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

In the frame appeared the Duke of York, arm-in-arm a teenage girl, while another individual smiled suggestively in the background.

Without that photograph, taken at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the claims of a teenager who stated she was transported across the sea and forced to have cursory relations with a individual of the royal family?

A strange, indicative gesture by someone who had openly claimed to have not known about her, claimed he could not have had sex with her, and yet provided a substantial sum of family resources to avert a protracted court action.

Years of Controversy

In this context, talk of the royal family acting firmly to cut Andrew off are inaccurate. This affair has persisted for the majority of 15 years since that photograph, and an additional snapshot of Andrew strolling amiably with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Self-importance: To what extent did his siblings, perhaps even his parents, know that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Problematic Connections: They must have known, if his employees and the police were doing their jobs, that he had some extremely unsavory friends given he publicly invited them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the household did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

Trips were documented in official documents: helicopter travel from the royal residence to a country club and back again in time for midday meal, exclusive air travel instead of commercial flights, all for the convenience of "the frequent flyer".

Existence of Entitlement

Then there was the presumption which required subservience when he walked into a area or the supreme awareness about his royal titles used on his correspondence in messages to his personal acquaintances.

He avoided accountability while his mother, who inexplicably spoiled him, was still surviving. The monarch did at least remove him of public duties and military positions in the consequence of his catastrophic and, we now know, untruthful television interview six years ago.

Current Situation

Just in the last 14 days that events progressed rapidly, following the issuance of books giving more troubling information of his conduct and that of his associates.

Further disclosures have again highlighted Andrew's assumption that he could escape deceiving about his relationship with a notorious figure.

Society (and the journalists) were far in advance of the royal family. There was not a single person of any consequence to support him, a outcome of all those years of hubris.

Royal Worries

The wiser family members understood that. The key objective is to hand down the crown, if not as before at least intact and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the reputation of earlier rulers, demonstrating they are beneficial, responsible and responsive to their citizens.

Andrew was putting all that in danger in an time when respect and secrecy is no longer adequate.

The Fallout

Eventually, the famously indecisive king was prodded additional. There was little choice. The institution had lost control of the story.

Presently the removal of designations and the persistent and life-long personal shame that will pain Andrew most severely.

• Downgrading: Lowered to just a private citizen
• Historical Precedent: The primary royal to forfeit his titles in recent history
• Military Service: Especially stinging given his role in the conflict

He continues to be a counsellor of state, in principle able to substitute for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but not any of these will truly happen.

Coming Developments

Will people he meets still show respect to him? Could they still slip up and call him Prince? Might they say Mr,

Naturally, he is not moving to suburbia, but to the sovereign's extensive property at a monarchical property.

At that location, he will be furnished by the king with one of the royal residences and given some form of personal stipend.

This is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a minimal lease for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit remote, but even so it may not be far enough.

Outstanding Concerns

This is not over. There are still files in the possession of American legislators to be made public.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Might parliament demand more
• Fiscal Review: Or examine the waste of taxpayer funds
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a police investigation into his conduct

Perhaps for the moment the institutional damage to the crown is limited. The narrative from the institution was evidently that the removal of honorifics was what the monarch, and particularly other senior monarchical figures, desired.

Changed Stance

The cessation of illusion that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, significantly, the brief announcement showed plainly that the royals were supporting the accuser's narrative of events.

Additionally, for the premiere occasion they finally showed regard for the survivors: "The measures are judged required, notwithstanding the reality that he persists in refuting the claims against him."

In the end it is arrogance, self-interest and inactivity that will kill the institution. In his stupidity, self-gratification and venality, Andrew seems never to have grasped that lesson.