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The saga started with a isolated photograph, arguably the most impactful ever snapped of a royal family member.

In the frame appeared the Duke of York, standing closely beside a teenage girl, while a companion grinned knowingly in the background.

Lacking that image, captured at a gathering in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the assertions of a adolescent who said she was moved across the Atlantic and forced to have brief relations with a prince of the royal family?

An odd, indicative gesture by someone who had publicly stated to have not known about her, claimed he could never have had sex with her, and yet provided a large amount of monarchical money to settle a drawn-out legal case.

A Long Period of Disgrace

Against this backdrop, discussions of the royal family acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This affair has persisted for the largest portion of 15 years since that image, and a further image of Andrew strolling congenially with a convicted sex offender emerged.

• Hubris: For what duration did his brothers and sisters, maybe even his relatives, know that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his aides and the police were performing their duties, that he had some deeply disreputable companions given he publicly invited them to estates.
• Financial Extravagance: If the family did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

Journeys were printed in official documents: helicopter travel from the estate to a golf course and back again in time for lunch, private flights instead of commercial flights, all for the benefit of "the travel enthusiast".

A Life of Privilege

Then there was the presumption which required deference when he entered a area or the supreme awareness about his honorifics used on his correspondence in letters to his associates.

He managed to escape consequences while his parent, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still surviving. The sovereign did at least strip him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the consequence of his ill-fated and, as revealed, mendacious television interview six years ago.

Recent Developments

Merely in the last 14 days that events progressed rapidly, following the release of biographical works giving more grim information of his conduct and that of his companions.

Further disclosures have again revealed Andrew's belief that he could avoid being untruthful about his interaction with a convicted criminal.

People (and the press) were far in advance of the royal family. There was nobody of any importance to defend him, a result of all those years of arrogance.

Royal Worries

The wiser family members understood that. The one imperative is to pass on the monarchy, if not as previously at least whole and untarnished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the legacy of past sovereigns, showing they are valuable, accountable and attentive to their citizens.

His actions endangered all that in danger in an era when respect and secrecy is no longer enough.

Consequences

Finally, the notoriously uncertain king was pressured more. There was no alternative. The institution had surrendered command of the narrative.

Currently the loss of titles and the continued and lifetime personal shame that will hurt Andrew most deeply.

• Downgrading: Demoted to just a commoner
• Prior Instance: The first monarch to lose his titles in modern times
• Armed Forces: Notably painful given his role in the conflict

He remains a constitutional officer, theoretically able to substitute for the sovereign, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but neither of these will actually come to pass.

Future Prospects

Can persons he meets still show respect to him? Could they still slip up and call him Sir? Might they say Mr,

Of course, he is not withdrawing to suburbia, but to the royal family's extensive property at a monarchical property.

In that place, he will be provided by the monarch with one of the grace and favour houses and given some form of financial support.

This is not his previous residence, where he paid a nominal rent for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit distant, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Pending Matters

Matters remain unresolved. There are still records in the possession of overseas authorities to be disclosed.

• Political Pressure: Will parliament request additional information
• Monetary Probe: Or examine the waste of public money
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his actions

Maybe for the present the institutional damage to the monarchy is limited. The statement from the royal household was evidently that the revocation of titles was what the monarch, and especially other senior monarchical figures, desired.

Altered Approach

An end to illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, significantly, the brief statement showed evidently that the monarchy were siding with the accuser's version of events.

Even more, for the initial instance they ultimately showed regard for the victims: "The censures are considered essential, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him."

Finally it is arrogance, self-interest and inactivity that will kill the monarchy. In his folly, self-gratification and greed, Andrew seems never to have grasped that lesson.