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The saga started with a solitary photograph, perhaps the most impactful ever taken of a royal family member.

There stood the Earl of Inverness, arm-in-arm a teenage girl, while a companion smiled suggestively in the rear.

Lacking that photograph, taken at a party in 2001, who would have believed the claims of a adolescent who stated she was trafficked across the sea and forced to have perfunctory intimate contact with a prince of the monarchy?

A strange, telling gesture by someone who had overtly claimed to have never been aware of her, asserted he could not have had relations with her, and yet paid a large amount of family funds to avert a protracted court action.

Over a Decade of Controversy

In this context, discussions of the royal family acting swiftly to cut Andrew off are misguided. This controversy has endured for the better part of 15 years since that photograph, and another snapshot of Andrew walking amiably with a notorious individual emerged.

• Arrogance: To what extent did his siblings, perhaps even his parents, know that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Questionable Associations: They must have realized, if his staff and the authorities were doing their jobs, that he had some extremely unsavory companions given he publicly invited them to estates.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the household did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with state resources.

Trips were documented in royal annual reports: chopper flights from the estate to a country club and back again in time for lunch, chartered planes instead of regular transport, all for the comfort of "the travel enthusiast".

Existence of Entitlement

Then there was the arrogance which demanded subservience when he entered a room or the profound awareness about his honorifics used on his official documents in communication to his associates.

He avoided accountability while his mother, who strangely indulged him, was still alive. The sovereign did at least remove him of public duties and military positions in the aftermath of his disastrous and, as revealed, mendacious public statement six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last two weeks that events accelerated, following the release of biographical works giving more grim details of his conduct and that of his associates.

Additional revelations have again exposed Andrew's thinking that he could escape being untruthful about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

Society (and the journalists) were far ahead of the royals. There was not a single person of any significance to defend him, a consequence of all those years of hubris.

Institutional Fears

The more astute royals understood that. The key objective is to pass on the crown, if not as heretofore at least intact and unblemished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to overcome the legacy of earlier rulers, showing they are beneficial, accountable and reactive to their subjects.

His actions endangered all that in danger in an age when deference and discretion is no longer enough.

Aftermath

Finally, the notoriously hesitant monarch was prodded more. There was little choice. The royal household had relinquished authority of the account.

Currently the loss of honorifics and the ongoing and lifetime personal shame that will afflict Andrew most deeply.

• Reduction: Demoted to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The initial monarch to lose his honorifics in modern times
• Naval Career: Especially hurtful given his service in the engagement

He is still a counsellor of state, on paper able to substitute for the monarch, and he is still eighth in line to the crown, but not any of these will actually come to pass.

What Lies Ahead

Will people he meets still acknowledge him? Might they still make mistakes and call him Sir? Might they say Mr,

Certainly, he is not withdrawing to a common area, but to the royal family's large estate at a monarchical property.

In that place, he will be furnished by the sovereign with one of the estate properties and given some sort of financial support.

This is not his former home, where he paid a token payment for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit distant, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Unresolved Issues

Matters remain unresolved. There are still documents in the hands of US Congress to be revealed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will parliament demand more
• Monetary Probe: Or scrutinize the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his behavior

Maybe for the present the reputational impact to the crown is limited. The statement from the institution was evidently that the stripping of designations was what the monarch, and notably other senior monarchical figures, desired.

Altered Approach

No more deception that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, remarkably, the concise communication showed clearly that the institution were siding with the complainant's narrative of incidents.

Furthermore, for the first time they finally showed regard for the survivors: "The censures are judged required, notwithstanding the fact that he maintains his innocence of the accusations against him."

Ultimately it is entitlement, self-seeking and inactivity that will kill the monarchy. In his stupidity, self-indulgence and corruption, Andrew appears never to have grasped that truth.