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This episode commenced with a isolated photograph, possibly the most significant ever captured of a royal family member.

Present was the Baron Killyleagh, with his arm around a teenage girl, while a companion grinned knowingly in the background.

Without that image, captured at a gathering in 2001, few would have credited the assertions of a young woman who said she was transported across the sea and forced to have brief sexual encounters with a prince of the royal family?

An odd, indicative move by someone who had publicly asserted to have not been aware of her, claimed he could no have had intimate contact with her, and yet handed over a substantial sum of his mother's money to settle a drawn-out court action.

Over a Decade of Controversy

Considering this, talk of the monarchy acting swiftly to cut Andrew off are misguided. This scandal has persisted for the largest portion of 15 years since that photograph, and an additional photo of Andrew strolling congenially with a convicted sex offender emerged.

• Arrogance: To what extent did his family members, possibly even his relatives, know that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have understood, if his employees and the law enforcement were fulfilling their roles, that he had some deeply disreputable friends given he publicly invited them to estates.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the family did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with public money.

Trips were documented in official documents: helicopter travel from the estate to a sporting venue and back again in time for lunch, private flights instead of regular transport, all for the comfort of "the travel enthusiast".

A Life of Privilege

Additionally the entitlement which required subservience when he entered a area or the extreme obsession about his honorifics used on his letterheads in messages to his friends.

He managed to escape consequences while his mother, who inexplicably spoiled him, was still living. The Queen did at least remove him of official roles and military positions in the aftermath of his disastrous and, as revealed, deceptive public statement six years ago.

Recent Developments

Just in the last fortnight that events sped up, following the issuance of books giving more troubling particulars of his behavior and that of his associates.

More information have again revealed Andrew's assumption that he could escape lying about his relationship with a convicted criminal.

Society (and the journalists) were far in advance of the royal family. There was nobody of any importance to support him, a consequence of all those years of arrogance.

Institutional Fears

The wiser royals recognized that. The primary concern is to hand down the monarchy, if not as previously at least whole and untarnished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to reverse the image of past sovereigns, showing they are useful, responsible and responsive to their subjects.

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

The Fallout

Finally, the well-known uncertain monarch was pressured further. There was no alternative. The institution had lost control of the account.

Presently the loss of designations and the continued and lifetime social disgrace that will pain Andrew most severely.

• Reduction: Demoted to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Past Example: The primary monarch to lose his designations in recent history
• Military Service: Particularly painful given his duty in the engagement

He remains a royal advisor, theoretically able to act for the king, and he is still in the succession to the crown, but neither of these will actually happen.

Coming Developments

Do individuals he comes across still defer to him? Could they still forget themselves and call him Sir? Would they say Andrew,

Naturally, he is not retiring to a common area, but to the royal family's extensive property at a royal residence.

In that place, he will be provided by the king with one of the estate properties and given some form of personal stipend.

It is not his former home, where he paid a minimal payment for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit distant, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Unresolved Issues

The situation continues. There are still files in the custody of American legislators to be revealed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will lawmakers request additional information
• Fiscal Review: Or investigate the waste of taxpayer funds
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a police investigation into his conduct

Maybe for the time being the reputational impact to the crown is limited. The message from the royal household was clearly that the stripping of titles was what the sovereign, and especially other senior monarchical figures, wanted.

A Shift in Position

An end to illusion that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, notably, the short statement showed clearly that the royals were supporting the complainant's account of events.

Even more, for the first time they eventually showed regard for the survivors: "These actions are judged required, regardless of the truth that he continues to deny the claims against him."

Finally it is entitlement, selfishness and indolence that will undermine the institution. In his folly, personal excess and greed, Andrew gives the impression never to have grasped that reality.