It was meant to be the Wednesday when Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor finally sat before a judge and closed a chapter. Instead, the trial has been postponed to 21 December. The reason given by judge Paul Goldspring: concern for the defendant's mental health. Not Andrew's - the defendant is the man who attacked him.

That sentence is worth pausing on, because it is easy to miss. In this story the former prince is not the perpetrator but the victim. On 6 May, while walking dogs near Marsh Farm on the Sandringham estate, he was attacked by 39-year-old Alex Jenkinson. Jenkinson was released on bail and is barred from coming within 500 metres of royal properties. Andrew was due to testify. The court decided that can wait until winter.

And why is a man who once had 24-hour security walking alone near a farm at all? Because he has not had that protection since 2022 - taxpayer-funded, withdrawn when the Jeffrey Epstein scandal became too heavy for the crown. Things have only got worse since. In February this year he was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, a first in the history of the British monarchy. No son of a queen had ever been arrested before.

He moved out of Royal Lodge at the request of King Charles III. He now lives at Marsh Farm in Norfolk. His Freedom of the City of London hangs by a thread - the City corporation has already asked him to give it up voluntarily, and in the meantime a legal opinion is being prepared to strip it from him by October. When institutions ask you to leave „voluntarily”, the decision has already been made.

Sarah Ferguson, the ex-wife whose settled life fell apart under the weight of the same scandal, has withdrawn to Switzerland, to a house lent to her by her former partner Paddy McNally - who died recently. Two people who for decades were shorthand for tabloid entertainment are now scattered across two continents, each in somebody else's house.

The most interesting part of all this isn't Andrew. It is the speed with which an institution that protected its own for centuries suddenly learned to let go. Security - withdrawn. Residence - emptied. Titles - under review. Once the cost of one man exceeded the benefit, the machine began shedding him piece by piece, neatly, without a single sharp word in public.

The trial is now set for 21 December, four days before Christmas. Seven more months will pass in which nothing gets resolved, and everything keeps slowly coming apart. That is also the most accurate description of the whole story: not a fall, but a slow decline nobody wants to declare finished.