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The saga started with a solitary photograph, possibly the most significant ever captured of a royal family member.

There stood the Duke of York, with his arm around a female youth, while a companion beamed knowingly in the backdrop.

Absent that image, taken at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the allegations of a teenager who said she was trafficked across the Atlantic and compelled to have cursory sexual encounters with a member of the royal family?

A strange, telling gesture by someone who had openly asserted to have no known about her, claimed he could no have had intimate contact with her, and yet paid a substantial sum of his mother's money to resolve a drawn-out lawsuit.

A Long Period of Scandal

Against this backdrop, conversations of the monarchy acting firmly to cut Andrew off are wide of the mark. This scandal has persisted for the majority of 15 years since that image, and an additional snapshot of Andrew ambling pleasantly with a notorious individual came to light.

• Self-importance: To what extent did his brothers and sisters, perhaps even his parents, understand that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Questionable Associations: They must have realized, if his staff and the law enforcement were fulfilling their roles, that he had some extremely unsavory companions given he unabashedly invited them to royal residences.
• Monetary Excess: If the family did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with state resources.

Trips were listed in official documents: private aircraft transfers from the royal residence to a golf course and back again in time for dining, exclusive air travel instead of regular transport, all for the benefit of "Airmiles Andy".

A Life of Privilege

Then there was the arrogance which demanded deference when he appeared in a room or the extreme consciousness about his honorifics used on his letterheads in communication to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his mother, who inexplicably indulged him, was still alive. The Queen did at least remove him of official roles and military positions in the consequence of his catastrophic and, as revealed, deceptive media appearance six years ago.

Current Situation

Just in the last two weeks that events accelerated, following the release of books giving more disturbing details of his conduct and that of his associates.

Additional revelations have again exposed Andrew's thinking that he could escape being untruthful about his interaction with a notorious figure.

The public (and the press) were far in advance of the royal family. There was not a single person of any importance to support him, a result of all those years of arrogance.

Monarchical Concerns

The more intelligent family members realized that. The one imperative is to transfer the institution, if not as before at least intact and untarnished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to undo the image of previous monarchs, showing they are useful, dutiful and responsive to their subjects.

His actions endangered all that in jeopardy in an time when respect and secrecy is no longer enough.

The Fallout

Eventually, the famously hesitant sovereign was prodded further. There was no other option. The royal household had surrendered command of the story.

Currently the loss of designations and the ongoing and permanent public humiliation that will pain Andrew most deeply.

• Demotion: Lowered to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Prior Instance: The first royal to lose his honorifics in contemporary era
• Armed Forces: Especially painful given his role in the conflict

He continues to be a counsellor of state, on paper able to stand in for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the monarchy, but not any of these will truly occur.

What Lies Ahead

Can persons he meets still defer to him? Might they still forget themselves and call him Prince? Would they say Sir,

Of course, he is not withdrawing to an ordinary town, but to the sovereign's extensive property at a royal residence.

There, he will be supplied by the monarch with one of the estate properties and given some form of personal stipend.

It is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a minimal payment for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit remote, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Pending Matters

The situation continues. There are still records in the possession of overseas authorities to be revealed.

• Political Pressure: Could legislators request additional information
• Financial Investigation: Or examine the misuse of state resources
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his actions

Maybe for the present the institutional damage to the monarchy is contained. The narrative from the institution was evidently that the stripping of honorifics was what the king, and particularly other senior monarchical figures, sought.

Altered Approach

No more illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, significantly, the brief statement showed plainly that the royals were siding with the accuser's version of incidents.

Additionally, for the initial instance they finally showed consideration for the survivors: "These actions are deemed necessary, regardless of the fact that he maintains his innocence of the claims against him."

Finally it is entitlement, selfishness and indolence that will destroy the monarchy. In his folly, self-gratification and greed, Andrew appears never to have learned that lesson.