Andrew’s arrest brings this awful drama to its final act

If not a tragedy – that would imply too generous an outlook – the story of Andrew has been a drama. Even now, and it has been a long time coming, his arrest – on his 66th birthday – has an unreal quality to it. He denies any wrongdoing, and no doubt always will do, for otherwise it would cause him to peer too deeply into his soul. “Misconduct in public office” is a highly ironic business for the scion of a dynasty supposedly dedicated to service.

Andrew has single-handedly damaged the institution he should have been serving. He should have lost any sense of self-regard by now, but, with this individual, that will be the last thing to go, even in the unlikely event that he ends up in custody at his brother’s pleasure. Rex v Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor – the King vs his brother – is what it would say in the legal documents. It is a staggering element. The King’s own statement, released this morning, could not have been clearer in washing his hands of the man:

“I have learned with the deepest concern the news about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and suspicion of misconduct in public office. What now follows is the full, fair and proper process by which this issue is investigated in the appropriate manner and by the appropriate authorities. In this, as I have said before, they have our full and wholehearted support and co-operation. Let me state clearly: the law must take its course.”

Yet for all its incredible features, this story is very real indeed. It is a drama in four acts, if you will. Andrew arrived on this very day in 1960, a time when a disturbingly significant proportion of the British population still believed that British kings and queens did not give birth as other mortals did. His life was one of privilege from day one. He was given a hand-built Aston Martin pedal car, he holidayed on the royal yacht Britannia and was waited on by hundreds of servants. Perhaps his parents tried their best, but he bears all the hallmarks of being a spoiled child, even by royal standards.

His suggestions of near poverty (the King cut Andrew’s £1m annual royal allowance in 2024, leaving him with a £20,000 naval pension as declared income) were obviously exaggerated, but unlike his mother and his elder brother, the King, he had no great personal fortune to live off, although his personal fortune has always been opaque. That said, Andrew had complete access to the perks of the royal family, including round-the-clock protection, lavish hospitality and, in his time as trade envoy, whatever facilities he needed from the Foreign Office and the armed forces. Not for nothing was he known as “Air Miles Andy” – his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, too, had expensive tastes. The Queen bought him a house in Berkshire, and he had a Swiss ski chalet. He even had his own royal standard.

The second act marks the high points of his life – the 1980s. Difficult as it may be to believe now, of this ageing, seedy man, it is within living memory that he was one of the royal family’s most popular members. As Duke of York, his service as a helicopter pilot in the Falklands conflict was genuinely brave, even if he devalued it in his infamous Newsnight interview by claiming that getting shot at rendered him unable to sweat: an absurd and rightly mocked fabrication.

His wedding to Ferguson in 1986 was classic “fairytale” Ruritanian nonsense, but huge swathes of the public loved it, and the Yorks were, briefly, a happy family: naval officer, vivacious wife, two pretty daughters. But the marriage went badly, and the third act, the fall, inevitably followed, with his licentiousness seemingly filling the vacuum left by the collapse of his home life. “Randy Andy” was, if the accusations are valid, no longer a tabloid sobriquet but a description of a sordid way of life.

All of that is to put into context how far a person can fall.

The destruction that inexorably flowed from Andrew’s relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell, his association with Epstein and what is alleged to have happened with Virginia Roberts Giuffre is well chronicled. He has lost his titles, his uniforms, his honours, most of his money and accustomed privileges, all of his prestige and popularity, and has been largely disowned by his family, with, presumably, the exception of his ex-wife and daughters.

His mother, so respected that she could partially shield him, has gone. Charles, in line with tradition, is ruthlessly putting the institution first by isolating his brother and so cauterising the scandal. The House of Windsor will not emerge unscathed in these very different times.

Andrew is without doubt the author of his own misfortunes, but his story is a sad one, if only in the sense that anyone can see what an asset Andrew could have become had he lived up to his promise. The public and his family once expected much from him. Now, would anything surprise us? The worst may be yet to come, with the police investigating the possibility of Andrew being linked to the trafficking of young women into the UK.

However deserved, this serial humiliation and descent into disgrace must be hard to bear. Andrew has decades of useless, dismal isolation ahead of him. In this last act of the “drama of Prince Andrew”, we can vilify him all we like, but his brother and the authorities owe him the moral duty of care that he, if the allegations are true, failed to show to others. That is what the King’s “deepest concern” may truly be about.