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This episode commenced with a single photograph, perhaps the most significant ever snapped of a individual from the royal household.

In the frame appeared the Baron Killyleagh, with his arm around a female youth, while a companion grinned knowingly in the rear.

Without that image, shot at a gathering in 2001, who would have believed the claims of a adolescent who said she was moved across the ocean and compelled to have perfunctory intimate contact with a prince of the royal bloodline?

A strange, revealing gesture by someone who had overtly claimed to have never been aware of her, claimed he could never have had sex with her, and yet provided a substantial sum of monarchical money to avert a protracted court action.

Over a Decade of Controversy

Considering this, talk of the royals acting decisively to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This scandal has continued for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and a further image of Andrew walking amiably with a convicted sex offender came to light.

• Arrogance: To what extent did his siblings, maybe even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have realized, if his staff and the authorities were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable companions given he unabashedly welcomed them to royal residences.
• Financial Extravagance: If the household did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

Travel were documented in royal annual reports: helicopter travel from the palace to a golf course and back again in time for dining, private flights instead of regular transport, all for the comfort of "the travel enthusiast".

A Life of Privilege

Then there was the entitlement which required respect when he appeared in a area or the extreme obsession about his designations used on his letterheads in messages to his friends.

He managed to escape consequences while his matriarch, who unaccountably indulged him, was still living. The monarch did at least strip him of official roles and ceremonial ranks in the wake of his catastrophic and, we now know, mendacious public statement six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last two weeks that events accelerated, following the publication of books giving more disturbing details of his actions and that of his associates.

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

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

Monarchical Concerns

The more astute family members recognized that. The key objective is to transfer the monarchy, if not as before at least intact and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the image of previous monarchs, proving they are beneficial, dutiful and reactive to their subjects.

He was placing all that in jeopardy in an era when deference and secrecy is no longer sufficient.

Aftermath

Ultimately, the well-known indecisive monarch was prodded further. There was little choice. The palace had lost control of the story.

Presently the stripping of honorifics and the ongoing and life-long public humiliation that will pain Andrew most deeply.

• Reduction: Lowered to just a private citizen
• Past Example: The primary royal to forfeit his designations in recent history
• Armed Forces: Especially hurtful given his service in the engagement

He continues to be a constitutional officer, on paper able to stand in for the sovereign, and he is still in the succession to the crown, but none of these will actually happen.

Future Prospects

Do individuals he comes across still acknowledge him? Might they still slip up and call him Prince? Might they say Mr,

Naturally, he is not moving to a common area, but to the sovereign's vast estate at a monarchical property.

There, he will be furnished by the sovereign with one of the estate properties and given some form of private allowance.

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

Outstanding Concerns

The situation continues. There are still files in the possession of overseas authorities to be disclosed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Could parliament seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or scrutinize the waste of state resources
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a criminal probe into his conduct

Perhaps for the time being the institutional damage to the crown is limited. The narrative from the royal household was clearly that the stripping of titles was what the sovereign, and especially other senior monarchical figures, sought.

Changed Stance

An end to deception that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, remarkably, the concise statement showed evidently that the monarchy were aligning with the complainant's account of incidents.

Additionally, for the premiere occasion they ultimately showed concern for the affected individuals: "The measures are judged required, despite the reality that he persists in refuting the claims against him."

Finally it is presumption, self-seeking and inactivity that will kill the crown. In his folly, personal excess and venality, Andrew appears never to have grasped that truth.