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This episode commenced with a isolated photograph, possibly the most consequential ever captured of a individual from the royal household.

Present was the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a young woman, while another individual beamed knowingly in the backdrop.

Absent that image, captured at a social event in 2001, few would have credited the claims of a teenager who said she was moved across the Atlantic and forced to have brief intimate contact with a member of the monarchy?

A curious, telling gesture by someone who had publicly stated to have not known about her, claimed he could not have had relations with her, and yet paid a large amount of monarchical funds to avert a drawn-out legal case.

A Long Period of Scandal

Considering this, conversations of the royal family acting firmly to distance themselves from Andrew are misguided. This controversy has continued for the largest portion of 15 years since that photograph, and another snapshot of Andrew strolling amiably with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Hubris: How long did his family members, maybe even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his staff and the police were doing their jobs, that he had some highly questionable associates given he publicly welcomed them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the family did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his overspending with public money.

Journeys were documented in official documents: private aircraft transfers from the estate to a sporting venue and back again in time for dining, private flights instead of regular transport, all for the benefit of "the travel enthusiast".

Existence of Entitlement

Furthermore the arrogance which required subservience when he entered a room or the profound obsession about his royal titles used on his official documents in communication to his personal acquaintances.

He managed to escape consequences while his matriarch, who unaccountably pampered him, was still living. The Queen did at least remove him of official roles and military positions in the consequence of his catastrophic and, it is now clear, untruthful public statement six years ago.

Current Situation

It was only in the last two weeks that events accelerated, following the publication of accounts giving more troubling details of his actions and that of his companions.

Additional revelations have again exposed Andrew's belief that he could escape lying about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

Society (and the media) were far in advance of the royal family. There was nobody of any significance to support him, a result of all those years of presumption.

Monarchical Concerns

The more intelligent monarchical figures understood that. The primary concern is to pass on the institution, if not as previously at least whole and unblemished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the legacy of past sovereigns, showing they are beneficial, accountable and attentive to their citizens.

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

The Fallout

Ultimately, the well-known indecisive sovereign was prodded more. There was no alternative. The palace had surrendered command of the narrative.

Currently the stripping of honorifics and the continued and permanent personal shame that will pain Andrew most severely.

• Reduction: Lowered to just a private citizen
• Historical Precedent: The initial royal to surrender his designations in modern times
• Armed Forces: Especially painful given his role in the engagement

He is still a royal advisor, in principle able to substitute for the sovereign, and he is still in the succession to the monarchy, but none of these will ever occur.

What Lies Ahead

Do individuals he comes across still show respect to him? Might they still forget themselves and call him Sir? Might they say Andrew,

Of course, he is not moving to suburbia, but to the sovereign's extensive estate at Sandringham.

At that location, he will be supplied by the sovereign with one of the royal residences and given some form of financial support.

This differs from his prior accommodation, where he paid a nominal payment for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit far, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Pending Matters

This is not over. There are still documents in the possession of overseas authorities to be revealed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will parliament demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or investigate the waste of public money
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a criminal probe into his behavior

Perhaps for the time being the institutional damage to the institution is limited. The statement from the palace was evidently that the revocation of titles was what the sovereign, and particularly other senior monarchical figures, desired.

A Shift in Position

No more illusion that Andrew was acting willingly. And, notably, the short announcement showed clearly that the institution were supporting the complainant's version of occurrences.

Even more, for the initial instance they finally showed concern for the survivors: "The censures are considered essential, notwithstanding the fact that he persists in refuting the claims against him."

In the end it is arrogance, self-seeking and laziness that will destroy the monarchy. In his stupidity, self-gratification and corruption, Andrew gives the impression never to have grasped that lesson.