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It all began with a isolated photograph, perhaps the most consequential ever captured of a individual from the royal household.

There stood the Duke of York, with his arm around a teenage girl, while a companion grinned knowingly in the backdrop.

Absent that snapshot, shot at a social event in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the allegations of a teenager who stated she was transported across the Atlantic and compelled to have cursory relations with a member of the royal bloodline?

A strange, telling move by someone who had openly asserted to have never known about her, claimed he could never have had intimate contact with her, and yet provided a substantial sum of family funds to settle a long-delayed lawsuit.

A Long Period of Disgrace

In this context, conversations of the royal family acting swiftly to cut Andrew off are inaccurate. This affair has persisted for the largest portion of 15 years since that image, and another photo of Andrew strolling congenially with a notorious individual surfaced.

• Hubris: For what duration did his siblings, maybe even his parents, understand that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Questionable Associations: They must have understood, if his staff and the police were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory friends given he openly hosted them to estates.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the household did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with state resources.

Travel were documented in public records: chopper transfers from the estate to a country club and back again in time for midday meal, exclusive air travel instead of regular transport, all for the convenience of "the travel enthusiast".

World of Deference

Furthermore the presumption which expected subservience when he entered a area or the supreme awareness about his designations used on his official documents in letters to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who unaccountably indulged him, was still alive. The sovereign did at least remove him of public duties and ceremonial ranks in the consequence of his disastrous and, as revealed, untruthful television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last fortnight that events sped up, following the release of biographical works giving more grim information of his actions and that of his connections.

Additional revelations have again exposed Andrew's thinking that he could get away with deceiving about his contact with a disgraced individual.

Society (and the journalists) were far ahead of the royal family. There was not a single person of any importance to speak up for him, a outcome of all those years of arrogance.

Royal Worries

The wiser royals understood that. The one imperative is to transfer the institution, if not as before at least complete and unblemished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to undo the image of earlier rulers, proving they are valuable, dutiful and responsive to their people.

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

Consequences

Eventually, the notoriously uncertain sovereign was pushed further. There was no alternative. The palace had surrendered command of the story.

Presently the removal of titles and the ongoing and lifetime social disgrace that will pain Andrew most deeply.

• Downgrading: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Past Example: The primary member to lose his designations in recent history
• Military Service: Especially painful given his service in the engagement

He remains a constitutional officer, theoretically able to stand in for the king, and he is still eighth in line to the monarchy, but none of these will ever occur.

Coming Developments

Will people he comes across still acknowledge him? Might they still make mistakes and call him Sir? Would they say Sir,

Of course, he is not moving to an ordinary town, but to the royal family's large property at a royal residence.

At that location, he will be furnished by the sovereign with one of the royal residences and given some type of financial support.

This differs from 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 far enough.

Unresolved Issues

Matters remain unresolved. There are still records in the possession of overseas authorities to be made public.

• Political Pressure: Might parliament request additional information
• Fiscal Review: Or scrutinize the waste of public money
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a police investigation into his conduct

Possibly for the present the reputational impact to the crown is contained. The message from the royal household was clearly that the removal of honorifics was what the sovereign, and particularly other senior family members, wanted.

Changed Stance

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

Furthermore, for the premiere occasion they eventually showed regard for the affected individuals: "The censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

Ultimately it is arrogance, selfishness and laziness that will destroy the monarchy. In his foolishness, self-indulgence and venality, Andrew gives the impression never to have grasped that truth.