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

Present was the Duke of York, standing closely beside a young woman, while another individual smiled knowingly in the backdrop.

Without that image, taken at a gathering in 2001, few would have credited the assertions of a teenager who said she was transported across the Atlantic and forced to have cursory sexual encounters with a member of the royal family?

A curious, indicative gesture by someone who had openly claimed to have no heard of her, said he could no have had intimate contact with her, and yet paid millions of monarchical funds to settle a drawn-out lawsuit.

Years of Disgrace

Against this backdrop, talk of the royals acting firmly to sever ties with Andrew are inaccurate. This affair has persisted for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and an additional photo of Andrew ambling pleasantly with a convicted sex offender surfaced.

• Hubris: For what duration did his family members, perhaps even his relatives, understand that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Problematic Connections: They must have understood, if his staff and the police were performing their duties, that he had some deeply disreputable associates given he publicly invited them to palaces.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the household did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

Trips were printed in official documents: private aircraft travel from the estate to a country club and back again in time for lunch, chartered planes instead of regular transport, all for the comfort of "Airmiles Andy".

A Life of Privilege

Additionally the entitlement which demanded respect when he entered a room or the supreme obsession about his honorifics used on his official documents in letters to his associates.

He avoided accountability while his parent, who inexplicably pampered him, was still alive. The sovereign did at least revoke him of official roles and honorary colonelcies in the wake of his ill-fated and, as revealed, mendacious media appearance six years ago.

Current Situation

Merely in the last 14 days that events accelerated, following the release of biographical works giving more grim details of his actions and that of his companions.

Further disclosures have again revealed Andrew's thinking that he could get away with being untruthful about his interaction with a disgraced individual.

Society (and the media) were far ahead of the monarchy. There was no one of any significance to speak up for him, a consequence of all those years of arrogance.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent royals realized that. The key objective is to transfer the institution, if not as heretofore at least whole and unblemished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to overcome the reputation of past sovereigns, proving they are beneficial, dutiful and responsive to their people.

Andrew was putting all that in peril in an age when deference and privacy is no longer adequate.

Aftermath

Eventually, the well-known indecisive king was pressured additional. There was no other option. The palace had surrendered command of the account.

Currently the loss of designations and the continued and permanent social disgrace that will afflict Andrew most deeply.

• Demotion: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Past Example: The initial royal to surrender his honorifics in recent history
• Armed Forces: Especially stinging given his service in the engagement

He continues to be a royal advisor, on paper able to substitute for the king, and he is still in the succession to the throne, but none of these will actually happen.

Coming Developments

Can persons he meets still show respect to him? Might they still make mistakes and call him Sir? Would they say Andrew,

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

At that location, he will be provided by the sovereign with one of the estate properties and given some type of personal stipend.

It is not his former home, where he paid a token rent for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit far, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Outstanding Concerns

The situation continues. There are still records in the hands of American legislators to be made public.

• Political Pressure: Could parliament seek further action
• Monetary Probe: Or investigate the waste of taxpayer funds
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a police investigation into his conduct

Maybe for the present the reputational impact to the monarchy is limited. The message from the institution was clearly that the removal of designations was what the sovereign, and especially other senior royals, desired.

Altered Approach

The cessation of deception that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, notably, the short communication showed clearly that the monarchy were supporting the victim's version of occurrences.

Additionally, for the premiere occasion they ultimately showed consideration for the survivors: "The measures are judged required, notwithstanding the reality that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

In the end it is arrogance, selfishness and inactivity that will undermine the monarchy. In his folly, personal excess and greed, Andrew seems never to have understood that truth.