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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Rarely do events in rural Norfolk capture the attention of the world. But Thursday’s arrest of the former Prince Andrew on suspicion of misconduct in public office related to his links with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein made international headlines. The man now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is the first senior British royal to be arrested since 1647, when King Charles I was taken into custody by parliamentary forces. That led eventually to a shortlived republic. This week’s arrest is, for now, a crisis of the royal family and not of the institution of the monarchy. It might yet become one.
Mountbatten-Windsor was released under investigation, with police continuing to probe whether his alleged leaking of documents to Epstein when he was a UK trade envoy amounted to a criminal offence. The former prince has vigorously denied wrongdoing; no charges have yet been brought and none may ultimately emerge. If they do, the country would face the extraordinary prospect of a court case brought in the name of the king against his brother.
King Charles III has faced criticisms of being too reactive in responding to Mountbatten-Windsor’s Epstein ties. Each time more information has come to light, however, the monarch has punished his brother, including stripping him of his royal title last November.
This has created something of a firebreak between the institution and the actions of the former prince. It is not clear that this can hold. Even if there is no trial, the family will face intense pressure for transparency over Mountbatten-Windsor — including his links to the late Virginia Giuffre, an Epstein victim who said she was brought to London at 17 for sex with him. There is already increased scrutiny of the ex-prince’s reported £12mn settlement with Giuffre in 2022, and how it was funded.
For an institution that relies on tradition, trust, and even today a measure of mystique to maintain its position in Britain’s constitutional order, this is potentially corrosive. Walter Bagehot, the 19th-century constitutionalist, observed that royalty needed to be reverenced, “and if you begin to poke about it you cannot reverence it”.
The allegations against the former prince risk fuelling, too, a wider public disillusionment with Britain’s institutions. Yet many will take some reassurance from the fact that a man raised in royal palaces can be detained by police for questioning. It is a sign that, even if the monarch has sovereign immunity, no one else is above the law.
Indeed, British and European responses to last month’s Epstein files release might serve as an example across the Atlantic. The former UK ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson is being investigated for the same alleged offence as Mountbatten-Windsor, related to his own Epstein links; Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to appoint Mandelson has further weakened the struggling prime minister. A former Norwegian prime minister has been charged with aggravated corruption over his Epstein links, and a former French minister is under police investigation.
In the US, the political class is so far largely unscathed, even if some senior business people have stood down. The only arrests have been Epstein himself and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. Epstein’s female victims are still waiting for justice to be properly served.
In a country where the Department of Justice was this week emblazoned with a large banner of Donald Trump, it is hard to imagine any close relative of today’s president ever being put on trial while he is in office. Yet however anachronistic Britain’s constitutional make-up may appear, the law is being allowed to take its course against a senior royal, with the explicit backing of the king. In today’s world, that counts for a lot.