The past year has not been a happy one for the royal formerly known as Prince Andrew. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been stripped of his title, cast out of his home of South Lodge and, on his 66th birthday earlier this year, was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. His arrest led to perhaps the least flattering photograph of a royal ever taken – Andrew, pie-eyed and ashen-faced, gawping in the back of a car – as he left the police station.

Most observers expected that either charges would follow or that an inability to gather compelling evidence would lead to the investigation being dropped. However, months later there has been no decision made about whether to charge Andrew. And so the disgraced royal has applied for a judicial review over the warrants that allowed Thames Valley Police to search his former home of Royal Lodge and his current residence of Marsh Farm on the Sandringham Estate.

This is the first time that a member of the royal family has challenged the legality of criminal proceedings against them since Charles I was put on trial in 1649, and while we all know how that particular incident played out, Andrew – admittedly, a man in possession of a considerable brass neck – has clearly been brooding on the humiliation that he faced and wants to take revenge on those he perceives as his persecutors.

Thames Valley Police, who arrested him in the first place, have applied for a court order that will restrict the appearance of sensitive documents at a hearing that is currently scheduled for this Thursday. Should the case go against the police, and if the search of Andrew’s homes is considered unlawful, then their case against him could potentially collapse. But even if it does not, the fact that such an extraordinary course of action is being taken – and that a judicial review has been granted – suggests that Andrew has spent the last few months feeling deeply resentful about the circumstances of his arrest, which was, in his estimation, orchestrated to cause maximum publicity, rather than allowing him to attend a police station more discreetly at a pre-arranged time.

While the police appealed for information about Andrew’s alleged sexual misconduct in May, there have been no major public developments since then. But Andrew, who has spent the year keeping a low profile on the Sandringham Estate, might be forgiven for believing that he should be making a comeback of a kind, albeit in a very limited way and in sympathetic circles.

A story in the Mail on Sunday this weekend suggested there was a belief that, when it came to his ostracisation, ‘things had gone too far’ and that there was a ‘feeling that Andrew needs to be welcomed back… at least to some extent.’ He has already been for a ‘kitchen supper’ courtesy of the Earl and Countess of Leicester. More, similar invitations are likely to be forthcoming, especially if, as the former Duke of York undoubtedly hopes, the case against him founders and he is allowed to continue his existence as a private citizen without the enduring fear of being confined at his brother’s pleasure in the penal system, rather than in some outpost of his estate.

It is a gamble, of course. The royal family have made it clear that Andrew is seen as a pariah and have taken every step possible to disassociate themselves from him. The King, for instance, has reportedly made it clear that the funding he gives to his younger brother to run his household is not to be used towards the judicial review, although how in practice this can be policed is hard to say. Given his toxic levels of unpopularity, which have only increased ever since the posthumous publication of Virginia Giuffre’s memoir Nobody’s Girl last year, it is unlikely that he will ever return to public favour, whatever the result of the police investigation or his court battle. Yet he is still the King’s brother and the son of the late monarch – a birthright that can never be taken away from him – and so the man once known as ‘Randy Andy’ can expect to be invited into the grandest of circles again. But it may well come at a cost that he comes to resent: being discreetly shown in via the tradesman’s entrance.