The former Prince Andrew’s arrest is extraordinary in modern times, but the Royal Family has a long and dramatic history of brushes with the law.
His brother the King was questioned by former Metropolitan Police chief John Stevens in 2005 over allegations that he had plotted to kill Princess Diana.
The claim stemmed from a note allegedly written by his former wife and handed to her butler, Paul Burrell, stating: ‘My husband is planning an accident in my car. Brake failure and serious head injury.’
No evidence was found to support the scenario suggested in Diana’s note and it was taken no further.
And his sister, Princess Anne, was convicted of an offence under the Dangerous Dogs Act in 2002 after her English bull terrier, Dotty, bit two children walking in Windsor Great Park. She was fined £500 and ordered to pay £250 compensation, though a district judge spared Dotty’s life.
She was also fined £400 and given five points on her driving licence the year before for doing 93mph in her Bentley – while being pursued by police. She later said she thought the police were providing her with an escort.
Her daughter Zara Tindall went one better in 2020 by getting banned from the road for six months after being caught doing 91mph in the Cotswolds, having already totted up nine points on her licence.
The most dramatic royal arrest came nearly four centuries earlier in 1647, at the end of the English Civil War, when King Charles I was seized by the New Model Army.
Family drama: King Charles I lost his head – literally
After failed negotiations and a botched escape attempt, he was convicted of treason and became the only reigning English monarch to be executed by his subjects.
Mary, Queen of Scots, was detained twice, first on suspicion of murdering her husband, Lord Darnley, and again for plotting to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I. She was convicted in 1586 and then executed the year after.
Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII, was arrested in 1536 for treason, incest and adultery, and beheaded at the Tower of London.
Richard II was arrested on the orders of his cousin and forced to abdicate in 1399, later dying in jail under mysterious circumstances – widely believed to have been starved to death.
