The Sun reported that Prince Charles, as he then was, contributed a further £1.5 million to the fund but sources close to the King have said that he did not, in fact, contribute. It’s not known if other family members also contributed to get the payoff over the line. Was it a loan? Was it a gift? Either way, job done was presumably the hope: everyone move on now, nothing to see here.

Andrew and Virginia Giuffre in the 2001 image that still won’t go away

ALAMY

Except, of course, there was. The royal family helped to pay off a woman who accused one of their own of rape. Of all the scandals they have faced, the Epstein scandal is the one that will not go away. It’s 15 years since it began to engulf Andrew. He lost his job as a trade envoy in 2011 because of it and since then he’s lost everything else. Throughout the Palace has struggled to get a handle on it, let alone draw a line under it. Perhaps at first they thought it was a little local difficulty at Royal Lodge. But if Andrew ends up in the dock at the Crown Court, what does that mean for the Crown?

• King Charles hopes to contain ‘unstable’ Andrew with Sandringham move

“Andrew lied to his own family about the extent of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein,” according to The Sun. “They bankrolled his payoff to his accuser, Virginia Giuffre. They bought his lies and helped him try and make the problem go away. His own mother, the late Queen, was left heartbroken by the scandal… She knew this was a problem that his brother Charles would tackle once she was gone — it only pushed the scandal down the road.”

That road led this week to a possible criminal investigation into Andrew’s activities by the police, an investigation that, if it happens, the King and Queen have promised to support. The latest raft of emails from the Epstein estate, released by the US Department of Justice, appear to show that the King’s brother forwarded confidential information to Epstein about several trips he undertook as trade envoy, as well as confidential details about investment opportunities. Trade envoys have a duty of confidentiality, and if Andrew is found to have breached it, he could face a charge of misconduct in public office (the same crime for which Peter Mandelson is being investigated and which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment). Andrew has always denied any wrongdoing.

The King has promised to support any police investigation of his brother

TOMMY FORBES/BANGO STUDIOS/GETTY IMAGES

The 2022 statement and payoff were intended to draw a line under the scandal before the Platinum Jubilee. Just this week Prince William was still attempting to draw a line under it, in advance of his own trip to Saudi Arabia. “I can confirm the prince and princess have been deeply concerned by the continuing revelations,” said his spokesperson as he was en route. “Their thoughts remain focused on the victims.” Given that this was the first time they had publicly expressed their thoughts on the matter at all, it predictably had the opposite effect to the one intended. While the King was being heckled about the scandal in Clitheroe, William was being asked about it in the Middle East.

One of the Palace’s problems is that Andrew’s own recollections have so conspicuously varied from those of Giuffre, and indeed his own private emails. In the 12 years since she claimed that Epstein paid her $15,000 to have sex with Andrew in London, the closest he’s come to an alibi is Woking.

• How Epstein files unravelled Andrew’s Newsnight story — claim by claim

Statement after statement by an increasingly hapless and harried-seeming Palace has served only to fan the flames. Andrew has, over the years, been said to “deplore the exploitation of any human being and the suggestion he would condone, participate in or encourage any such behaviour is abhorrent”. How, then, to explain the newly released photograph of him kneeling over an immobile young woman at Epstein’s house?

The Prince of Wales with Prince Salman bin Sultan Al Saud, the governor of Madinah, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

ANDREW PARSONS/KENSINGTON PALACE

After Epstein died in August 2019 Andrew released a statement saying he had only ever spent a “limited time” with him and perhaps, to be fair, he meant a limited time that month. “His suicide has left many unanswered questions,” he continued, “and I acknowledge and sympathise with everyone who has been affected and wants some form of closure. This is,” he finished, with scarcely conceivable self-pity, “a difficult time for everyone involved.”

And in his Newsnight interview that year he defended staying at Epstein’s house after his conviction because it was “convenient” but conceded that it “was not something that was becoming of a member of the royal family” and he had “let the side down”. Is anyone from the Palace now trawling through his emails to see what else he might have done that was “unbecoming” of a member of the royal family or are they leaving that to the police? Can anyone explain why the National Archives files covering his time as a trade envoy are being kept secret, after they should have been made public under the 20-year rule?

As for Prince William, shaping up to be the most reluctant royal since Edward VIII, a source told this newspaper’s royal correspondent that the Saudi Arabia trip was the government’s one “big ask” this year. One doubts they had to pluck up the courage to ask Queen Elizabeth to do anything, let alone one “big” thing a year, but either way, William’s trip to the Middle East was intended to cover trade, defence, counterterrorism and regional stability. He was there to promote shared interests in education and culture and the Saudis were, according to our man in the country, “delighted” that he was there. If, like the little girl William met, they were disappointed he didn’t take his wife, they hid it well. Everyone talked about football and Arabian leopards instead. William was photographed looking statesmanlike in the desert, but it was his uncle who hogged the front page.

And as for Andrew, last seen in public with his family laughing and joking at a funeral, he apparently thought he could use the proceeds of selling his Swiss chalet to repay his family their £12 million, showing a grasp of reality only punctured by his mortgage provider. Last week he was removed under cover of darkness to Norfolk, where the Palace will no doubt pray that he remains. If the police decide to take no further action against him, they’ll be accused of a cover-up, but the consequences for the Palace if they do are unthinkable. Keep calm and carry on has failed. And never complain, never explain doesn’t work in the witness box.