STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
There's a word that many people in Britain are thinking about after the arrest of King Charles' brother Andrew. The word is deference. Should British media and Parliament have given Andrew less deference and scrutinized the royal family more? He was only arrested after the revelations from the Epstein files. NPR's Lauren Frayer reports from London.
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: Here's what it sounded like when Prince Charles became King Charles.
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JUSTIN WELBY: May the spirit of the Lord who anointed Jesus at his baptism so anoint you this day.
FRAYER: Anointed by God, with a divine right to rule. That's been limited over the centuries, but it's still part of the whole coronation right. David Dimbleby, a veteran broadcaster who's commentated on royal weddings and the like, describes the culture of deference he's witnessed.
DAVID DIMBLEBY: On occasion, a man would curtsy rather than bow to the queen because they were so confused, so over-excited by meeting the monarch.
FRAYER: But lately, instead of acting awestruck, Britains have been heckling their monarch...
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Charles, how long have you known about Andrew and Epstein?
FRAYER: ...About his disgraced brother, Andrew, who settled a lawsuit with one of Jeffrey Epstein's underage victims, has denied any wrongdoing and is now under investigation for allegedly passing government secrets to his sex offender friend. After his arrest, BBC anchor Justin Webb mused live on air...
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JUSTIN WEBB: There is something about the royal family in the past. And...
FRAYER: ...About whether such deference blinded journalists like himself to possible crimes.
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WEBB: There have been certain places that people just don't go, and it's just assumed that if the palace says XYZ, then that's it.
FRAYER: That admission was long overdue for Graham Smith. He heads a nonprofit called Republic, which lobbies for the U.K. to end its monarchy, which he says has gotten a free ride from the media.
GRAHAM SMITH: They have been absolutely at the heart of this deference. They have essentially allowed themselves to be co-opted by the royals so many times.
FRAYER: Now, this deference, it's not just in media. Last year, George Foulkes, who's in the upper House of Parliament, the House of Lords, got a tip about the king's brother.
GEORGE FOULKES: About Andrew's involvement as a trade envoy. I'd got some concerns expressed to me that he'd been up to no good.
FRAYER: But Foulkes wasn't allowed to bring this up in Parliament because of 19th century rules that prohibit lawmakers from asking questions that, quote, "cast reflections upon the sovereign or the royal family." Nearly a year after he tried to bring this up, the Epstein files corroborated his tip.
FOULKES: I think there's far too much deference, and that is incorporated into the rules and regulations in Parliament, and they shouldn't be.
FRAYER: Such rules may reflect a deference for the monarchy, but they also perpetuate it, says Dimbleby, the royal commentator.
DIMBLEBY: It's very difficult to break through the castle wall at Buckingham Palace and get at the truth because even the people who work in the kitchens, it's illegal for them ever to speak about their experiences.
FRAYER: Polls still show most Brits support the monarchy, but less than in previous generations. Dimbleby says if the monarchy is to survive, which he thinks it will, the next in line for the throne, Prince William, will have to be more transparent.
DIMBLEBY: The question is what William will do. I'd be looking at the money, I'd look at the privilege, the whole business of the deference to the court.
FRAYER: But there is another view. The 19th century thinker Walter Bagehot wrote that monarchy relies on mystery and that, quote, "we must not let in daylight upon magic." In other words, without the deference, what's left?
Lauren Frayer, NPR News, London.
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