Andrea Farnese

Andrea Farnese (アンドレア·ファルネーゼ, Andorea Farunēze) is the Grand Master of the Knights of St. Raphael and current Grand Duke of Euro Britannia. He is a close friend of Michele Manfredi and loyal retainer and successor to Grand Duke August Highland.

Personality
Andrea is shown be very honorable and deep thinking. He has complete respect from his subordinates and would rather retreat than lose more of his warriors. In the aftermath of being defeated by E.U "militia soldiers," his only thought was to collect the dead and give them a proper burial.

Andrea Farnese remains the only character in the series to recognize, if only vaguely, the twisted natures of both Shin Hyuga Shaing and Julius Kingsley. He has shown to be rather insightful, though he recognizes their true nature too late to prevent damage.

Character Outline
Andrea Farnese first appeared in Episode 1 during battle against EU's W-0 Forces. Due to their unconventional tactics with suicide attacks, Knight of St. Raphael is severely crippled, losing at least two teams. He resolves to pull his forces back to prevent further deaths.

He believes that Michele Manfredi would never commit suicide and is distrustful of Shin at first until Shin will claim that he will lead the Knights of St. Michael to glory.

He is among the first to distrust Julius Kingsley, the Military Advisor sent by the Emperor himself and labels him as coward. Andrea is also the only one of the Grand Masters who survives assassination from Shin's coup against Britannia. He vows to never forgive Shin.

He is the only surviving leader of the Knights of Euro Britannia at the end of the series.

Character History
Sometime during the war between the Holy Britannian Empire and the Europia United, Andrea Farnese and the Knights of St. Raphael were dispatched to Narva, Russia where they were to attack and wipe out the 132nd Regiment of the EU Army which was trying to withdraw from St. Petersburg after failing to retake it. This resulted in the Battle of Narva which Farnese oversaw and remained calm while his staff officers panicked from the reports of W-0 soldiers using their Alexander Knightmare Frames in suicide kamikaze attacks against their Sutherlands. As the battle progressed, most of the Britannian forces were whipped out and an advisor of his begged him to call in reinforcements after Sir Wilhelm was killed by Akito Hyuga but he denied stating that they didn't know the capabilities of the enemy and so, he wouldn't risk bringing in more Britannian soldiers to be slaughtered by them.

After the battle had ended with the entire strike force wipped out, the remaining Britannian forces decided to retreat with Farnese saying how the order failed to defeat the EU Military forces and requested that they give the fallen Britannian soldiers proper burials while his G-1 Base began to withdraw from the battefield and the EU forces from Narva successfully withdrew from St. Petersburg. He later appeared in Caeser's Palace in Sankt Petersburg, the capitol of Euro Britannia, where Shin Hyuga Shaing was knighted as the new Grand Master of the Knights of St. Michael after the previous Grand Master, Michele Manfredi, had committed suicide, an action that Farnese was skeptical of as he knew Manfredi before and saw his suicide as unrealistic.

At some point, he succeeds August Highland and becomes the Grand Duke of Euro Britannia, as he is seen shaking Zero's hand to commemorate Euro Britannia's invitation to the United Federation of Nations.

Trivia

 * Andrea is the Italian form of "Andrew", and "Farnese" is the name of an important Italian noble family during the Renaissance, most notable among them being Alessandro Farnese, who became Pope Paul III.
 * Farnese's seiyuu, Takehito Koyasu, also did Seishiro Sakurazuka in Tokyo Babylon, among numerous other roles.