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The saga started with a solitary photograph, possibly the most consequential ever snapped of a individual from the royal household.

Present was the Earl of Inverness, standing closely beside a young woman, while an associate smiled suggestively in the rear.

Absent that photograph, taken at a party in 2001, few would have credited the claims of a teenager who declared she was transported across the ocean and obliged to have cursory relations with a prince of the royal bloodline?

A strange, telling move by someone who had overtly claimed to have no heard of her, asserted he could not have had intimate contact with her, and yet handed over millions of family money to settle a long-delayed legal case.

Years of Scandal

In this context, talk of the royal family acting firmly to sever ties with Andrew are wide of the mark. This scandal has persisted for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and an additional snapshot of Andrew ambling amiably with a disgraced financier surfaced.

• Arrogance: How long did his siblings, possibly even his mother and father, know that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Problematic Connections: They must have known, if his employees and the police were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable friends given he unabashedly welcomed them to royal residences.
• Monetary Excess: If the household did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with public money.

Journeys were listed in royal annual reports: private aircraft transfers from the estate to a sporting venue and back again in time for dining, exclusive air travel instead of regular transport, all for the comfort of "Airmiles Andy".

Existence of Entitlement

Then there was the presumption which expected deference when he appeared in a area or the supreme awareness about his royal titles used on his official documents in communication to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his matriarch, who unaccountably pampered him, was still surviving. The Queen did at least revoke him of public duties and military positions in the wake of his ill-fated and, it is now clear, deceptive media appearance six years ago.

Latest Events

Just in the last fortnight that events progressed rapidly, following the publication of books giving more grim particulars of his behavior and that of his connections.

More information have again revealed Andrew's thinking that he could avoid lying about his relationship with a notorious figure.

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

Royal Worries

The more intelligent family members understood that. The primary concern is to transfer the monarchy, if not as before at least whole and unblemished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to reverse the legacy of past sovereigns, proving they are valuable, accountable and reactive to their citizens.

He was placing all that in peril in an era when respect and privacy is no longer enough.

Consequences

Finally, the notoriously uncertain monarch was prodded additional. There was little choice. The palace had lost control of the story.

Now it is the removal of honorifics and the persistent and life-long social disgrace that will pain Andrew most severely.

• Demotion: Lowered to just a private citizen
• Past Example: The primary monarch to forfeit his designations in recent history
• Military Service: Notably hurtful given his duty in the Falklands war

He remains a constitutional officer, in principle able to substitute for the king, and he is still eighth in line to the monarchy, but not any of these will truly happen.

Future Prospects

Do individuals he meets still show respect to him? Will they still slip up and call him Prince? Will they even say Mr,

Of course, he is not withdrawing to an ordinary town, but to the sovereign's extensive grounds at Sandringham.

In that place, he will be supplied by the sovereign with one of the royal residences and given some type of private allowance.

This is not his previous residence, where he paid a nominal lease for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit remote, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Pending Matters

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

• Political Pressure: Might legislators demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or scrutinize the waste of state resources
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a criminal probe into his conduct

Maybe for the present the institutional damage to the monarchy is contained. The message from the palace was plainly that the revocation of designations was what the sovereign, and especially other senior royals, sought.

Altered Approach

No more deception that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, notably, the short communication showed evidently that the institution were siding with the victim's account of events.

Furthermore, for the premiere occasion they finally showed concern for the victims: "The censures are judged required, notwithstanding the reality that he continues to deny the allegations against him."

Ultimately it is entitlement, self-interest and laziness that will undermine the monarchy. In his folly, self-indulgence and greed, Andrew appears never to have learned that truth.