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The saga started with a solitary photograph, possibly the most impactful ever taken of a royal family member.

There stood the Baron Killyleagh, arm-in-arm a female youth, while another individual beamed suggestively in the backdrop.

Absent that snapshot, captured at a party in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the allegations of a young woman who said she was transported across the Atlantic and forced to have brief relations with a prince of the monarchy?

A strange, telling move by someone who had openly claimed to have not heard of her, claimed he could not have had relations with her, and yet handed over a large amount of monarchical funds to settle a protracted court action.

Over a Decade of Scandal

Considering this, talk of the royal family acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are misguided. This controversy has continued for the better part of 15 years since that photograph, and an additional snapshot of Andrew walking congenially with a notorious individual came to light.

• Arrogance: For what duration did his siblings, perhaps even his parents, realize that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have known, if his employees and the law enforcement were doing their jobs, that he had some extremely unsavory associates given he unabashedly invited them to royal residences.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the household did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with public money.

Trips were listed in official documents: private aircraft transfers from the palace to a country club and back again in time for dining, private flights instead of scheduled services, all for the benefit of "Airmiles Andy".

Existence of Entitlement

Furthermore the entitlement which demanded deference when he entered a area or the profound awareness about his honorifics used on his official documents in messages to his personal acquaintances.

He managed to escape consequences while his matriarch, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still surviving. The sovereign did at least remove him of official roles and military positions in the wake of his ill-fated and, it is now clear, untruthful public statement six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last two weeks that events sped up, following the release of accounts giving more grim particulars of his behavior and that of his companions.

Additional revelations have again highlighted Andrew's belief that he could avoid being untruthful about his contact with a disgraced individual.

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

Monarchical Concerns

The more intelligent royals realized that. The primary concern is to pass on the crown, if not as before at least whole and untarnished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the image of earlier rulers, proving they are useful, responsible and reactive to their citizens.

Andrew was putting all that in jeopardy in an time when respect and discretion is no longer enough.

Consequences

Eventually, the well-known hesitant sovereign was pushed additional. There was no other option. The palace had relinquished authority of the narrative.

Currently the removal of honorifics and the continued and life-long social disgrace that will hurt Andrew most severely.

• Demotion: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Past Example: The first royal to lose his designations in contemporary era
• Naval Career: Especially hurtful given his duty in the Falklands war

He remains a counsellor of state, theoretically able to stand in for the king, and he is still in the succession to the monarchy, but not any of these will actually happen.

Future Prospects

Will people he comes across still defer to him? Could they still make mistakes and call him Prince? Might they say Andrew,

Naturally, he is not retiring to a common area, but to the monarchy's extensive estate at a monarchical property.

There, he will be provided by the king with one of the royal residences and given some sort of private allowance.

This differs from his previous residence, where he paid a minimal rent for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit distant, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Unresolved Issues

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

• Parliamentary Interest: Might legislators demand more
• Fiscal Review: Or scrutinize the waste of taxpayer funds
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a criminal probe into his behavior

Maybe for the present the harm to the monarchy to the monarchy is limited. The statement from the royal household was plainly that the removal of titles was what the king, and especially other senior royals, desired.

Altered Approach

An end to illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, notably, the concise communication showed evidently that the institution were aligning with the complainant's account of occurrences.

Even more, for the premiere occasion they finally showed regard for the affected individuals: "The censures are deemed necessary, despite the truth that he persists in refuting the allegations against him."

Ultimately it is entitlement, selfishness and inactivity that will undermine the monarchy. In his foolishness, personal excess and corruption, Andrew gives the impression never to have learned that reality.