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It all began with a single photograph, possibly the most impactful ever captured of a royal family member.

There stood the Duke of York, standing closely beside a young woman, while a companion beamed suggestively in the rear.

Absent that snapshot, shot at a party in 2001, few would have credited the claims of a young woman who said she was trafficked across the sea and forced to have brief intimate contact with a individual of the royal family?

An odd, revealing gesture by someone who had overtly asserted to have never known about her, asserted he could no have had sex with her, and yet handed over a large amount of family money to avert a protracted lawsuit.

A Long Period of Disgrace

Considering this, conversations of the monarchy acting decisively to sever ties with Andrew are misguided. This affair has continued for the largest portion of 15 years since that image, and a further snapshot of Andrew walking congenially with a convicted sex offender emerged.

• Arrogance: How long did his brothers and sisters, maybe even his relatives, realize that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Problematic Connections: They must have understood, if his employees and the authorities were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory friends given he unabashedly welcomed them to estates.
• Financial Extravagance: If the family did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his overspending with taxpayer funds.

Travel were listed in public records: private aircraft transfers from the palace to a golf course and back again in time for dining, private flights instead of scheduled services, all for the benefit of "the travel enthusiast".

Existence of Entitlement

Additionally the arrogance which required deference when he appeared in a space or the supreme consciousness about his honorifics used on his correspondence in messages to his associates.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who inexplicably spoiled him, was still surviving. The Queen did at least strip him of public duties and military positions in the wake of his ill-fated and, as revealed, untruthful public statement six years ago.

Latest Events

It was only in the last fortnight that events accelerated, following the publication of accounts giving more disturbing information of his actions and that of his connections.

More information have again exposed Andrew's belief that he could get away with lying about his relationship with a notorious figure.

People (and the journalists) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was not a single person of any importance to speak up for him, a outcome of all those years of hubris.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent family members understood that. The one imperative is to pass on the crown, if not as previously at least whole and untarnished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to reverse the image of previous monarchs, showing they are valuable, dutiful and reactive to their citizens.

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

Aftermath

Ultimately, the well-known indecisive sovereign was prodded further. There was no alternative. The palace had surrendered command of the account.

Now it is the removal of designations and the ongoing and lifetime public humiliation that will afflict Andrew most deeply.

• Reduction: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Past Example: The primary royal to lose his honorifics in contemporary era
• Armed Forces: Especially painful given his service in the conflict

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

What Lies Ahead

Do individuals he comes across still defer to him? Could they still forget themselves and call him Prince? Might they say Sir,

Of course, he is not retiring to an ordinary town, but to the royal family's vast estate at a royal residence.

At that location, he will be furnished by the king with one of the royal residences and given some form of private allowance.

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

Pending Matters

Matters remain unresolved. There are still documents in the hands of American legislators to be revealed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will lawmakers request additional information
• Financial Investigation: Or scrutinize the misuse of public money
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his conduct

Possibly for the moment the harm to the monarchy to the institution is limited. The statement from the institution was plainly that the revocation of designations was what the sovereign, and particularly other senior royals, sought.

A Shift in Position

An end to illusion that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, significantly, the concise communication showed plainly that the monarchy were siding with the complainant's account of events.

Furthermore, for the initial instance they finally showed consideration for the victims: "The censures are judged required, notwithstanding the reality that he continues to deny the allegations against him."

Ultimately it is presumption, self-interest and indolence that will undermine the monarchy. In his stupidity, personal excess and greed, Andrew seems never to have understood that truth.