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

In the frame appeared the Baron Killyleagh, standing closely beside a teenage girl, while a companion beamed suggestively in the backdrop.

Lacking that snapshot, shot at a party in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the assertions of a adolescent who stated she was moved across the ocean and obliged to have cursory sexual encounters with a individual of the royal family?

A strange, telling action by someone who had openly claimed to have no heard of her, claimed he could no have had intimate contact with her, and yet provided millions of monarchical money to avert a long-delayed legal case.

A Long Period of Scandal

Against this backdrop, talk of the royals acting firmly to sever ties with Andrew are wide of the mark. This affair has endured for the majority of 15 years since that image, and an additional image of Andrew strolling amiably with a convicted sex offender surfaced.

• Self-importance: To what extent did his family members, maybe even his relatives, realize that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his aides and the police were doing their jobs, that he had some highly questionable friends given he publicly invited them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the family did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his overspending with taxpayer funds.

Trips were documented in public records: chopper flights from the estate to a country club and back again in time for dining, chartered planes instead of regular transport, all for the benefit of "the travel enthusiast".

A Life of Privilege

Then there was the arrogance which demanded respect when he entered a space or the supreme obsession about his honorifics used on his letterheads in messages to his friends.

He could get away with it while his matriarch, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still surviving. The monarch did at least revoke him of royal responsibilities and military positions in the aftermath of his catastrophic and, it is now clear, deceptive media appearance six years ago.

Current Situation

It was only in the last two weeks that events accelerated, following the issuance of biographical works giving more grim particulars of his behavior and that of his associates.

Further disclosures have again exposed Andrew's assumption that he could get away with being untruthful about his contact with a disgraced individual.

Society (and the press) were far in advance of the royal family. There was nobody of any importance to speak up for him, a consequence of all those years of presumption.

Royal Worries

The more intelligent royals recognized that. The primary concern is to hand down the monarchy, if not as before at least complete and unstained.

For generations the last 190 years trying to reverse the legacy of previous monarchs, proving they are beneficial, dutiful and reactive to their subjects.

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

Consequences

Eventually, the notoriously hesitant sovereign was prodded further. There was no alternative. The institution had lost control of the narrative.

Presently the stripping of honorifics and the continued and permanent personal shame that will hurt Andrew most deeply.

• Reduction: Lowered to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The primary member to forfeit his designations in contemporary era
• Naval Career: Especially hurtful given his role in the Falklands war

He continues to be a constitutional officer, on paper able to act for the sovereign, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but neither of these will ever occur.

What Lies Ahead

Will people he meets still defer to him? Could they still slip up and call him Prince? Would they say Andrew,

Naturally, he is not retiring to suburbia, but to the sovereign's extensive estate at a monarchical property.

In that place, he will be furnished by the sovereign with one of the royal residences and given some form of personal stipend.

It is not his previous residence, where he paid a nominal rent for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit remote, but even so it may not be far enough.

Unresolved Issues

The situation continues. There are still records in the possession of US Congress to be disclosed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Could legislators demand more
• Monetary Probe: Or examine the waste of state resources
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his conduct

Possibly for the moment the reputational impact to the institution is contained. The narrative from the royal household was evidently that the stripping of designations was what the monarch, and notably other senior royals, desired.

Changed Stance

No more pretence that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, significantly, the brief communication showed evidently that the institution were siding with the victim's version of occurrences.

Furthermore, for the premiere occasion they ultimately showed consideration for the survivors: "These actions are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the truth that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

Finally it is presumption, selfishness and laziness that will destroy the institution. In his stupidity, personal excess and corruption, Andrew seems never to have learned that lesson.