‘He’s hardly seemed bothered. He’s done nothing but complain’: Andrew’s bovine lack of remorse for the damage he has inflicted ensures one thing, writes ROBERT HARDMAN

He has dragged the monarchy into the gravest crisis in a generation – perhaps the most tumultuous since the Abdication crisis of 1936. He has left an indelible taint on the reign of his brother and the memory of his mother.

Yet if members of the Royal Family were expecting some sort of contrition from the King’s brother following his banishment to internal exile in Norfolk, they have been sorely disappointed.

‘He has done nothing but complain since he got there,’ says a Norfolk source close to the family.

‘It’s extraordinary. He hardly seemed bothered about the Epstein scandal. He was much more worried about where he was supposed to keep his horses. He was even grumbling about where to park his car.

‘Given that the King is footing all his bills, you might expect some sort of gratitude. But he’s been very rude. He is in another world.’

That was Andrew shortly before Thursday’s arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public office and the astonishing prospect of a Counsellor of State in handcuffs while police investigators rummage around two royal residences in search of signs of wrongdoing.

Whether more than 11 hours in a Norfolk police station has provided some sort of reality check remains to be seen but no one is holding their breath.

Some might wonder why the police needed to swoop mob-handed on the morning of Mr Mountbatten-Windsor’s 66th birthday. It is the moment when British men hit retirement age and start to look forward to more time on the golf course.

Golf-mad ‘AMW’(as Palace staff now call him) finds himself contemplating the very opposite. Some have asked why the ex-Prince has had his collar felt when the police searched the homes of the ex-ambassador to the US, Lord Mandelson, without making an arrest.

‘If anyone is tempted to feel sorry for Andrew,’ adds the source, ‘then don’t.’

Even if the current police investigation comes to nothing, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s bovine lack of remorse for the damage he has inflicted on both the institution and the family has ensured one thing: the King has not yet finished with his brother.

As yesterday’s YouGov poll shows, the public emphatically believes that the King needs to cast Andrew even further into outer darkness.

I have no doubt that he will. At least three options are currently on the table and I am sure the King will not hesitate to deploy all three in due course. But he also knows that he has be very careful about when and how he does so.

The descent of Andrew from Duke and Prince to plain Mr (though he is entitled to call himself ‘Commander’, by dint of naval rank) has been a godsend for republicans dedicated to bringing down the monarchy. A grotesque 15-year saga rooted in accusations of sexual abuse has taken on a parallel financial dimension which has elevated a sordid scandal into a full-blown crisis. Though all this has clearly caused serious reputational damage to the monarchy, it is nowhere near an existential crisis.

I can remember the dramas of the 1990s – divorces, rows over tax, the Windsor fire, Panorama, the tragedy of Diana – and that was worse because it touched on the direct line of succession. This is not a constitutional crisis – not yet, anyway.

However, as the King is well aware, it has the potential to become one, for reasons which I will explain. It is why I believe he will move with great caution and then, when the time is right, will act firmly and decisively – as he has done already.

We have heard much in recent days that the King ‘has not done enough’, that he ‘should have spoken out sooner’, that he ‘should have ordered Andrew to testify’ and so on. Amid the justifiable public anger as revelation is heaped on revelation from the bottomless cesspit that is the Epstein files, that anger needs an outlet.

However, memories are short. It was only four months ago that the King – prompted by fresh revelations in the Mail on Sunday that his brother had lied about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein – took a wholly unexpected course of action. He stripped his brother not only of his dukedom but of his princely birthright, all his honours and his house.

He was also emphatic that his primary thoughts were with the victims of sexual abuse, a subject on which Queen Camilla has campaigned more extensively than any member of the Royal Family in history.

The last member of the family to undergo such degradation was a cousin of Queen Victoria who was on the wrong side in the First World War and branded a traitor. That is the level of Andrew’s disgrace, all the more wounding for a man who saw action fighting for and not against his country (though, for now, he seems more aggrieved about the parking arrangements at Sandringham).

I remember being on the sofa in the Newsnight studio with the BBC’s Paddy O’Connell that night as the family of the late Virginia Giuffre, Andrew’s original accuser prior to her suicide last April, appeared live. They were tearfully saluting the King for the severity of his action against his brother. In the US, there were angry voices asking why the American authorities were not being as rigorous as the admirable British head of state.

However, as fresh revelations emerged this year, all that was forgotten with new calls mounting for ‘action from the King’.

That is to confuse the role of royalty with that of politicians. Monarchs do not offer a running commentary on anything, unlike politicians for whom it is their daily bread. Politicians are there to effect change; monarchs are there to ensure continuity. Their function is devalued if they simply become another branch of the commentariat.

Hence we cannot – and should not – expect the King to address the nation, as some are demanding, simply because we are all furious with his brother.

What would he say? First, he can hardly discuss anything of substance beyond his written statement immediately after Andrew’s arrest. Second, as the ‘fount of justice’ and ultimate head of the judiciary, he could easily be accused of interfering with due legal process.

The core thrust of Thursday’s short statement message was that his brother (a word he did not even use) would face the full weight of the law. Imagine the outrage if a judge deemed that an emergency royal broadcast had compromised the police investigation and the case was dropped as a result. Remember the collapse of the case against former butler Paul Burrell?

Scarcity value matters. I remember the late Queen getting a good deal of flak for ‘not speaking out’ at the start of the Covid pandemic. Even The Times took her to task.

