Anyone who thinks the consequences of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor’s royal defenestration will end with a scrap over which particular house on the Sandringham estate catches his eye and a – likely probably fruitless – trawl through his evasions about dealings with Jeffrey Epstein, may be missing one the most intriguing things this unsettling royal tale leaves in its wake.

This abrupt corporate “reset” brings the Harry and Meghan side-story back into focus, by virtue of the fact there are now alarmingly few high-profile royals who are not in some way either out of the picture in the great Andrew rout – or still of school age. The monarchy is running on a very thin bench of public faces, which makes the absence of Harry – for all the controversies and quarrels – more keenly felt.

Admittedly this would have been hard to envisage when the duo committed their “Megxit”, racing off to Montecito, California and dumping on the folks back home in a wrathful Netflix documentary and memoir.

But the light has changed on the royals in the past year in an unforgiving way. The resurgence of the Andrew story, which the royal household had clearly hoped would dwindle into shabby reminiscence, was not only a humiliation for a plainly impenitent, foolish and spoilt (ex) prince. It throws the judgment of the whole “firm” into question. The order of succession does matter – it is a symbol of royal resilience – and a glance at the royal “charts” right now is sobering. Aside from William as a bankable heir, the next three in line to the throne are his children – headed

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