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The saga started with a isolated photograph, possibly the most consequential ever taken of a member of the monarchy.

There stood the Baron Killyleagh, standing closely beside a teenage girl, while a companion grinned knowingly in the rear.

Without that snapshot, taken at a social event in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a teenager who declared she was trafficked across the ocean and compelled to have brief sexual encounters with a member of the royal family?

An odd, telling move by someone who had openly asserted to have never heard of her, said he could never have had relations with her, and yet provided a large amount of family resources to avert a protracted legal case.

Years of Controversy

Against this backdrop, discussions of the royal family acting firmly to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This scandal has continued for the largest portion of 15 years since that photograph, and an additional image of Andrew strolling congenially with a disgraced financier surfaced.

• Arrogance: To what extent did his family members, perhaps even his mother and father, know that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have understood, if his employees and the authorities were fulfilling their roles, that he had some extremely unsavory friends given he publicly invited them to estates.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the household did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his overspending with taxpayer funds.

Travel were documented in public records: helicopter transfers from the estate to a golf course and back again in time for lunch, chartered planes instead of commercial flights, all for the comfort of "Airmiles Andy".

Existence of Entitlement

Then there was the arrogance which demanded respect when he entered a room or the supreme consciousness about his designations used on his official documents in communication to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his parent, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still surviving. The monarch did at least remove him of official roles and honorary colonelcies in the consequence of his ill-fated and, as revealed, deceptive television interview six years ago.

Current Situation

It was only in the last fortnight that events accelerated, following the publication of books giving more grim particulars of his actions and that of his companions.

Further disclosures have again exposed Andrew's belief that he could get away with lying about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

People (and the press) were far ahead of the royal family. There was not a single person of any significance to support him, a consequence of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

The wiser family members understood that. The one imperative is to hand down the monarchy, if not as previously at least whole and unstained.

For generations the last 190 years trying to overcome the reputation of earlier rulers, showing they are beneficial, responsible and reactive to their subjects.

He was placing all that in danger in an time when deference and secrecy is no longer sufficient.

The Fallout

Ultimately, the famously uncertain sovereign was pushed further. There was no other option. The institution had relinquished authority of the story.

Presently the stripping of titles and the persistent and lifetime social disgrace that will hurt Andrew the most.

• Reduction: Demoted to just a private citizen
• Historical Precedent: The initial member to forfeit his designations in modern times
• Armed Forces: Especially stinging given his service in the engagement

He remains a constitutional officer, in principle able to stand in for the monarch, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but none of these will ever happen.

Future Prospects

Do individuals he meets still defer to him? Could they still forget themselves and call him Prince? Would they say Andrew,

Of course, he is not withdrawing to an ordinary town, but to the royal family's large grounds at a monarchical property.

At that location, he will be furnished by the king with one of the estate properties and given some sort of personal stipend.

This is not his previous residence, where he paid a token rent for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit remote, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Unresolved Issues

This is not over. There are still files in the custody of overseas authorities to be made public.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Might legislators request additional information
• Fiscal Review: Or examine the improper use of public money
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a police investigation into his actions

Maybe for the moment the reputational impact to the institution is restricted. The narrative from the palace was clearly that the removal of titles was what the monarch, and especially other senior monarchical figures, desired.

Changed Stance

An end to pretence that Andrew was acting willingly. And, significantly, the short statement showed clearly that the royals were siding with the accuser's narrative of occurrences.

Even more, for the first time they finally showed concern for the victims: "The measures are considered essential, regardless of the reality that he persists in refuting the allegations against him."

Finally it is presumption, self-interest and inactivity that will kill the crown. In his folly, personal excess and greed, Andrew seems never to have grasped that lesson.