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The saga started with a single photograph, perhaps the most consequential ever captured of a royal family member.

Present was the Earl of Inverness, standing closely beside a teenage girl, while a companion beamed suggestively in the background.

Without that image, shot at a gathering in 2001, who would have believed the allegations of a young woman who stated she was transported across the sea and compelled to have cursory relations with a member of the royal family?

A curious, telling move by someone who had openly asserted to have no been aware of her, asserted he could no have had intimate contact with her, and yet handed over a large amount of family money to avert a protracted court action.

A Long Period of Controversy

In this context, discussions of the royals acting firmly to sever ties with Andrew are wide of the mark. This controversy has persisted for the largest portion of 15 years since that photograph, and another photo of Andrew walking pleasantly with a disgraced financier surfaced.

• Hubris: For what duration did his brothers and sisters, perhaps even his relatives, realize that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Problematic Connections: They must have understood, if his employees and the law enforcement were fulfilling their roles, that he had some highly questionable associates given he openly invited them to palaces.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the family did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

Trips were documented in public records: chopper transfers from the palace to a golf course and back again in time for lunch, exclusive air travel instead of commercial flights, all for the benefit of "the frequent flyer".

World of Deference

Furthermore the entitlement which expected subservience when he entered a room or the extreme obsession about his designations used on his official documents in communication to his associates.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who strangely pampered him, was still living. The sovereign did at least strip him of royal responsibilities and military positions in the consequence of his catastrophic and, it is now clear, untruthful public statement six years ago.

Recent Developments

Merely in the last fortnight that events sped up, following the release of books giving more disturbing particulars of his actions and that of his associates.

Further disclosures have again revealed Andrew's thinking that he could avoid deceiving about his relationship with a notorious figure.

Society (and the journalists) were far ahead of the monarchy. There was no one of any importance to speak up for him, a consequence of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent royals realized that. The key objective is to hand down the crown, if not as heretofore at least intact and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the reputation of previous monarchs, proving they are useful, accountable and reactive to their citizens.

He was placing all that in danger in an time when respect and privacy is no longer adequate.

Aftermath

Finally, the notoriously uncertain monarch was prodded additional. There was no alternative. The institution had relinquished authority of the story.

Currently the loss of designations and the ongoing and lifetime social disgrace that will pain Andrew most deeply.

• Reduction: Reduced to just a commoner
• Past Example: The initial member to surrender his honorifics in recent history
• Military Service: Especially stinging given his role in the conflict

He is still a royal advisor, in principle able to substitute for the monarch, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but neither of these will truly occur.

Coming Developments

Will people he meets still defer to him? Will they still slip up and call him Your Highness? Will they even say Andrew,

Naturally, he is not retiring to an ordinary town, but to the sovereign's extensive estate at a royal residence.

In that place, he will be supplied by the sovereign with one of the royal residences and given some type of financial support.

This is not his former home, where he paid a minimal lease for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit remote, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Pending Matters

The situation continues. There are still records in the custody of American legislators to be made public.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will parliament demand more
• Fiscal Review: Or scrutinize the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a police investigation into his actions

Possibly for the present the institutional damage to the institution is restricted. The statement from the institution was plainly that the removal of titles was what the sovereign, and especially other senior monarchical figures, wanted.

Changed Stance

No more illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, significantly, the concise communication showed clearly that the royals were aligning with the complainant's version of events.

Even more, for the first time they ultimately showed regard for the affected individuals: "These actions are deemed necessary, despite the fact that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

Finally it is entitlement, selfishness and indolence that will undermine the crown. In his stupidity, self-indulgence and greed, Andrew appears never to have understood that reality.