Not the best way to celebrate your 66th birthday. A fleet of vehicles from Thames Valley Police turned up at breakfast time to arrest Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, once second in line to the throne, on suspicion of misconduct in a public office.

Mountbatten-Windsor has not so far been charged and, even if he is, innocent until proven guilty remains a vital principle in our justice system.

As the former Labour cabinet minister Peter Mandelson noted, close association with Jeffrey Epstein is like dog dirt on a shoe – almost impossible to get rid of. The stench is besmirching not just the individuals most closely involved but the way the Royal Family and the Government go about their work.

Andrew was already a ruined man before this morning with no titles or home – except the modest farmhouses which his brother King Charles III has grudgingly leant him.

The Epstein files seemed to confirm that much of what Andrew told Emily Maitlis in his notorious Newsnight interview was not true. The convicted sex-trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, who was there, insinuated in an email that the photograph of Mountbatten-Windsor with his hand around the waist of then 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre is genuine. A “lady” he told Maitlis he had “no recollection of ever meeting”.

Andrew also claimed that the photo-documented meeting in December 2010 with Epstein in New York was an honourable goodbye because the American had served time for paedophile offences. It turns out that visit was actually an extended, luxurious stay at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion.

On either side of that date there are suggestions in the files that Andrew was passing confidential British government information to Epstein, which had been provided to him as a trade envoy.

On 7 October, 2010, Andrew appeared to email his official briefing ahead of trade visits to Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Vietnam. Then on 30 November, he appeared to forward the official report on his tour, five minutes after receiving it from his special assistant. He was still at it after the supposed long goodbye in Central Park, emailing Epstein on Christmas Eve with confidential assessments of investment opportunities in Afghanistan, followed by a proposal on 9 February, 2011, that Epstein might like to back an investment firm he had recently visited.

Nine UK police forces are believed to be investigating him. Andrew has lost just about everything, short of a prison sentence. Yet he still remains eighth in line to the throne behind William, George, Charlotte, Louis, Harry, Archie and Lilibet. There will inevitably be clamour to remove him from even the remote possibility of becoming king.

Under the 1701 Act of Settlement, he can only be removed by a full Act of Parliament. In the interests of self-preservation, the monarchy would be understandably reluctant to open these toxic cans of worms. Like Edward VIII in the 1936 abdication crisis, Andrew could voluntarily resign but Acts of Parliament would still be required.

For all that, the chances of Andrew becoming king are remote, which may be good news for the survival of the monarchy. Previous crises to which this one is being compared – the abdication, the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, Queen Victoria’s extended mourning for Albert – involved the principal figures, the monarch and the heir.

The Royal Family, especially Queen Elizabeth, are under attack for nurturing Andrew for so long.

The best that staunch royalists can do is point out that the monarchy has survived its troubles in the past. But there is now more scrutiny and, thanks to the Epstein library, more revelation than ever. The saying goes that the “devil makes work for idle hands” and a systemic fault of the hereditary principle is that there are always idle “spares” ready to get into trouble as they fight for status.

The anti-monarchy campaigners Republic are now calling for a referendum in the UK on whether to abolish it.

The present King and heir will do all they can to stop the hostility spreading to the institution of monarchy. The bad news for Andrew is that – not least in their own self-interest – Charles and William seem coldly prepared to let every book available be thrown at him. As Charles put it chillingly, “the law must take its course”. A Kingly fiat that Andrew should testify to the authorities in the US may not be far away.

Mountbatten-Windsor flew high but now faces many unhappy returns for his misjudgements. The question remains what else he will bring crashing down with him.

© iNews