IT used to be the Tower of London. Those who forfeited the favour of the king would be sent there for incarceration, even execution. Today, it is the Sandringham estate. Mr Andrew Mountbatten Windsor has been banished there by his elder brother King Charles III, following serious charges of sexual abuse against the former prince, who was recently stripped of his royal and military titles.

While archaic tradition continues in the United Kingdom — prisoners are detained still ‘at His Majesty’s pleasure’ — decapitation is no longer a royal prerogative. Famously, Queen Elizabeth I once threatened contrary councillors: “I will make you shorter by the head.” To preserve his own head and his crown, Charles has done the next best thing: he has amputated a diseased limb.

The British royal family, like the Roman Catholic church, needs to survive to thrive. Over the centuries, it has committed many acts of self-preservation. For example, it changed its dynastic DNA: the House of Stuart (a Frenchified adaptation of the Scottish clan-name Stewart) was followed by five German Hanoverians, then three monarchs from the House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, until 1917, when, well into the First World War against Germany, George V renamed........

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