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

In the frame appeared the Earl of Inverness, standing closely beside a young woman, while another individual beamed suggestively in the background.

Lacking that snapshot, captured at a social event in 2001, few would have credited the claims of a young woman who stated she was moved across the ocean and forced to have perfunctory intimate contact with a prince of the royal family?

An odd, telling gesture by someone who had overtly claimed to have never been aware of her, said he could not have had relations with her, and yet handed over a large amount of monarchical funds to settle a long-delayed legal case.

Over a Decade of Disgrace

In this context, discussions of the royals acting firmly to cut Andrew off are wide of the mark. This scandal has persisted for the majority of 15 years since that image, and a further photo of Andrew ambling pleasantly with a convicted sex offender surfaced.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his siblings, perhaps even his parents, realize that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have understood, if his aides and the authorities were fulfilling their roles, that he had some highly questionable friends given he openly hosted them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the household did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

Travel were printed in public records: private aircraft transfers from the estate to a sporting venue and back again in time for lunch, chartered planes instead of regular transport, all for the comfort of "Airmiles Andy".

Existence of Entitlement

Furthermore the presumption which demanded deference when he appeared in a area or the supreme obsession about his honorifics used on his letterheads in letters to his personal acquaintances.

He avoided accountability while his parent, who unaccountably pampered him, was still surviving. The Queen did at least remove him of public duties and ceremonial ranks in the consequence of his catastrophic and, as revealed, deceptive public statement six years ago.

Current Situation

Merely in the last 14 days that events progressed rapidly, following the release of accounts giving more troubling information of his actions and that of his associates.

Further disclosures have again exposed Andrew's thinking that he could get away with deceiving about his contact with a notorious figure.

The public (and the media) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was no one of any significance to defend him, a outcome of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent monarchical figures realized that. The primary concern is to pass on the institution, if not as heretofore at least complete and untarnished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to reverse the legacy of earlier rulers, proving they are valuable, responsible and responsive to their citizens.

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

Consequences

Eventually, the well-known uncertain monarch was pressured additional. There was no alternative. The royal household had lost control of the account.

Presently the stripping of titles and the persistent and lifetime public humiliation that will pain Andrew most severely.

• Reduction: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The first monarch to forfeit his designations in recent history
• Military Service: Notably stinging given his service in the engagement

He continues to be a constitutional officer, on paper able to act for the monarch, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but neither of these will truly occur.

What Lies Ahead

Can persons he encounters still show respect to him? Might they still make mistakes and call him Prince? Will they even say Andrew,

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

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

This differs from his former home, where he paid a token lease for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit remote, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Pending Matters

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

• Parliamentary Interest: Will parliament demand more
• Fiscal Review: Or investigate the waste of public money
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a criminal probe into his actions

Possibly for the present the institutional damage to the crown is restricted. The message from the institution was plainly that the revocation of honorifics was what the sovereign, and particularly other senior family members, wanted.

A Shift in Position

No more illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, notably, the brief communication showed plainly that the royals were aligning with the complainant's version of incidents.

Even more, for the initial instance they ultimately showed regard for the affected individuals: "The censures are deemed necessary, despite the reality that he maintains his innocence of the accusations against him."

In the end it is presumption, self-interest and laziness that will kill the monarchy. In his folly, self-gratification and venality, Andrew gives the impression never to have understood that truth.