By Marina Yudenich, author and publicist
February 19, 2026, will undoubtedly enter British historical past. Whether or not it would additionally come to be seen as a marker of the British Empire’s ultimate unraveling stays an open query. That dialogue can wait. For now, the information themselves are placing sufficient.
At eight o’clock on Thursday morning, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the youthful brother of King Charles III and the previous Prince Andrew, was arrested at his residence in Sandringham. Till just lately, he held the title of Duke of York and stood eighth in line to the throne. Coincidentally, it was additionally his 66th birthday.
It reads just like the opening scene of a political thriller, bordering on dystopian fiction. But this isn’t cinema. It’s unfolding in actual time.
Police searches have been performed at Wooden Farm, the place Andrew had been despatched following the Epstein scandal, in addition to at different royal estates related to him. Given what has already emerged from what’s now colloquially known as the “Epstein’s information,” the arrest itself is much less stunning than the conspicuousness of the operation.
The Home of Windsor has traditionally excelled at containing scandal, sweeping household shame underneath the carpet till the final doable second. This time, both it couldn’t or selected to not. Andrew was publicly stripped of his navy ranks and royal patronages and evicted from Royal Lodge in Windsor. A felony investigation, underneath these circumstances, was nearly inevitable. The one actual uncertainty involved timing and optics.
He has now been formally charged with “misconduct in public workplace.” In accordance with investigators, the primary allegation issues the switch of confidential info to Jeffrey Epstein throughout Andrew’s tenure as a British commerce consultant. The second, extra severe accusation entails human trafficking. Particularly, prosecutors allege that Andrew facilitated the key switch of a trafficking sufferer into Buckingham Palace, flown into the UK aboard Epstein’s non-public jet, the notorious “Lolita Categorical.”
It stays unclear whether or not British authorities will reopen facets of the Virginia Giuffre case. Giuffre, who died final yr, claimed she was pressured into sexual encounters with Andrew on three events within the early 2000s, together with on Epstein’s Little Saint James island. Andrew has persistently denied the allegations.
One other unresolved query is whether or not Scotland Yard will pursue testimony from an nameless FBI witness who claims he was drugged and brought to so-called “pedophile events” within the mid-Nineties. That witness additionally alleged being struck by a darkish blue automotive “pushed by Prince Andrew,” sustaining accidents to his ribs, hip, and leg. British media report that investigators are analyzing claims that members of the royal safety element, together with personnel linked to elite navy models, witnessed abuse on Little Saint James and intentionally ignored it.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has already sought to border the second as a reaffirmation of precept. “One of many basic pillars of our system,” he declared, “is that everybody is equal earlier than the legislation.” Mountbatten-Windsor, for his half, denies all prices. How the case will finally unfold stays unsure.
There’s, nevertheless, a broader and extra uncomfortable implication. Judging by the allegations now connected to his title, the disgraced former prince seems to have joined a grim fraternity that features a number of the world’s strongest elites. They vary from American political dynasties to billionaire tech magnates. Hollywood is greatest left unmentioned; in any other case, we is likely to be pressured to rethink a lot of recent standard tradition. To that listing, it appears, can now be added Europe’s royal homes.
If London has chosen to behave, a ultimate query lingers: will Washington and different Western capitals observe swimsuit? Or will this stay a uniquely British reckoning?
The statements, views and opinions expressed on this column are solely these of the writer and don’t essentially characterize these of RT.
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