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The saga started with a single photograph, perhaps the most impactful ever taken of a member of the monarchy.

In the frame appeared the Baron Killyleagh, with his arm around a teenage girl, while a companion grinned knowingly in the background.

Without that snapshot, captured at a party in 2001, who would have believed the assertions of a young woman who declared she was transported across the sea and obliged to have perfunctory relations with a individual of the royal bloodline?

A strange, revealing gesture by someone who had openly asserted to have not heard of her, asserted he could never have had relations with her, and yet handed over a large amount of monarchical money to avert a long-delayed court action.

Over a Decade of Controversy

Against this backdrop, talk of the royal family acting swiftly to cut Andrew off are misguided. This controversy has continued for the largest portion of 15 years since that image, and a further photo of Andrew ambling pleasantly with a disgraced financier came to light.

• Hubris: To what extent did his brothers and sisters, perhaps even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his staff and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some deeply disreputable companions given he unabashedly invited them to royal residences.
• Financial Extravagance: If the monarchy did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with state resources.

Journeys were documented in official documents: helicopter flights from the royal residence to a sporting venue and back again in time for dining, private flights instead of regular transport, all for the comfort of "the frequent flyer".

World of Deference

Additionally the presumption which demanded respect when he entered a space or the extreme awareness about his royal titles used on his correspondence in communication to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his parent, who unaccountably indulged him, was still surviving. The monarch did at least revoke him of official roles and military positions in the wake of his disastrous and, we now know, deceptive television interview six years ago.

Current Situation

Merely in the last fortnight that events sped up, following the publication of accounts giving more troubling particulars of his conduct and that of his connections.

Additional revelations have again revealed Andrew's thinking that he could avoid deceiving about his contact with a convicted criminal.

The public (and the press) were far more perceptive of the royals. There was no one of any consequence to support him, a outcome of all those years of hubris.

Monarchical Concerns

The wiser royals understood that. The one imperative is to pass on the crown, if not as heretofore at least intact and untarnished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to undo the reputation of previous monarchs, showing they are beneficial, dutiful and attentive to their people.

His actions endangered all that in danger in an age when submission and privacy is no longer sufficient.

Aftermath

Eventually, the famously hesitant sovereign was pressured further. There was little choice. The palace had surrendered command of the narrative.

Currently the removal of honorifics and the persistent and life-long personal shame that will afflict Andrew most severely.

• Reduction: Reduced to just a commoner
• Past Example: The primary royal to forfeit his honorifics in contemporary era
• Armed Forces: Notably stinging given his service in the conflict

He remains a royal advisor, theoretically able to stand in for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but not any of these will ever happen.

Future Prospects

Do individuals he comes across still acknowledge him? Will they still make mistakes and call him Prince? Will they even say Sir,

Certainly, he is not moving to suburbia, but to the royal family's large property at a royal residence.

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

This differs from his former home, where he paid a minimal rent for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit far, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Pending Matters

This is not over. There are still records in the hands of overseas authorities to be disclosed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Might legislators request additional information
• Monetary Probe: Or investigate the waste of taxpayer funds
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his conduct

Possibly for the moment the reputational impact to the institution is contained. The message from the palace was evidently that the revocation of designations was what the king, and particularly other senior royals, sought.

Altered Approach

The cessation of illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, remarkably, the short communication showed evidently that the institution were siding with the complainant's version of events.

Furthermore, for the premiere occasion they finally showed consideration for the affected individuals: "The censures are deemed necessary, despite the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him."

In the end it is presumption, self-interest and laziness that will undermine the crown. In his folly, personal excess and venality, Andrew gives the impression never to have grasped that truth.