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It all began with a single photograph, perhaps the most consequential ever taken of a individual from the royal household.

There stood the Duke of York, with his arm around a female youth, while another individual beamed suggestively in the backdrop.

Lacking that photograph, taken at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the claims of a young woman who said she was moved across the ocean and forced to have perfunctory relations with a individual of the royal family?

A strange, revealing move by someone who had publicly asserted to have no heard of her, claimed he could never have had relations with her, and yet provided a large amount of family money to avert a protracted legal case.

Years of Controversy

Considering this, discussions of the royals acting swiftly to cut Andrew off are wide of the mark. This scandal has continued for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and a further snapshot of Andrew ambling amiably with a notorious individual emerged.

• Hubris: To what extent did his siblings, perhaps even his parents, know that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Problematic Connections: They must have realized, if his employees and the police were fulfilling their roles, that he had some deeply disreputable friends given he publicly hosted them to estates.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the household did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his extravagance with state resources.

Travel were documented in public records: chopper travel from the estate to a country club and back again in time for midday meal, private flights instead of commercial flights, all for the comfort of "the travel enthusiast".

Existence of Entitlement

Furthermore the arrogance which demanded respect when he appeared in a space or the extreme awareness about his honorifics used on his correspondence in communication to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his matriarch, who inexplicably spoiled him, was still living. The sovereign did at least strip him of royal responsibilities and ceremonial ranks in the aftermath of his disastrous and, as revealed, mendacious television interview six years ago.

Recent Developments

Just in the last two weeks that events progressed rapidly, following the publication of biographical works giving more troubling information of his actions and that of his connections.

Further disclosures have again exposed Andrew's thinking that he could avoid being untruthful about his interaction with a disgraced individual.

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

Royal Worries

The more astute family members recognized that. The key objective is to hand down the institution, if not as before at least complete and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the legacy of past sovereigns, demonstrating they are useful, dutiful and responsive to their citizens.

He was placing all that in jeopardy in an time when respect and discretion is no longer enough.

Aftermath

Finally, the notoriously uncertain sovereign was prodded additional. There was no other option. The institution had surrendered command of the account.

Currently the removal of honorifics and the persistent and life-long public humiliation that will hurt Andrew the most.

• Reduction: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The first royal to forfeit his designations in modern times
• Naval Career: Particularly painful given his role in the conflict

He remains a royal advisor, on paper able to act for the monarch, and he is still eighth in line to the monarchy, but not any of these will truly come to pass.

What Lies Ahead

Will people he comes across still acknowledge him? Could they still slip up and call him Sir? Would they say Sir,

Certainly, he is not retiring to suburbia, but to the royal family's large grounds at Sandringham.

In that place, he will be supplied by the sovereign with one of the estate properties and given some sort of private allowance.

It is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a minimal rent for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit far, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Pending Matters

Matters remain unresolved. There are still records in the hands of American legislators to be made public.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Might legislators demand more
• Fiscal Review: Or examine the waste of public money
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a criminal probe into his conduct

Possibly for the time being the reputational impact to the monarchy is contained. The statement from the royal household was evidently that the removal of designations was what the monarch, and notably other senior monarchical figures, desired.

Changed Stance

An end to illusion that Andrew was acting willingly. And, notably, the concise communication showed evidently that the royals were siding with the accuser's account of occurrences.

Additionally, for the premiere occasion they ultimately showed concern for the affected individuals: "These actions are judged required, notwithstanding the reality that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

Ultimately it is arrogance, self-seeking and laziness that will destroy the crown. In his folly, personal excess and venality, Andrew seems never to have grasped that reality.