The blue lights outside the Norfolk farmhouse looked like something from a crime drama, not a royal backdrop. Yet it was there, at a temporary bolthole far from palace balconies and Trooping the Colour, that Prince Andrew was led away by police and held for 11 hours on suspicion of misconduct in public office.
Now the question hanging over Westminster and Buckingham Palace is not just what he might have done, but whether he should remain anywhere near the throne he once confidently orbited.