It ensured that her message carried such gravitas when it was delivered – on the very night the Prime Minister was being admitted to intensive care. It is why her ‘special’ pronouncements were made so sparingly – on the outbreak of the first Gulf War, for example, or after the death of Diana. The arrest of Andrew is simply not in that league (though a conviction might be another matter).

The King will certainly have more to say on his brother when there is something concrete to address.

That does not mean he will not be examining all the options in the meantime. Chief among these will be amending the line of succession.

As things stand, Andrew is eighth in line to the throne, meaning that there is a vanishingly small prospect of his succession, barring a meteorite strike on a royal event which somehow managed to gather all the Waleses and Sussexes in the same room, or a very nasty bout of bird flu.

Nonetheless, many people understandably feel that it brings the entire system into disrepute if Andrew is even notionally on the list, let alone ten places ahead of his much-revered sister.

However, it is not ultimately down to the King to excise his brother from the list. He will need the help of Parliament since this would need legislation, possibly in the form of a short Bill, or an amendment to the Succession to the Crown Act of 2013. Last night, government sources indicated support for the idea.

Prior to that piece of legislation by the Cameron Coalition, any royals married to Roman Catholics were barred from the line of succession. If Parliament can pass a law allowing someone to be returned to the line of succession (such as Prince Michael of Kent, previously barred and now in 54th place), then surely it can pass a law excluding someone else.

It would also need the consent of all the King’s realms, from Canada to Tuvalu. The 2013 Act followed a unanimous decision by all the late Queen’s governments at the 2011 Commonwealth summit. It means that these things can be relatively straightforward if there is a consensus – and none of the King’s 15 realms will want to have Andrew as a potential future monarch.

Though the 2013 Act was ultimately a political decision, the chief architect of those historic changes (which included the end of male primogeniture) was the Queen’s private secretary. Sir Christopher Geidt. I would expect the Palace, led by the King’s private secretary, Sir Clive Alderton, to be in the vanguard of this change, too

As the constitutional expert, House of Commons librarian Dr David Torrance, points out, that would very conveniently remove another of Andrew’s privileges – his position as a Counsellor of State. For, as things stand, he still holds that position due to his place in the line of succession. It means that he could still be called upon to administer state business in the absence of the monarch.

It is never going to happen, of course. There are other perfectly suitable Counsellors to call upon – notably the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Edinburgh and the Princess Royal. But the fact that Andrew is even on that list will, for many people, stick in the craw.

There is further outstanding business. Though Andrew’s dukedom has been removed from the Roll of the Peerage (meaning he is not on any official documents as Duke of York), he still remains Duke of York until Parliament legislates the title away.

In the past, the argument at the Palace has been that fiddling with all this stuff would be a complete waste of parliamentary time and frustrate the Government, which would have to find time to push it all through. Given the present mood of the nation, however, I have no doubt that MPs and peers would love to have the chance to put the boot into the ex-royal chum of a paedophile monster. Much more fun, surely, than constantly surrendering the Chagos Islands.

It would also provide a pressure valve to alleviate a problem of which the King and his advisers are acutely aware.

There is already one Commons select committee now investigating Andrew’s lease on his former home at Royal Lodge, Windsor. If the Public Accounts Committee can get stuck in, then perhaps the Foreign Affairs Committee will now want to examine Andrew’s role as a trade envoy; perhaps the Home Affairs Committee will want to look at all those police officers jetting around the world at public expense to protect the then-Prince.

A Commons with a hefty Labour majority plus a lot of bored backbenchers – many of them with republican leanings – may start to question why MPs should still have to abide by the convention that MPs may not ‘cast reflections’ on the Royal Family.

That old Labour warhorse, the late Paul Flynn, tried to do that in 2011 when he questioned Andrew’s role as a trade envoy. He was ruled ‘out of order’ by the Speaker. It will not be long before another MP repeats the exercise – presumably after the current police action has run its course. What will the Speaker say then? That is when we enter constitutional crisis territory.

The King certainly does not want that. The Prime Minister certainly does not want it either. That is why a series of firm and swift measures will be on standby for the moment when this business is resolved.

There are other actions within the King’s grasp. I suspect it will not be long before politicians and the public start to ask why Andrew’s daughters have a royal residence – at St James’s Palace in the case of Princess Beatrice and Kensington Palace in the case of Princess Eugenie – when they are private citizens with homes elsewhere. Both women pay rent on their royal homes.

The King is very fond of his nieces and has made it clear that the sins of the father should not be foisted on the next generation.

I have met them both on several occasions and have found them to be thoroughly sensible, pleasant, understated and devoted ambassadors for the monarchy. If the former Duke and Duchess are to be applauded for anything, it is for their roles as parents.

However, as globe-trotting recipients of Epstein largesse over the years – directly and indirectly – the Princesses are not beyond the reach of the pitchforks. They may decide that it would be wise to take a proactive step back from the royal orbit, before they become another battlefront for the King. Downsizing or forgoing their royal pads might reduce the heat.

It may not be entirely fair (and their father was always a ferocious champion of their privileges as what he called ‘Princesses of the Blood Royal’). Yet, the Princess Royal’s children have no titles. The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh have rejected the HRH status to which their children are entitled.

The late Queen and her courtiers were fond of quoting the famous line from The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa: ‘If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.’ It is sound advice for the two surviving members of the disgraced House of York.

For their parents, however, it is far, far too late.

Charles III: The Inside Story, by Robert Hardman (Pan Macmillan)