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

In the frame appeared the Duke of York, standing closely beside a young woman, while a companion smiled suggestively in the backdrop.

Lacking that image, shot at a party in 2001, few would have credited the claims of a adolescent who said she was moved across the ocean and forced to have cursory relations with a member of the monarchy?

A strange, telling gesture by someone who had openly stated to have no heard of her, claimed he could not have had relations with her, and yet handed over a substantial sum of monarchical resources to resolve a long-delayed court action.

A Long Period of Scandal

In this context, conversations of the royals acting swiftly to cut Andrew off are wide of the mark. This scandal has endured for the better part of 15 years since that photograph, and a further snapshot of Andrew ambling congenially with a convicted sex offender surfaced.

• Hubris: To what extent did his brothers and sisters, perhaps even his parents, know that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Questionable Associations: They must have understood, if his staff and the authorities were fulfilling their roles, that he had some extremely unsavory associates given he unabashedly welcomed them to estates.
• Financial Extravagance: If the monarchy did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with taxpayer funds.

Travel were documented in public records: chopper transfers from the estate to a sporting venue and back again in time for dining, chartered planes instead of commercial flights, all for the comfort of "the travel enthusiast".

A Life of Privilege

Furthermore the arrogance which demanded subservience when he appeared in a area or the extreme obsession about his royal titles used on his letterheads in messages to his associates.

He avoided accountability while his parent, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still living. The sovereign did at least strip him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the consequence of his ill-fated and, as revealed, deceptive public statement six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last two weeks that events progressed rapidly, following the release of accounts giving more troubling information of his behavior and that of his connections.

Additional revelations have again exposed Andrew's assumption that he could escape being untruthful about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

People (and the media) were far more perceptive of the monarchy. There was not a single person of any importance to defend him, a result of all those years of arrogance.

Institutional Fears

The more astute family members realized that. The primary concern is to hand down the monarchy, if not as heretofore at least whole and unblemished.

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

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

The Fallout

Eventually, the well-known uncertain monarch was pushed additional. There was little choice. The institution had relinquished authority of the story.

Currently the removal of titles and the ongoing and permanent public humiliation that will hurt Andrew most deeply.

• Demotion: Reduced to just a commoner
• Historical Precedent: The initial member to forfeit his honorifics in contemporary era
• Military Service: Especially hurtful given his duty in the Falklands war

He is still a counsellor of state, theoretically able to stand in for the sovereign, and he is still in the lineage to the monarchy, but none of these will actually occur.

Future Prospects

Do individuals he encounters still acknowledge him? Will they still slip up and call him Sir? Would they say Sir,

Certainly, he is not moving to suburbia, but to the royal family's vast estate at Sandringham.

There, he will be supplied by the king with one of the estate properties and given some sort of financial support.

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

Outstanding Concerns

The situation continues. There are still documents in the custody of overseas authorities to be made public.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Could parliament demand more
• Monetary Probe: Or investigate the misuse of state resources
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a police investigation into his actions

Perhaps for the time being the harm to the monarchy to the institution is contained. The statement from the palace was evidently that the stripping of titles was what the monarch, and notably other senior royals, desired.

Changed Stance

An end to pretence that Andrew was acting willingly. And, significantly, the brief statement showed plainly that the royals were supporting the complainant's account of occurrences.

Furthermore, for the premiere occasion they ultimately showed regard for the victims: "The censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the reality that he persists in refuting the claims against him."

Ultimately it is presumption, self-seeking and indolence that will destroy the institution. In his stupidity, self-indulgence and corruption, Andrew seems never to have learned that reality.