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This episode commenced with a isolated photograph, perhaps the most consequential ever captured of a individual from the royal household.

Present was the Baron Killyleagh, standing closely beside a female youth, while an associate beamed conspiratorially in the backdrop.

Absent that image, shot at a party in 2001, few would have credited the assertions of a young woman who stated she was moved across the sea and compelled to have brief relations with a prince of the royal family?

A strange, telling action by someone who had overtly asserted to have never heard of her, asserted he could never have had relations with her, and yet provided millions of family resources to avert a drawn-out legal case.

Years of Scandal

In this context, discussions of the monarchy acting firmly to cut Andrew off are inaccurate. This scandal has endured for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and an additional snapshot of Andrew strolling pleasantly with a disgraced financier surfaced.

• Self-importance: To what extent did his brothers and sisters, maybe even his mother and father, know that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Problematic Connections: They must have realized, if his employees and the law enforcement were fulfilling their roles, that he had some deeply disreputable friends given he publicly invited them to royal residences.
• Financial Extravagance: If the household did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his overspending with state resources.

Trips were documented in royal annual reports: private aircraft transfers from the royal residence to a sporting venue and back again in time for midday meal, chartered planes instead of commercial flights, all for the comfort of "the travel enthusiast".

World of Deference

Additionally the arrogance which expected subservience when he walked into a area or the supreme awareness about his royal titles used on his letterheads in messages to his personal acquaintances.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who inexplicably indulged him, was still surviving. The sovereign did at least revoke him of public duties and military positions in the consequence of his ill-fated and, it is now clear, mendacious television interview six years ago.

Recent Developments

It was only in the last 14 days that events sped up, following the publication of accounts giving more grim details of his conduct and that of his connections.

Further disclosures have again revealed Andrew's assumption that he could get away with deceiving about his contact with a convicted criminal.

Society (and the press) were far ahead of the monarchy. There was no one of any importance to support him, a result of all those years of arrogance.

Institutional Fears

The more astute royals recognized that. The key objective is to pass on the monarchy, if not as previously at least complete and untarnished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to undo the reputation of past sovereigns, demonstrating they are useful, dutiful and attentive to their citizens.

Andrew was putting all that in peril in an era when respect and privacy is no longer sufficient.

The Fallout

Finally, the well-known hesitant monarch was pushed additional. There was no alternative. The palace had lost control of the narrative.

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

• Demotion: Reduced to just a commoner
• Past Example: The primary monarch to forfeit his titles in modern times
• Naval Career: Especially stinging given his service in the Falklands war

He is still a constitutional officer, theoretically able to substitute for the monarch, and he is still eighth in line to the monarchy, but not any of these will actually come to pass.

Coming Developments

Will people he meets still defer to him? Will they still slip up and call him Sir? Will they even say Sir,

Certainly, he is not retiring to an ordinary town, but to the sovereign's extensive estate at a royal residence.

There, he will be provided by the sovereign with one of the grace and favour houses and given some form of personal stipend.

It is not his former home, where he paid a token rent for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit remote, but even so it may not be far enough.

Unresolved Issues

Matters remain unresolved. There are still files in the possession of American legislators to be revealed.

• Political Pressure: Will lawmakers demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or examine the improper use of public money
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his actions

Maybe for the time being the reputational impact to the monarchy is contained. The message from the palace was clearly that the stripping of designations was what the king, and notably other senior monarchical figures, sought.

Altered Approach

An end to pretence that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, remarkably, the concise announcement showed plainly that the institution were supporting the victim's account of occurrences.

Additionally, for the initial instance they finally showed regard for the affected individuals: "The measures are considered essential, despite the truth that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

In the end it is arrogance, self-seeking and inactivity that will undermine the monarchy. In his folly, self-gratification and corruption, Andrew seems never to have learned that reality.