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The saga started with a isolated photograph, perhaps the most consequential ever captured of a individual from the royal household.

There stood the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a female youth, while another individual beamed knowingly in the background.

Lacking that snapshot, captured at a gathering in 2001, few would have credited the allegations of a young woman who declared she was moved across the sea and obliged to have cursory intimate contact with a individual of the royal family?

An odd, telling move by someone who had publicly asserted to have not known about her, said he could no have had relations with her, and yet provided a large amount of his mother's money to avert a drawn-out lawsuit.

Years of Disgrace

Considering this, conversations of the royals acting firmly to sever ties with Andrew are inaccurate. This controversy has persisted for the largest portion of 15 years since that image, and an additional snapshot of Andrew strolling amiably with a convicted sex offender came to light.

• Arrogance: For what duration did his siblings, possibly even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Problematic Connections: They must have known, if his staff and the police were fulfilling their roles, that he had some highly questionable friends given he openly invited them to royal residences.
• Financial Extravagance: If the monarchy did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with state resources.

Journeys were printed in official documents: private aircraft travel from the estate to a golf course and back again in time for dining, private flights instead of commercial flights, all for the comfort of "the travel enthusiast".

A Life of Privilege

Then there was the arrogance which expected subservience when he entered a area or the supreme awareness about his designations used on his correspondence in messages to his friends.

He could get away with it while his parent, who strangely pampered him, was still living. The monarch did at least strip him of public duties and military positions in the aftermath of his ill-fated and, it is now clear, mendacious media appearance six years ago.

Recent Developments

Just in the last fortnight that events sped up, following the publication of biographical works giving more troubling information of his conduct and that of his associates.

Additional revelations have again revealed Andrew's assumption that he could get away with deceiving about his interaction with a convicted criminal.

Society (and the media) were far in advance of the royals. There was nobody of any significance to speak up for him, a consequence of all those years of arrogance.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent royals realized that. The key objective is to pass on the monarchy, if not as previously at least whole and unblemished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to overcome the legacy of earlier rulers, proving they are useful, dutiful and reactive to their people.

Andrew was putting all that in peril in an age when deference and privacy is no longer adequate.

Aftermath

Ultimately, the notoriously hesitant king was pushed additional. There was no other option. The institution had relinquished authority of the narrative.

Currently the removal of honorifics and the ongoing and permanent public humiliation that will afflict Andrew most severely.

• Downgrading: Demoted to just a commoner
• Historical Precedent: The first monarch to lose his designations in recent history
• Armed Forces: Especially stinging given his duty in the Falklands war

He continues to be a royal advisor, theoretically able to act for the monarch, and he is still in the succession to the throne, but none of these will actually come to pass.

What Lies Ahead

Do individuals he comes across still acknowledge him? Might they still forget themselves and call him Your Highness? Will they even say Andrew,

Naturally, he is not withdrawing to an ordinary town, but to the sovereign's large property at Sandringham.

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

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

Unresolved Issues

This is not over. There are still documents in the possession of American legislators to be made public.

• Political Pressure: Will lawmakers request additional information
• Financial Investigation: Or scrutinize the misuse of public money
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a police investigation into his behavior

Possibly for the present the harm to the monarchy to the crown is limited. The narrative from the institution was plainly that the stripping of designations was what the king, and particularly other senior family members, sought.

Altered Approach

An end to deception that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, significantly, the short communication showed evidently that the institution were supporting the accuser's account of events.

Even more, for the initial instance they eventually showed consideration for the survivors: "The measures are considered essential, regardless of the truth that he persists in refuting the accusations against him."

Ultimately it is entitlement, selfishness and indolence that will kill the institution. In his foolishness, self-gratification and venality, Andrew seems never to have learned that reality.