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This episode commenced with a single photograph, possibly the most consequential ever captured of a member of the monarchy.

In the frame appeared the Baron Killyleagh, arm-in-arm a teenage girl, while a companion smiled conspiratorially in the rear.

Absent that snapshot, captured at a party in 2001, few would have credited the claims of a teenager who stated she was transported across the sea and forced to have cursory intimate contact with a member of the monarchy?

A strange, telling move by someone who had publicly claimed to have no known about her, said he could never have had intimate contact with her, and yet provided millions of family money to avert a protracted legal case.

A Long Period of Controversy

Considering this, discussions of the royals acting decisively to distance themselves from Andrew are misguided. This controversy has endured for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and a further photo of Andrew ambling pleasantly with a notorious individual surfaced.

• Hubris: For what duration did his family members, maybe even his mother and father, know that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Problematic Connections: They must have known, if his employees and the police were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable associates given he openly hosted them to royal residences.
• Financial Extravagance: If the family did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his overspending with taxpayer funds.

Travel were listed in public records: chopper flights from the royal residence to a country club and back again in time for dining, private flights instead of commercial flights, all for the benefit of "the frequent flyer".

Existence of Entitlement

Furthermore the presumption which expected subservience when he entered a space or the extreme awareness about his designations used on his letterheads in communication to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his mother, who inexplicably pampered him, was still surviving. The sovereign did at least remove him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the consequence of his catastrophic and, it is now clear, mendacious media appearance six years ago.

Current Situation

Just in the last fortnight that events progressed rapidly, following the release of biographical works giving more grim information of his conduct and that of his associates.

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

Society (and the press) were far ahead of the royal family. There was not a single person of any significance to speak up for him, a outcome of all those years of hubris.

Institutional Fears

The wiser monarchical figures recognized that. The key objective is to pass on the monarchy, if not as before at least intact and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the image of past sovereigns, demonstrating they are useful, dutiful and attentive to their citizens.

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

Aftermath

Finally, the notoriously uncertain king was pressured more. There was little choice. The palace had lost control of the story.

Presently the removal of designations and the continued and permanent social disgrace that will afflict Andrew most deeply.

• Downgrading: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Past Example: The first royal to forfeit his designations in contemporary era
• Naval Career: Particularly stinging given his role in the conflict

He remains a constitutional officer, on paper able to act for the monarch, and he is still in the succession to the crown, but not any of these will ever come to pass.

Coming Developments

Can persons he comes across still show respect to him? Will they still make mistakes and call him Prince? Might they say Mr,

Naturally, he is not moving to suburbia, but to the monarchy's large estate at a monarchical property.

In that place, he will be provided by the monarch with one of the estate properties and given some form of private allowance.

This differs from his previous residence, where he paid a token rent 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 records in the custody of overseas authorities to be revealed.

• Political Pressure: Could parliament seek further action
• Monetary Probe: Or investigate the improper use of state resources
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a criminal probe into his actions

Perhaps for the time being the harm to the monarchy to the institution is limited. The message from the institution was plainly that the stripping of titles was what the sovereign, and particularly other senior royals, sought.

A Shift in Position

The cessation of illusion that Andrew was acting willingly. And, notably, the short announcement showed plainly that the monarchy were aligning with the accuser's version of events.

Additionally, for the initial instance they eventually showed consideration for the survivors: "The censures are judged required, regardless of the reality that he persists in refuting the claims against him."

In the end it is arrogance, self-seeking and indolence that will destroy the institution. In his stupidity, personal excess and venality, Andrew appears never to have understood that lesson.