bank of Scotland plc, which ...

References

See also