How does the prince pay? The mystery of Andrew's income

It is one of the mysteries of the modern monarchy - and it's an issue under more scrutiny than ever before. How on earth does Prince Andrew fund his lifestyle?

- Rob Evans

This is a man who has lived a life of luxury for decades, been an outcast for years because of his association with Jeffrey Epstein, yet has no visible means of financial support.

Even King Charles is said to be unsure about some of the sources of his brother's income, particularly how he finds the significant sums of money needed to afford the upkeep of his home, the 30-room Royal Lodge.

The disgraced prince has been able to keep his financial affairs from the public for years through a mixture of the traditional secrecy that envelops the Windsors and the confidentiality of his dealings with wealthy, mainly foreign, people.

But the public furore over his alleged abuse of Virginia Giuffre may make it more difficult for him to justify the grandeur in which he has been living and to maintain the veil around his financial affairs.

The outrage has punctured the usually suffocating consensus within Westminster in which politicians refrain from publicly criticising the royal family. Keir Starmer has said he favoured proper scrutiny of the prince's housing arrangements at Royal Lodge, and a committee of senior MPs has now requested more details. Among those speaking out this week was Robert Jenrick, the Tory shadow justice secretary, who said: "It's about time Prince Andrew took himself off to live in private and make his own way in life. He has disgraced himself, he has embarrassed the royal family time and again. The public are sick of him."

Andrew's only current source of income is the pension he gets from his days in the navy between 1979 and 2001. This is said to amount to £20,000 a year - hardly enough to buy the lodge in Switzerland that he acquired in 2014 for a reported £18m, nor to finance the maintenance of the Royal Lodge, the Georgian mansion which sits in 40 hectares (98 acres) of secluded grounds in Windsor Great Park.