Tom Housden
The arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on Thursday predictably dominates the front pages of the British press, with many papers pulling no punches on the latest ignominious episode for the former prince, which has left the monarchy reeling.
Mountbatten-Windsor’s glazed expression, slumped in the back of a Range Rover after 11 hours in police custody, stares out from newspapers across the board.
Leading the charge, The Sun makes a stinging callback to Andrew’s infamous 2019 interview with Emily Maitlis on the BBC’s Newsnight program in which he claimed he was unable to sweat.
The paper notes Andrew appeared “stunned and wild-eyed” from 11 hours in police custody after being arrested on the morning of his 66th birthday, and notes he is the first member of the British royal family to be detained since King Charles I in 1647.
The Daily Mail, meanwhile, carries a stark single-word headline: “Downfall”. It suggests that Andrew, “looking haggard and haunted”, has plunged the modern monarchy into its “gravest peril”.
Other papers, including The Guardian, The i Paper and the Daily Mirror, focus on King Charles’ reaction to his younger brother’s arrest with the statement that “the law must take its course”.
The Guardian notes it had been “an extraordinary day that could have profound effects for the royal family”.
Its front page points to an editorial suggesting that the old royal model of “discreet exile” is finished, with a case that “forces Britain to confront whether privilege can coexist with democratic scrutiny and the rule of law”.
Meanwhile, the UK’s last major broadsheet newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, as well as The Times keep it simple with variations of “Andrew arrested”.
The Times says the arrest has prompted the biggest crisis for the monarchy since the 1937 abdication, while the Telegraph writes that Andrew, “born in a palace and spending his birthday in a police station”, emerged looking “like a man with the full weight of the past and the future on his shoulders”.
One Sandringham local told the Telegraph: “I think he should have been locked up a long time ago, a lot of us do. He’s always so miserable when you see him at Christmas. He’s got a miserable face”.
On a lighter note, the tabloid Daily Star opted for a ribald “Taxi for Andy” splash.
“Ordinary Andy Windsor gets a lift away from a cop shop in Norfolk after being arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office,” the paper notes.
Taking a different angle, Scotland’s pro-independence daily The National throws the spotlight on other leading royals, including King Charles and his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II. “What did they know?” the paper asks, above an image of the trio taken months before Epstein’s 2019 arrest.