Buckingham Palace was handed a 30,000-email archive in 2020 that court documents say would have shown Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor sharing confidential government information while he was a trade envoy. The papers indicate the material was in Palace hands six years ago, long before the latest police appeal over his conduct.
The timing matters because Thames Valley Police last week renewed its appeal for information after Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public office. The renewed scrutiny has put fresh attention on what the Palace knew, and when, after years of questions over his financial dealings and his links to the Rowlands and Banque Havilland.
Records show a copy of the archive was provided for the Lord Chamberlain in May 2020, and a June 2022 High Court ruling refers to an email dated 10 July 2020 saying the emails had been delivered to Buckingham Palace. The archive contained messages up to June 2013, meaning Palace officials received material that reached back to the period when Mountbatten-Windsor was still serving in a public role. He stepped down as a working royal after his Newsnight interview in November 2019.
The contents that have surfaced publicly are only part of the picture, but they are enough to show why the archive has become so sensitive. Earlier this year, emails published by a newspaper showed Mountbatten-Windsor had asked Treasury officials for a confidential briefing in 2010 and then passed it to a personal business contact, Jonathan Rowland. The briefing concerned problems in Iceland’s banking industry, and the published message included the phrase “before you make your move.” Rowland later confirmed to the that the messages about Icelandic banks had been taken from his account and were part of legal proceedings.
Buckingham Palace has not said what it did with the archive after it arrived. It says only that it cannot comment because there is an ongoing police enquiry concerning Mr Mountbatten-Windsor, a position that sits uneasily beside court papers showing the material was already in Palace hands years before the present inquiry sharpened.
That leaves the central gap untouched: whether the archive was examined, filed away or passed on, and whether it changed anything about how the Palace viewed Mountbatten-Windsor’s private dealings. For now, the documents show that the warning signs were not new — only newly visible.
