King Charles Reportedly 'Made Excuses' for Andrew Until Prince William Intervened

A car door clicks shut on a Norfolk lane, far from the photographers who once camped outside Royal Lodge. Inside the vehicle is Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor — no HRH, no working role, and, increasingly, no shelter from the rolling storm of the Epstein files. The extraordinary part is not that the royal family is once again scrambling. It is the suggestion that the king had to be shoved into acting like a king.

King Charles Reportedly 'Made Excuses' for Andrew — Until the Dam Broke

The claim comes from Rob Shuter's Naughty But Nice Substack, which reported that King Charles III 'dithered' over how hard to cut off his younger brother. One source alleged the monarch 'stalled, he made excuses and he worried far more about Andrew's feelings than the monarchy's image.' Another insider, quoted in the same report, put it more bluntly: 'He didn't want to upset Andrew. That was the priority.'

In the UK system, the monarchy survives on consent, not votes; its 'brand' is public trust, and scandal corrodes that in a way legislation cannot patch. The royal family cannot prosecute anyone, cannot adjudicate allegations, and cannot substitute itself for police investigations — but it can decide who represents the institution, who wears uniforms, who cuts ribbons and who gets proximity to the crown.

Shuter's reporting also casts the wider family as reluctant to play executioner, claiming that Princess Anne and Prince Edward 'didn't do much to intervene' because 'nobody wanted to be the bad guy.' Perhaps that is true, or perhaps it is what people say afterward, once history is already in motion and nobody wants to appear slow.

Then comes the sharp pivot: Prince William, according to a fourth source, supposedly stepped in with the sort of cold clarity the palace runs on. 'William said, "This is existential. The monarchy is at stake,"' the source claimed — 'and that was the moment it ended.' Another line in the same piece reads like a character sketch you can practically hear courtiers repeating over gin: 'Charles feels. William calculates.'​

King Charles Reportedly 'Made Excuses' for Andrew as Police Loom

Buckingham Palace has issued an unusually direct statement amid renewed scrutiny tied to the latest Epstein file disclosures, saying the king has shown 'profound concern' about allegations 'which continue to come to light' regarding Andrew's conduct. The statement added: 'While the specific claims in question are for Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor to address, if we are approached by Thames Valley Police we stand ready to support them as you would expect,' and stressed that the king and queen's 'thoughts and sympathies' remain with 'the victims of any and all forms of abuse.'​

Thames Valley Police, which covers areas including Windsor, has been assessing claims that Andrew shared confidential documents with Epstein while serving as a UK trade envoy, according to Sky News. Andrew has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.​

On the Waleses' side, a spokesperson said Prince William and Princess Kate had been 'deeply concerned by the continuing revelations' and that their thoughts 'remain focused on the victims.' That phrasing is careful, as royal phrasing always is: morally pointed, legally noncommittal.​

Meanwhile, the practical mechanics of distance have been getting louder. The BBC reported that Andrew relocated from Royal Lodge in Windsor to the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, leaving earlier than initially suggested, and that he was staying at Wood Farm while renovations take place on a permanent property. Sandringham matters here not because it is picturesque — though it is — but because it is privately owned by the king, which makes the move feel less like a banishment by 'the state' and more like a family-managed exile.​