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This episode commenced with a single photograph, arguably the most consequential ever taken of a royal family member.

Present was the Baron Killyleagh, arm-in-arm a young woman, while an associate beamed suggestively in the backdrop.

Absent that snapshot, taken at a social event in 2001, few would have credited the assertions of a young woman who declared she was trafficked across the ocean and forced to have perfunctory relations with a member of the royal family?

A curious, indicative gesture by someone who had openly claimed to have never been aware of her, asserted he could never have had relations with her, and yet paid millions of his mother's money to avert a long-delayed court action.

A Long Period of Disgrace

Considering this, discussions of the monarchy acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are misguided. This controversy has endured for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and an additional image of Andrew walking amiably with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his brothers and sisters, possibly even his relatives, realize that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Problematic Connections: They must have realized, if his staff and the law enforcement were fulfilling their roles, that he had some deeply disreputable associates given he openly welcomed them to royal residences.
• Financial Extravagance: If the family did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his overspending with public money.

Travel were listed in public records: chopper transfers from the palace to a sporting venue and back again in time for dining, exclusive air travel instead of regular transport, all for the benefit of "Airmiles Andy".

Existence of Entitlement

Additionally the entitlement which required deference when he walked into a area or the extreme obsession about his honorifics 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 revoke him of official roles and honorary colonelcies in the wake of his ill-fated and, we now know, mendacious media appearance six years ago.

Current Situation

It was only in the last 14 days that events accelerated, following the publication of accounts giving more troubling information of his actions and that of his connections.

Additional revelations have again highlighted Andrew's belief that he could get away with deceiving about his interaction with a disgraced individual.

The public (and the media) were far ahead of the monarchy. There was nobody of any importance to support him, a outcome of all those years of hubris.

Institutional Fears

The wiser family members realized that. The one imperative is to hand down the monarchy, if not as previously at least whole and untarnished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to overcome the image of previous monarchs, demonstrating they are useful, dutiful and responsive to their subjects.

He was placing all that in peril in an era when respect and discretion is no longer sufficient.

The Fallout

Finally, the famously hesitant sovereign was prodded further. There was no alternative. The institution had surrendered command of the narrative.

Currently the removal of designations and the persistent and lifetime public humiliation that will hurt Andrew most severely.

• Demotion: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Historical Precedent: The initial member to lose his honorifics in modern times
• Armed Forces: Particularly stinging given his role in the Falklands war

He continues to be a royal advisor, theoretically able to stand in for the monarch, and he is still in the lineage to the monarchy, but neither of these will truly occur.

Future Prospects

Can persons he meets still show respect to him? Might they still forget themselves and call him Prince? Would they say Andrew,

Naturally, he is not retiring to suburbia, but to the royal family's extensive property at a royal residence.

In that place, he will be supplied by the sovereign with one of the royal residences and given some form of private allowance.

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

Unresolved Issues

The situation continues. There are still records in the possession of American legislators to be revealed.

• Political Pressure: Will parliament demand more
• Monetary Probe: Or investigate the misuse of public money
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a criminal probe into his actions

Possibly for the present the institutional damage to the institution is restricted. The statement from the palace was evidently that the removal of designations was what the monarch, and notably other senior royals, sought.

Altered Approach

An end to illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, significantly, the short announcement showed evidently that the institution were siding with the victim's narrative of events.

Additionally, for the first time they ultimately showed consideration for the victims: "The censures are judged required, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him."

In the end it is presumption, self-seeking and indolence that will kill the crown. In his stupidity, self-indulgence and greed, Andrew seems never to have learned that reality.