If the crisis now engulfing the monarchy were to end in abdication, the parallels with Watergate, which ended with Richard Nixon helicoptering out of the White House, would be unavoidable.
For the central question now is not simply what Prince Andrew did, but what King Charles knew and when he knew it. That question destroyed Richard Nixon. It could yet unseat a sovereign.
The fact is that in February 2022, King Charles oversaw a $14 million payment to settle Virginia Giuffre’s civil claim against Andrew, and buy her silence.
In recent weeks there has been a visible attempt to attribute responsibility for that decision to the late Queen Elizabeth II. Yet by that stage, she was gravely ill with bone cancer. Operational authority had long since shifted; Charles had effectively been running the institution for years.
A friend of hers told me after her death that she couldn’t see, move, or hear much at all. She was easily confused and a lot of time in bed. She died that September.
Watergate began with a burglary. It ended with a cover-up that proved more consequential than the original offense. Nixon’s crime was not simply political espionage; it was obstruction, deception, and the abuse of executive power to shield allies and himself. The phrase “the cover-up is worse than the crime” entered the political lexicon for a reason.
The monarchy now faces its own version of that test. If it were shown that the king authorized funds to prevent disclosure of damaging facts of which he was aware, and if palace machinery was deployed to frustrate scrutiny, he, like Nixon, would be accused of placing institutional survival above public accountability.
There are differences. Britain has no impeachment mechanism for a monarch. Abdication would be political and moral rather than legal. Nixon resigned under constitutional pressure; a king would fall under moral and parliamentary pressure.
But the underlying dynamic is similar. Institutions struggle to survive malicious concealment authorized by the boss. If prosecutors move against the former Prince Andrew, the spotlight will widen. And if it becomes a question not of Andrew’s conduct but of royal complicity, then the crisis ceases to be personal and becomes existential.
Andrew has faced several serious allegations over the past decade connected to his association with Jeffrey Epstein.
The most significant accusation came from Giuffre, who alleged that she was trafficked by Epstein and forced to have sexual encounters with Andrew when she was 17. Andrew has consistently denied those claims, and he has been not arrested because of those allegations.
Thursday’s arrest is for misconduct in public office. Andrew served as a trade envoy—officially the U.K.’s special representative for international trade and investment—from 2001 until July 2011. The Epstein files clearly showed him apparently forwarding confidential, market-moving information, which he had obtained from the U.K. government, to Epstein via email.
The truth is that King Charles, who has been the de facto leader of the entire royal machine since at least 2019, has for years sheltered Andrew from any meaningful accountability for abusing of his power.
So the sight of a phalanx of police cars arriving at the home of the disgraced royal on Thursday morning, to arrest him on suspicion of committing misconduct in public office, will have been met with less glee inside the palace than it was without.
The wheels of justice may turn slowly, but once they start turning, they are hard to stop, and my sense now is that Andrew will indeed be prosecuted for his crimes.
In many ways, Andrew’s fate was sealed 10 days ago when King Charles issued a statement saying that he supported and would cooperate with a police investigation into his brother.
There remains, however, the thorny question of what Charles knew and whether Andrew might attempt what has become known as the “Paul Burrell defense.”
In November 2002, Paul Burrell, the former butler to Princess Diana, was accused of stealing thousands of her possessions. The trial collapsed after Queen Elizabeth stated that Burrell had told her he was safeguarding the items. The constitutional implications of calling the monarch to give evidence effectively ended the case.
Andrew could attempt a similar strategy. If he were to claim that his brother was aware of, or had sanctioned, his actions, or even that he had confided the truth to him, it could wreck any prosecution.
If the king is revealed to have covered up for Andrew, I think his position becomes untenable.
Incredible as it may seem, we could be on the road to the final chapter in the tale of Charles cursed life: abdication.
That Thursday is Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s 66th birthday didn’t bother the police as they drove into the five-bedroom farmhouse of Wood Farm in the village of Wolferton, which lies within the Sandringham estate.
It is an amazing turn of events which few could have foreseen before the writer Andrew Lownie published his extraordinary biography of Prince Andrew and his former wife Sarah Ferguson in August, lifting the lid on decades of unbelievably scurrilous and scandalous behavior, as well as containing significant evidence of financial malfeasance and financial crime and financial wrongdoing.
Lownie has always insisted that Andrew was more likely to ultimately face retribution for his financial rather than his sexual crimes, and it seems that that is exactly what has happened, with the police statements identifying “misconduct in public office” as the cause of the arrest.
The Epstein files showed Andrew, who would have believed his emails would never be seen as they were exempt from Freedom of Information rules, openly passing confidential, market-moving government information to Epstein and his associates.
Thames Valley Police said: “As part of the investigation we have today arrested a man in his 60s from Norfolk on suspicion of misconduct in public office and are carrying out searches at addresses in Berkshire and Norfolk. The man remains in police custody at this time.” The force acknowledged significant public interest and said updates would follow.
The involvement of the National Crime Agency marks a further escalation. The NCA handles serious and organized crime, including large-scale trafficking and complex international investigations. It does not intervene in routine matters. Its participation, alongside multiple police forces reviewing Department of Justice material related to Jeffrey Epstein, signals that the investigation has moved into a coordinated national phase.
The prime minister, Keir Starmer, said when asked about the arrest that “nobody is above the law.”
King Charles issued a statement on the arrest, saying: “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. As this process continues, it would not be right for me to comment further on this matter.
“Meanwhile, my family and I will continue in our duty and service to you all.”
The king is now scheduled to attend a public engagement at London Fashion Week. Whether he addresses the situation remains to be seen. Buckingham Palace and the king were not informed in advance of Andrew’s arrest, the BBC reported.
Some might think this arrest is a relief for Charles. In reality it is a crisis for him on a scale no monarch has seen since his great-uncle abdicated—and he is at the very heart of it.
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