King Charles III’ s brother was under arrest. Police were searching two royal properties, and news commentators were endlessly discussing the details of a sex scandal with tentacles that stretched to the gates of Buckingham Palace.
So how did Britain’s royal family spend Thursday afternoon? The king sat in the front row on the first day of London Fashion Week. Queen Camilla attended a lunchtime concert, and Princess Anne visited a prison.
The decision to continue normal royal duties was more than just an example of British stoicism in the face of the monarchy’s biggest crisis in almost a century. It was the opening act of the House of Windsor’s fight for survival as the arrest of the former Prince Andrew threatens to undermine public backing for the monarchy.
After pledging to support the police investigation into his brother’s friendship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the king stressed his intentions.
“My family and I will continue in our duty and service to you all,” he said in a statement signed “Charles R.,” using the abbreviation for Rex, the Latin word for king.
The simple fact that Charles made the statement showed the scale of the problem created by the arrest of the king’s 66-year-old sibling, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who was held for 11 hours and then released under investigation, meaning he was neither charged nor exonerated.
The event was so unprecedented that commentators had to reach back to the 1640s and the arrest and execution of King Charles I during the English Civil War to find a parallel.
Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public office is shaping up to be the monarchy’s biggest crisis since Edward VIII abdicated in 1936 to marry an American divorcee, Wallis Simpson.
That scandal weakened public support for the monarchy, which did not fully recover for 15 years. The turnaround came only after Edward’s successor, King George VI, refused to flee Britain during World War II, demonstrating his solidarity with a nation ravaged by Nazi bombs.
Even before she ascended the throne, Queen Elizabeth II followed her father’s lead and publicly pledged her life in service to Britain.
But while the impact of Edward’s abdication lingered for years, the crisis reached a crescendo in a few days. And the solution in that case was relatively simple: Edward stepped aside, and his oldest brother took his place.
By contrast, the drama surrounding Mountbatten-Windsor is ongoing, with no end in sight.
