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The saga started with a single photograph, arguably the most consequential ever captured of a individual from the royal household.

Present was the Earl of Inverness, arm-in-arm a female youth, while another individual beamed knowingly in the rear.

Without that photograph, taken at a gathering in 2001, few would have credited the claims of a teenager who stated she was transported across the sea and obliged to have perfunctory intimate contact with a individual of the royal family?

An odd, indicative move by someone who had openly asserted to have no heard of her, claimed he could not have had sex with her, and yet provided a substantial sum of monarchical money to settle a drawn-out court action.

Over a Decade of Controversy

In this context, conversations of the royals acting decisively to cut Andrew off are misguided. This controversy has endured for the better part of 15 years since that image, and a further snapshot of Andrew ambling congenially with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Arrogance: For what duration did his siblings, perhaps even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Problematic Connections: They must have known, if his staff and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable friends given he openly hosted them to royal residences.
• Financial Extravagance: If the family did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his overspending with public money.

Trips were printed in public records: chopper transfers from the estate to a sporting venue and back again in time for lunch, chartered planes instead of scheduled services, all for the comfort of "the travel enthusiast".

Existence of Entitlement

Additionally the arrogance which required subservience when he walked into a area or the supreme consciousness about his designations used on his official documents in communication to his associates.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who strangely indulged him, was still surviving. The sovereign did at least revoke him of public duties and military positions in the consequence of his ill-fated and, we now know, untruthful media appearance six years ago.

Current Situation

Just in the last two weeks that events progressed rapidly, following the issuance of books giving more disturbing information of his behavior and that of his companions.

More information have again highlighted Andrew's assumption that he could avoid lying about his contact with a convicted criminal.

The public (and the media) were far in advance of the royals. There was no one of any consequence to defend him, a outcome of all those years of hubris.

Royal Worries

The wiser monarchical figures understood that. The one imperative is to pass on the institution, if not as before at least complete and unblemished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to reverse the image of past sovereigns, showing they are beneficial, accountable and responsive to their people.

He was placing all that in danger in an age when submission and privacy is no longer enough.

The Fallout

Finally, the famously indecisive sovereign was pressured more. There was little choice. The palace had lost control of the account.

Now it is the loss of honorifics and the continued and life-long social disgrace that will afflict Andrew most severely.

• Demotion: Demoted to just a commoner
• Past Example: The initial member to forfeit his honorifics in modern times
• Armed Forces: Notably painful given his duty in the engagement

He continues to be a constitutional officer, in principle able to stand in for the king, and he is still eighth in line to the crown, but neither of these will ever occur.

What Lies Ahead

Will people he encounters still acknowledge him? Will they still make mistakes and call him Prince? Would they say Sir,

Naturally, he is not withdrawing to a common area, but to the monarchy's large grounds at a royal residence.

There, he will be supplied by the monarch with one of the estate properties and given some sort of personal stipend.

It is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a token lease for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit far, but even so it may not be far enough.

Outstanding Concerns

Matters remain unresolved. There are still documents in the possession of US Congress to be disclosed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Could legislators seek further action
• Monetary Probe: Or examine the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a criminal probe into his conduct

Possibly for the moment the harm to the monarchy to the monarchy is limited. The message from the institution was evidently that the revocation of honorifics was what the monarch, and notably other senior family members, wanted.

Changed Stance

An end to illusion that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, significantly, the brief announcement showed clearly that the monarchy were supporting the accuser's account of events.

Additionally, for the first time they finally showed consideration for the victims: "The measures are judged required, notwithstanding the reality that he continues to deny the accusations against him."

In the end it is presumption, self-seeking and indolence that will undermine the crown. In his folly, personal excess and venality, Andrew appears never to have understood that reality.