One of the biggest pieces of news to come out of the UK in the last few years came in October, with the announcement that Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, brother to the King of England, was to be stripped of the title of "Prince".

The news was big and unprecedented in recent times – that is, really, since the forced abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936, after less than a year on the throne, officially (and in romanticized versions of the story) because he wanted to marry a divorcee (hardly a great crime for the governor of a church established five centuries ago to permit divorce), but actually because he was a Nazi sympathiser.

But at the same time as being a massive news story, the incomplete fall of Mr. Andrew Mountbatten Windsor was also something of an insignificant or irrelevant one, one which came far too late and which pretty much missed the point.

The Andrew-Formally-Known-As-Prince (as the papers put it) had already lost his other honours and titles (including the Dukedom of York)… all except for the honorary rank of Vice Admiral in the Royal Navy, a rank which Buckingham Palace was swiftly said to be arranging to remove (though some wits noted that the job of admiral of vice was one which suited him pretty well).

The straw which perhaps had at last broken the king's last shreds of patience with his morally errant younger brother had perhaps been the fact that the latest claims as to Andrew's personal connections with – and activities in collaboration with – the notorious sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein had distracted public and media attention from a truly historic event: a meeting between Charles III – not only the King of England but also the Supreme Governor of the Church of England – and Pope Leo XIV, during which they prayed together in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel.

This was the first time that a British king had prayed with a leader of the Roman Catholic church since around the sixteenth century – when Henry VIII had broken with Rome and had established the Church of England, as a breakaway protestant sect led by the monarch, so that his archbishop might then have the power to end his marriage to his then wife, the Catholic Catherine of Aragon, an annulment which the Vatican had refused to grant.

This year's act of religious reconciliation represented a profoundly symbolic moment which sought to heal half a millennium of animosity between these two branches of the Christian faith – an animosity which has fuelled political violence on the streets of Belfast and which continues to provoke violent clashes around the football grounds of Glasgow.

That this momentous event was wiped off the front pages by the latest allegations against Andrew must have irked a monarch who was at the same time facing outraged cries from media critics and public hecklers asking how long he'd known about his brother's relationship with Epstein and why he'd taken so long to do so very little about it.

Related News

News from Nowhere: Normal for Nazis

Leaked: Britain’s Ukrainian sniper training plot

And asking why his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, had paid Andrew's most prominent accuser a princely sum of £12 million to drop her case against her son.

It even reached the point that the BBC was reporting that officials at Buckingham Palace themselves were quoting a variation on a popular nursery rhyme which ridiculed Andrew's protestations of innocence: "The grand old Duke of York, he had twelve million quid. He gave it to someone he never met, for something he never did."

But the loss of his princedom was all of course barely relevant, and, as far as many British people have been concerned, was very far from enough.

Will Andrew go to the United States to testify as to his connections with Epstein, as American Democrats have demanded? Will he ever face justice for the crimes of which he is accused – sanctions greater than losing his titles and having to move out of a hugely luxurious house into a slightly less luxurious house? Will Epstein's victims ever see Andrew – or others among Epstein's most prominent associates (such as the current US president) – in court?

Almost certainly not.

In the same month as the prayers shared between the Pope and its Supreme Governor, the Church of England saw another historic event – the appointment of its first female Archbishop of Canterbury, as the relatively liberal Sarah Mullally was elevated to its most senior clerical position.

And the news of her own appointment, and of the prayers shared by the heads of the English and Catholic churches – these two events of great religious and historic weight – were eclipsed by the ongoing allegations of similar abuse perpetrated by the brother of the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, the King of England himself.

Yet Andrew will no doubt continue to live his life of luxury, sustained and sponsored by his wealthy associates, and justice (earthly justice at least) will never be done.

As for justice beyond this world… well, Charles, Leo and Sarah might have their own private thoughts about that.