LAHORE: The arrest of Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, younger brother of sitting British monarch Charles 111, signals the first time a member of the Royal family has been sent behind bars in about 400 years, though his sister, Princess Anne, was convicted of a criminal offense in 2002 under the Dangerous Dogs Act and had to appear in court.
Media archives reveal Princess Anne was not imprisoned, but fined £500 and ordered to pay a matching amount as compensation after pleading guilty to a charge that her dog, an English bull terrier named ‘Dotty,’ had attacked two children.
The last time a member of the royal family was arrested was 377 years ago, when King Charles I was taken prisoner by parliamentary forces. According to John Laughland’s book “A history of political trials: From Charles I to Saddam Hussein,” King Charles I was executed for high treason in 1649 after trial.
He remained the King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1625 until his execution.
Taken into custody on his 66th birthday Thursday on suspicion of misconduct in public office, (former) Prince Andrew was stripped of his titles and honors in October 2025 by his elder brother King Charles in an unprecedented move for his alleged ties to convicted child sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein.
Andrew is still eighth in line to the throne despite having fallen from grace.
Apart from the more famous King Charles , here follows a list of a few other British royals, who were handcuffed and jailed over the course of history:
King Richard 1 was imprisoned in 1192 after being captured in Vienna, according to the “Encyclopedia Britannica.” He was ordered to pay a hefty ransom in order to be released. He was arrested by the Duke of Austria and accused of murder.
King Henry VI of England was held captive in 1471 for many years and secretly murdered in the Tower of London, likely on the orders of King Edward IV to solidify his rule.
Mary 1, Queen of Scotland, had reigned from since infancy (1542) until her forced abdication in 1567. She was seen as a threat to her cousin, Elizabeth I, and spent 19 years in English captivity before her execution in 1587.
Seeking refuge from Scottish rebels, she fled to England in 1568, where her cousin Queen Elizabeth I imprisoned her due to her claim to the English throne and involvement in plots.
Anne Boelyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII, was arrested in 1536, after her husband accused her in court of having an affair with a number of men.
King Edward VIII, the uncle of late Queen Elizabeth II and elder brother of her father, King George VI, had abdicated in 1936 to marry American Wallis Simpson, triggering a constitutional crisis. Wallis was twice divorced and a suspected Nazi sympathizer, so not considered a suitable match for Edward. King George had then asked Britain’s security services to put surveillance on the couple.
The April 25, 2025 edition of the globally-acclaimed “Reader’s Digest” has shed more light on some of the scandals that brought humiliation and disgrace for the British royals.
The magazine states: “The year 1992 was fraught with royal family scandals for Queen Elizabeth. Three of her four children—Prince Charles, Prince Andrew and Princess Anne—made moves to end their respective marriages. At that time, the Church of England prohibited divorced people from remarrying in their churches while the ex-spouse was alive, so the breakups added to the (already long) list of modern royal family scandals. But that didn’t stop Anne. In December of the “horrible year,” she and Timothy Laurence headed to Scotland to exchange their vows in an unconventionally small ceremony, adding to the list of 1992 British royal family controversies the queen had to handle.”
The “Reader’s Digest” adds: “In 2005, Prince Harry sparked outrage when he went to a costume party dressed as a Nazi. But Harry’s bad judgment wasn’t the first time a royal has been tainted by links, tenuous or not, to the Nazi party. King Edward VIII (the one who abdicated the throne for Wallis Simpson) reportedly mingled socially with Nazi party members, and Prince Philip’s sisters were married to Germans who were members of both the Nazi party and the German army. That said, there’s no evidence of ties between the current royal family and the Nazi party, and both Harry and the queen apologized for the tasteless costume. In January 2020, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, announced—on Instagram—their decision to “step back” from senior royal duties and pursue their own ventures to become financially independent.”
