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

In the frame appeared the Baron Killyleagh, standing closely beside a female youth, while another individual smiled knowingly in the backdrop.

Without that image, captured at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the allegations of a adolescent who declared she was trafficked across the ocean and compelled to have brief relations with a prince of the royal bloodline?

A curious, telling move by someone who had publicly asserted to have never heard of her, said he could never have had intimate contact with her, and yet handed over millions of family resources to avert a long-delayed legal case.

Years of Controversy

In this context, discussions of the royals acting firmly to cut Andrew off are misguided. This affair has endured for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and a further image of Andrew ambling pleasantly with a disgraced financier surfaced.

• Arrogance: How long did his siblings, possibly even his relatives, realize that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his staff and the police were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory associates given he openly hosted them to royal residences.
• Financial Extravagance: If the monarchy did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his extravagance with state resources.

Trips were printed in official documents: helicopter travel from the royal residence to a country club and back again in time for dining, private flights instead of scheduled services, all for the benefit of "the frequent flyer".

World of Deference

Additionally the presumption which expected deference when he appeared in a area or the profound consciousness about his designations used on his letterheads in communication to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his mother, who unaccountably pampered him, was still alive. The monarch did at least remove him of royal responsibilities and military positions in the aftermath of his ill-fated and, as revealed, untruthful media appearance six years ago.

Latest Events

Just in the last 14 days that events progressed rapidly, following the issuance of accounts giving more grim details of his conduct and that of his associates.

Additional revelations have again revealed Andrew's thinking that he could get away with lying about his contact with a disgraced individual.

People (and the press) were far ahead of the monarchy. There was nobody of any significance to defend him, a outcome of all those years of hubris.

Institutional Fears

The wiser monarchical figures understood that. The key objective is to pass on the crown, if not as previously at least complete and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the image of previous monarchs, demonstrating they are useful, responsible and reactive to their citizens.

His actions endangered all that in peril in an time when submission and discretion is no longer adequate.

The Fallout

Eventually, the famously indecisive sovereign was prodded further. There was no alternative. The palace had surrendered command of the account.

Currently the loss of titles and the persistent and permanent social disgrace that will hurt Andrew most severely.

• Demotion: Lowered to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Historical Precedent: The first member to lose his honorifics in contemporary era
• Naval Career: Especially hurtful given his duty in the Falklands war

He is still a royal advisor, in principle able to stand in for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but not any of these will actually happen.

Future Prospects

Will people he comes across still defer to him? Might they still forget themselves and call him Your Highness? Will they even say Andrew,

Of course, he is not withdrawing to a common area, but to the sovereign's extensive property at a monarchical property.

At that location, he will be provided by the monarch with one of the estate properties and given some type of personal stipend.

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

Pending Matters

This is not over. There are still records in the custody of American legislators to be disclosed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Might lawmakers demand more
• Fiscal Review: Or investigate the misuse of public money
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a criminal probe into his actions

Perhaps for the time being the institutional damage to the monarchy is restricted. The statement from the royal household was evidently that the stripping of honorifics was what the sovereign, and particularly other senior monarchical figures, wanted.

Changed Stance

An end to illusion that Andrew was acting willingly. And, significantly, the brief statement showed plainly that the royals were supporting the victim's version of incidents.

Furthermore, for the first time they eventually showed regard for the affected individuals: "The measures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the reality that he continues to deny the claims against him."

In the end it is arrogance, selfishness and laziness that will kill the monarchy. In his foolishness, self-gratification and venality, Andrew gives the impression never to have understood that lesson.