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The saga started with a isolated photograph, possibly the most consequential ever snapped of a member of the monarchy.

There stood the Earl of Inverness, standing closely beside a teenage girl, while a companion grinned knowingly in the rear.

Lacking that photograph, taken at a gathering in 2001, who would have believed the claims of a adolescent who declared she was moved across the Atlantic and obliged to have brief sexual encounters with a prince of the royal bloodline?

A strange, indicative action by someone who had overtly claimed to have no known about her, asserted he could not have had relations with her, and yet provided a substantial sum of family funds to settle a protracted court action.

A Long Period of Controversy

Considering this, discussions of the monarchy acting swiftly to sever ties with Andrew are misguided. This controversy has continued for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and a further image of Andrew ambling pleasantly with a convicted sex offender surfaced.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his siblings, maybe even his relatives, understand that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have understood, if his aides and the police were performing their duties, that he had some deeply disreputable associates given he openly invited them to estates.
• Financial Extravagance: If the household did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

Travel were documented in royal annual reports: helicopter flights from the estate to a golf course and back again in time for lunch, chartered planes instead of scheduled services, all for the comfort of "Airmiles Andy".

A Life of Privilege

Additionally the entitlement which required subservience when he entered a space or the supreme obsession about his designations used on his correspondence in letters to his associates.

He avoided accountability while his mother, who inexplicably indulged him, was still living. The monarch did at least revoke him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the aftermath of his disastrous and, as revealed, untruthful media appearance six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last 14 days that events accelerated, following the issuance of accounts giving more disturbing particulars of his conduct and that of his companions.

Further disclosures have again exposed Andrew's assumption that he could get away with lying about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

Society (and the media) were far more perceptive of the royals. There was not a single person of any importance to speak up for him, a result of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent monarchical figures realized that. The key objective is to hand down the institution, if not as before at least whole and unstained.

For generations the last 190 years trying to reverse the reputation of previous monarchs, showing they are useful, accountable and attentive to their citizens.

His actions endangered all that in jeopardy in an age when deference and privacy is no longer enough.

Consequences

Finally, the famously hesitant sovereign was prodded additional. There was little choice. The palace had relinquished authority of the narrative.

Presently the loss of designations and the ongoing and life-long social disgrace that will afflict Andrew most deeply.

• Downgrading: Demoted to just a commoner
• Prior Instance: The primary monarch to forfeit his designations in modern times
• Military Service: Notably stinging given his service in the Falklands war

He is still a counsellor of state, in principle able to stand in for the monarch, and he is still in the succession to the crown, but not any of these will actually occur.

What Lies Ahead

Can persons he encounters still show respect to him? Will they still slip up and call him Prince? Will they even say Andrew,

Certainly, he is not withdrawing to an ordinary town, but to the sovereign's extensive grounds at a monarchical property.

In that place, he will be supplied by the sovereign with one of the estate properties and given some type of financial support.

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

Unresolved Issues

The situation continues. There are still records in the possession of US Congress to be revealed.

• Political Pressure: Will legislators demand more
• Fiscal Review: Or examine the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a criminal probe into his conduct

Maybe for the time being the reputational impact to the monarchy is contained. The statement from the institution was clearly that the removal of designations was what the monarch, and notably other senior monarchical figures, wanted.

A Shift in Position

The cessation of illusion that Andrew was acting willingly. And, significantly, the short announcement showed evidently that the institution were siding with the victim's narrative of incidents.

Additionally, for the first time they ultimately showed regard for the affected individuals: "The measures are considered essential, regardless of the truth that he continues to deny the accusations against him."

Ultimately it is arrogance, selfishness and indolence that will destroy the institution. In his stupidity, self-gratification and venality, Andrew seems never to have understood that truth.