So near and yet so far. Many take advantage of the long weekend a bank holiday provides as a chance to catch up with family, but King Charles is bucking that trend. Even though he’s at the Sandringham estate for a couple of days, just a short distance from Marsh Farm, where Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor now lives, he apparently has no plans to visit. Charles arrived in Norfolk at lunchtime on Sunday, hours after Thames Valley Police revealed that they had widened their criminal investigation into Mountbatten-Windsor to include potential alleged sexual misconduct offences. Presumably, if Charles had been tempted to check in with his brother before this, the news put the kibosh on that idea.
Charles is well used to putting duty before desire and cannot fail to be aware of how toxic Mountbatten-Windsor is to the royal brand, but still, as a human being, it must be extremely challenging to turn his back on his brother. Meanwhile, as King, how can he not be frustrated that any positive stories about the monarchy – his trip to Northern Ireland with Queen Camilla, Prince William being a man of the people at a football match – are instantly overshadowed by further accusations against Mountbatten-Windsor? Even the happy announcement that Princess Eugenie was expecting her third child was tainted – her father wasn’t mentioned in the statement and yet his name was all over it, a stain on her joy.
