If the crown is in peril, King Charles must consider the unthinkable and step aside for William, writes Shelagh Fogarty

It no longer feels like a wild proposition to suggest that King Charles III might abdicate in order to save the Crown. We’re not there yet but hear me out.

The late Queen Elizabeth was determined that, barring incapacity, she would be Monarch until she took her last breath. And so it was on that September day in Balmoral in 2022 after 70 years and 214 days. She had become Queen because of the abdication of her Uncle King Edward VIII making her father George VI.

That seismic event shook the House of Windsor to its core. For Elizabeth her accession to the throne was the moment around which the rest of her life orbited. King Charles was raised in that too.

Even as a much older man when it fell to him you get the sense he was just as committed when the crown was placed on his head at Westminster Abbey.

Then came cancer. Then came the Epstein files.

As far as we are told he is responding well to treatment and long may that continue but the fallout from his brother’s links to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein is every bit as capricious and unpredictable as any cancer.

The King’s statement shortly after his brother’s arrest was cold as ice. Less a case of putting a bit of clear blue water between the Crown and the former Prince, more Lake Vostok with several kilometres of ice on top. Depending on what happens next more could well be asked of our still new King.

It’s well known that as far back as the early 2000s the Palace and the Royal Family themselves were worried about aspects of Andrew’s life. What job to give him, what house to give him, why did he need to spend so much, who was he getting close to.

As the Epstein/Maxwell/Andrew claims got louder and louder those conversations presumably took on a new urgency. And an expensive one too. Twelve million pounds to settle with his accuser Virginia Giuffre - reportedly paid for in the main by his mother the late Queen. A Palace source says Charles contributed nothing to that bill.

And now Andrew Mountbatten Windsor is being investigated on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He has always denied allegations made against him.

If the King’s promise to support wholeheartedly all investigations it’s possible that will take police into a labyrinth of royal communications going back over 20 years.

If they find anything that seriously threatens to fatally undermine the Institution, including the unblemished memory of the late Queen Elizabeth, then I believe it would be time for Charles to take inspiration from Pope Benedict and do the unthinkable -step back in favour of Prince William.

Their cousins in Spain did it just years ago when King Felipe took over from his still living father King Juan Carlos.

Pope Benedict knew the Church had serially failed abuse victims. He tried to address it and other matters of moral and administrative rigour. The sensitive master Theologian concluded he was not the man to direct what needed to come next. No time to waste.

Enter Pope Francis, a man of God yes but a bruiser who’d run complex Church feifdoms in Latin America. Talk about a new broom.

If there is a serious chance any errors Elizabeth or Charles may have made are existential to the Monarchy, I say pull the Benedict lever.

Be wise, step aside, enjoy the rest of your days with Queen Camilla in Highgrove and allow modernity to breathe new life into it all.

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Listen to LBC's Shelagh Fogarty from 1-4pm Monday to Friday on the LBC app.

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