The Latest in a Line of Royal Rogues

I had been sketching out a possible Royals Extra when my iPhone began lighting up at dawn on Thursday February 19 with the astonishing news that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor had been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office (although not for the allegations that he had sexually assaulted underage girls supplied by the late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein—all of which the former prince has denied).

It was the first such action taken against a senior member of the royal family since King Charles I was arrested in 1647. He was tried and beheaded two years later for treason and tyranny. Andrew obviously won’t face execution but having been stripped of his royal titles last October, he is now on course to lose his eighth place in the royal line of succession. If he is brought to trial and convicted, he could face a long prison sentence. By the weekend, the police investigation expanded to staff and protection officers, who could bring further devastating revelations about Andrew’s associations with Epstein’s girls and additional alleged financial improprieties

Other royal rogues

I closely tracked every detail of Andrew’s situation, and after two days it was clear that the world’s press had hoovered up all the information available. As it was, I had already covered the stages of his decline on Royals Extra—December 22, 2024 (What To Do About Prince Andrew? ), October 19, 2025 (The Downfall of Prince Andrew), November 1, 2025 (Neither Prince Nor Duke: Andrew Hits Rock Bottom), and February 8, 2026 (The Disgraced Former Prince Andrew in Exile at Sandringham’s Wood Farm). I will return to the fallout from his arrest as it takes more definitive shape.

In the meantime, I thought readers would be interested to know that Andrew was hardly the first royal miscreant in the modern era. The first-born heirs to the throne after the long reign of Queen Victoria were notorious bad boys: Prince Edward (“Bertie”), the future King Edward VII; his son, Prince Albert Victor (“Eddy”); and famously his grandson, King Edward VIII (“David”), who gave up the throne for a twice-divorced American socialite and developed pro-Nazi sympathies that amounted to treasonous collusion during the Second World War.

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It appears so far that Andrew’s reported predatory and avaricious behavior is of greater magnitude—exposed by revelations made possible by our digital world—than that of his forbears. But history tells us that those charged with keeping Bertie, Eddy, and David on the right path felt anxiety, frustration, and sometimes disgust over the misbehavior they witnessed. Occasionally they quietly resigned on principle and slipped away. The courtiers for David confided their worst fears in unpublished correspondence that I am sharing below

“Victoria blamed Bertie for Albert’s death”

Queen Victoria believed that the hedonism of her eldest son Bertie hastened the death at age forty-two of her beloved straitlaced husband, Prince Albert. After Albert learned that Bertie had taken a prostitute as a mistress, he confronted his son during a long walk in the rain that soaked him to the skin, leading to a grave illness. Bertie’s shameful sexual indiscretion was forever known as “Bertie’s fall.” “For years afterward, Victoria blamed Bertie for Albert’s death,” wrote Jane Ridley, a biographer of Edward VII.

Bertie married Princess Alexandra of Denmark and became an effective and respected monarch upon the death of his mother in 1901. But in his private life he always kept mistresses including the actress Lillie Langtry, tucked away in “secret houses,” according to Ridley. The King’s most important paramour was Alice Keppel, the great-grandmother of future Queen Camilla. As Edward VII lay dying on May 6, 1910, Mrs. Keppel was allowed to sit at his bedside.

“As heedless and aimless as a gleaming goldfish”

The most peculiar heir who went astray was Prince Eddy, described by James Pope-Hennessy, the official biographer of Queen Mary, “as heedless and aimless as a gleaming goldfish in a crystal bowl.” (For more on Pope-Hennessy’s own unconventional activities, you can read my six-part Royals Extra series here: The Secret Life of Tommy Lascelles)