PRINCE Andrew is bringing Britain's royal family to the people as the first member of the royal household to open a Twitter account.

The Prince launched his account late yesterday and early this morning had more than 16,000 followers.

@TheDukeOf York's first tweet was a simple message: Welcome to my Twitter account - AY

Since then he has posted several tweets with pictures from events he's been attending.

The Twitterverse has welcomed the Prince with creative tweets including these:

• Oh.... the... Grand Old Duke Of York... he had ten thousand followers... Congratulations to @TheDukeOfYork for reaching 10K on his first day
   
• The Duke of York is on Twitter. Disappointed his 1st tweet wasn't "My 10,000th follower gets a free arms contract. Please RT".
   
• I like to think this (including sign-off) is meant to be read as if by Ali G. "@TheDukeOfYork: Welcome to my Twitter account - AY"
   
• @TheDukeOfYork Don't suppose you could pass a message to the powers that be about having an elected head of state? @RepublicStaff
   

You can see what the Prince is up to here: