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This episode commenced with a solitary photograph, perhaps the most significant ever taken of a individual from the royal household.

There stood the Baron Killyleagh, standing closely beside a female youth, while a companion grinned knowingly in the backdrop.

Absent that snapshot, taken at a party in 2001, few would have credited the claims of a adolescent who declared she was moved across the ocean and obliged to have brief sexual encounters with a individual of the royal family?

A curious, revealing gesture by someone who had overtly stated to have no been aware of her, asserted he could no have had relations with her, and yet paid a large amount of monarchical funds to avert a protracted court action.

Years of Scandal

Against this backdrop, discussions of the royals acting decisively to distance themselves from Andrew are misguided. This controversy has continued for the majority of 15 years since that image, and an additional image of Andrew ambling congenially with a convicted sex offender emerged.

• Hubris: To what extent did his brothers and sisters, maybe even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have understood, if his aides and the police were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable associates given he openly welcomed them to palaces.
• Monetary Excess: If the family did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with state resources.

Trips were listed in official documents: private aircraft transfers from the estate to a sporting venue and back again in time for midday meal, chartered planes instead of scheduled services, all for the convenience of "Airmiles Andy".

World of Deference

Furthermore the entitlement which required deference when he appeared in a area or the profound obsession about his royal titles used on his letterheads in letters to his friends.

He managed to escape consequences while his matriarch, who strangely spoiled him, was still alive. The Queen did at least remove him of official roles and honorary colonelcies in the aftermath of his disastrous and, we now know, untruthful television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

It was only in the last fortnight that events sped up, following the issuance of accounts giving more disturbing particulars of his behavior and that of his connections.

Further disclosures have again highlighted Andrew's thinking that he could escape being untruthful about his relationship with a convicted criminal.

People (and the media) were far more perceptive of the monarchy. There was no one of any consequence to speak up for him, a consequence of all those years of hubris.

Institutional Fears

The more astute royals realized that. The key objective is to pass on the monarchy, if not as previously at least complete and unblemished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to overcome the legacy of previous monarchs, showing they are valuable, responsible and responsive to their people.

He was placing all that in peril in an age when submission and discretion is no longer sufficient.

Consequences

Finally, the well-known indecisive king was pushed further. There was no other option. The palace had lost control of the story.

Presently the loss of titles and the ongoing and lifetime social disgrace that will hurt Andrew the most.

• Downgrading: Lowered to just a commoner
• Historical Precedent: The initial monarch to lose his designations in contemporary era
• Naval Career: Particularly painful given his duty in the Falklands war

He continues to be a counsellor of state, in principle able to substitute for the monarch, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but none of these will ever happen.

Future Prospects

Will people he encounters still show respect to him? Might they still make mistakes and call him Your Highness? Would they say Mr,

Of course, he is not withdrawing to suburbia, but to the sovereign's large grounds at a monarchical property.

At that location, he will be provided by the king with one of the royal residences and given some sort of financial support.

This is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a nominal rent for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit distant, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Pending Matters

This is not over. There are still files in the possession of US Congress to be revealed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will parliament seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or examine the improper use of public money
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his behavior

Maybe for the present the institutional damage to the crown is contained. The narrative from the royal household was plainly that the revocation of honorifics was what the sovereign, and particularly other senior monarchical figures, desired.

Changed Stance

No more pretence that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, notably, the short communication showed evidently that the royals were siding with the complainant's narrative of events.

Even more, for the premiere occasion they eventually showed consideration for the survivors: "The censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the truth that he persists in refuting the claims against him."

Ultimately it is arrogance, self-interest and laziness that will destroy the institution. In his foolishness, self-indulgence and greed, Andrew seems never to have understood that lesson.