Brotherly loathing turns into royal history as King turns on Andrew
Edward IV had his brother, the “false, fleeting, perjured” Duke of Clarence, executed. The legend is that Clarence was drowned in malmsey wine.
The last of the Anglo-Saxon kings, Harold Godwinson, killed his brother Tostig in battle after the latter joined forces with the legendary Viking warlord Harald Hardrada.
And Henry I may have been responsible for the felling of not one but two of his brothers.
The current branch of the British royal family, the Windsors, has been dominated by brother-on-brother battle.
Andrew’s grandpa, George VI, who fell out with his brother, Edward VIII, over an American socialite.
And Andrew’s nephew, Prince William, who fell out with his brother, Prince Harry, over an American actress.
But what the King has rightly and justly done to his disgraceful, foul little brother is without precedent.
While several royals have lost the right to be called “royal highness” – Harry and Meghan, for example – nobody in the modern era has been refused their blood right to be called a prince.
Even after his abdication threatened to destroy the monarchy and their past ties to the Nazis came to light, Edward VIII and his wife Wallis Simpson died the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor will be forced into private accommodation, every title and honour will go.
And it remains to be seen if the British authorities will now investigate the allegations he tried to pressure his police protection detail to “dig up dirt” on the late sex-trafficking whistleblower Virginia Giuffre after she accused him of assault.
He is abandoned and alone. Nobody but himself to blame. A stain from the monarchy removed.
But questions for the King – who has appeared weak and late to act – will continue to grow.
Will he allow his brother to be potentially prosecuted?
Will he move to blot him out officially from the line of succession?
The King and Prince William have saved time with this momentous act against their uncle and brother.
But if they do not start getting answers to some of these questions, Britain will get impatient.
While he has been respected as King and lauded for his battle with cancer, Charles is not worshipped and adored like his mother (whom he no doubt blames a great deal for the Andrew mess).
And Britons are clearly in a bit of a revolutionary mood – if the decimation of Labour and the Tories at every turn suggests.
We’re a far way off talk of a republic. But the King and William must know they have to act swiftly and decisively to protect their 1000-year-old throne.
The stink of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his friendship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein is far from removed. This is just the start of the clean-up job.
Charles will be wishing he had a battle or a big bucket of malmsey wine to make this all go away.
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It could have been worse for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.