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The saga started with a solitary photograph, perhaps the most consequential ever captured of a member of the monarchy.

There stood the Duke of York, arm-in-arm a female youth, while another individual grinned suggestively in the backdrop.

Absent that snapshot, taken at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the claims of a adolescent who said she was trafficked across the ocean and forced to have brief sexual encounters with a individual of the royal family?

A strange, revealing gesture by someone who had openly claimed to have never been aware of her, said he could never have had intimate contact with her, and yet paid millions of family funds to avert a long-delayed legal case.

A Long Period of Disgrace

Considering this, discussions of the royals acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This controversy has endured for the better part of 15 years since that photograph, and another image of Andrew ambling congenially with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his brothers and sisters, maybe even his relatives, know that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have realized, if his aides and the law enforcement were doing their jobs, that he had some deeply disreputable friends given he openly hosted them to royal residences.
• Financial Extravagance: If the monarchy did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with public money.

Trips were printed in royal annual reports: chopper travel from the palace to a country club and back again in time for dining, private flights instead of regular transport, all for the convenience of "Airmiles Andy".

A Life of Privilege

Then there was the presumption which required subservience when he entered a room or the supreme awareness about his honorifics used on his letterheads in communication to his associates.

He could get away with it while his matriarch, who unaccountably indulged him, was still alive. The sovereign did at least remove him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the wake of his disastrous and, we now know, deceptive television interview six years ago.

Recent Developments

It was only in the last 14 days that events progressed rapidly, following the publication of books giving more grim details of his actions and that of his connections.

Further disclosures have again exposed Andrew's assumption that he could escape being untruthful about his contact with a disgraced individual.

People (and the press) were far ahead of the royal family. There was not a single person of any significance to defend him, a outcome of all those years of arrogance.

Monarchical Concerns

The more intelligent family members understood that. The key objective is to transfer the institution, if not as before at least complete and unblemished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to undo the legacy of past sovereigns, proving they are beneficial, accountable and responsive to their people.

His actions endangered all that in jeopardy in an age when deference and discretion is no longer sufficient.

Aftermath

Finally, the famously indecisive sovereign was prodded further. There was no alternative. The palace had lost control of the account.

Now it is the loss of titles and the continued and permanent social disgrace that will pain Andrew the most.

• Reduction: Demoted to just a private citizen
• Historical Precedent: The initial monarch to forfeit his titles in modern times
• Military Service: Particularly stinging given his service 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 crown, but neither of these will ever happen.

Coming Developments

Will people he meets still defer to him? Might they still forget themselves and call him Sir? Will they even say Sir,

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

At that location, he will be supplied by the monarch with one of the grace and favour houses and given some form of personal stipend.

It is not his former home, where he paid a nominal payment for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit distant, but even so it may not be far enough.

Unresolved Issues

This is not over. There are still records in the custody of American legislators to be revealed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Could parliament demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or scrutinize the misuse of public money
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his behavior

Perhaps for the time being the institutional damage to the institution is restricted. The statement from the royal household was evidently that the removal of titles was what the sovereign, and notably other senior monarchical figures, wanted.

Altered Approach

The cessation of illusion that Andrew was acting willingly. And, significantly, the short announcement showed plainly that the institution were siding with the victim's account of occurrences.

Additionally, for the initial instance they eventually showed consideration for the survivors: "The censures are judged required, despite the reality that he persists in refuting the allegations against him."

Finally it is arrogance, self-seeking and inactivity that will kill the institution. In his folly, personal excess and corruption, Andrew gives the impression never to have learned that truth.