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The saga started with a single photograph, perhaps the most significant ever taken of a individual from the royal household.

In the frame appeared the Duke of York, standing closely beside a female youth, while an associate grinned suggestively in the backdrop.

Absent that photograph, captured at a social event in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a adolescent who said she was trafficked across the Atlantic and forced to have cursory intimate contact with a individual of the monarchy?

A curious, revealing gesture by someone who had overtly claimed to have no been aware of her, asserted he could no have had intimate contact with her, and yet handed over millions of monarchical money to settle a protracted legal case.

Years of Disgrace

Against this backdrop, talk of the monarchy acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This controversy has persisted for the majority of 15 years since that photograph, and an additional snapshot of Andrew ambling congenially with a convicted sex offender surfaced.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his siblings, maybe even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Problematic Connections: They must have known, if his staff and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable friends given he publicly hosted them to palaces.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the monarchy did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his overspending with public money.

Journeys were printed in public records: helicopter flights from the royal residence to a sporting venue and back again in time for lunch, chartered planes instead of commercial flights, all for the comfort of "Airmiles Andy".

Existence of Entitlement

Then there was the entitlement which demanded subservience when he appeared in a space or the profound consciousness about his royal titles used on his letterheads in communication to his friends.

He managed to escape consequences while his mother, who unaccountably pampered him, was still surviving. The monarch did at least strip him of public duties and ceremonial ranks in the aftermath of his catastrophic and, it is now clear, deceptive media appearance six years ago.

Current Situation

It was only in the last two weeks that events progressed rapidly, following the publication of accounts giving more troubling information of his behavior and that of his connections.

Further disclosures have again highlighted Andrew's assumption that he could avoid being untruthful about his interaction with a disgraced individual.

The public (and the journalists) were far ahead of the monarchy. There was nobody of any significance to speak up for him, a result of all those years of hubris.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent monarchical figures recognized that. The key objective is to pass on the monarchy, if not as heretofore at least complete and unblemished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to overcome the image of past sovereigns, proving they are useful, responsible and attentive to their citizens.

He was placing all that in danger in an age when submission and privacy is no longer sufficient.

Aftermath

Eventually, the famously uncertain king was pressured more. There was little choice. The institution had lost control of the narrative.

Currently the stripping of honorifics and the persistent and life-long personal shame that will pain Andrew most severely.

• Reduction: Lowered to just a commoner
• Prior Instance: The initial member to lose his honorifics in modern times
• Naval Career: Particularly stinging given his duty in the conflict

He is still a royal advisor, on paper able to substitute for the monarch, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but none of these will actually occur.

Future Prospects

Do individuals he comes across still show respect to him? Will they still slip up and call him Your Highness? Will they even say Andrew,

Naturally, he is not retiring to a common area, but to the sovereign's large grounds at Sandringham.

In that place, he will be supplied by the king with one of the grace and favour houses and given some sort of financial support.

This differs from his previous residence, where he paid a minimal payment for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit remote, but even so it may not be far enough.

Outstanding Concerns

This is not over. There are still records in the possession of American legislators to be revealed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will legislators demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or scrutinize the misuse of public money
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a police investigation into his actions

Perhaps for the moment the institutional damage to the monarchy is limited. The message from the palace was plainly that the stripping of designations was what the king, and notably other senior royals, sought.

Altered Approach

The cessation of deception that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, significantly, the concise communication showed clearly that the monarchy were supporting the accuser's narrative of incidents.

Furthermore, for the premiere occasion they eventually showed consideration for the affected individuals: "The censures are judged required, regardless of the reality that he continues to deny the allegations against him."

In the end it is entitlement, self-seeking and indolence that will kill the institution. In his folly, self-indulgence and corruption, Andrew gives the impression never to have learned that lesson.