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The saga started with a single photograph, possibly 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 an associate beamed conspiratorially in the background.

Lacking that snapshot, taken at a gathering in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a adolescent who declared she was trafficked across the sea and compelled to have brief intimate contact with a prince of the royal family?

An odd, revealing action by someone who had publicly claimed to have no heard of her, said he could never have had relations with her, and yet handed over millions of monarchical money to settle a long-delayed lawsuit.

A Long Period of Controversy

Against this backdrop, conversations of the royal family acting swiftly to cut Andrew off are wide of the mark. This affair has persisted for the majority of 15 years since that image, and another image of Andrew strolling amiably with a disgraced financier came to light.

• Arrogance: For what duration did his siblings, perhaps even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Problematic Connections: They must have understood, if his aides and the law enforcement were doing their jobs, that he had some highly questionable associates given he openly invited them to royal residences.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the monarchy did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his overspending with taxpayer funds.

Trips were listed in official documents: chopper transfers from the palace to a golf course and back again in time for midday meal, exclusive air travel instead of scheduled services, all for the benefit of "the travel enthusiast".

World of Deference

Additionally the presumption which expected subservience when he appeared in a space or the supreme obsession about his honorifics used on his official documents in letters to his friends.

He could get away with it while his parent, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still alive. The sovereign did at least revoke him of official roles and honorary colonelcies in the consequence of his disastrous and, it is now clear, mendacious public statement six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last 14 days that events sped up, following the release of accounts giving more troubling particulars of his conduct and that of his associates.

Additional revelations have again exposed Andrew's thinking that he could avoid being untruthful about his relationship with a notorious figure.

Society (and the press) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was not a single person of any significance to defend him, a result of all those years of presumption.

Monarchical Concerns

The more astute monarchical figures understood that. The one imperative is to hand down the monarchy, if not as previously at least complete and untarnished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to overcome the image of past sovereigns, demonstrating they are valuable, dutiful and reactive to their citizens.

Andrew was putting all that in peril in an time when submission and privacy is no longer enough.

The Fallout

Ultimately, the famously indecisive monarch was prodded further. There was little choice. The royal household had surrendered command of the narrative.

Now it is the stripping of designations and the persistent and lifetime public humiliation that will afflict Andrew most deeply.

• Demotion: Lowered to just a private citizen
• Historical Precedent: The primary member to lose his titles in contemporary era
• Armed Forces: Particularly painful given his duty in the Falklands war

He is still a constitutional officer, on paper able to substitute for the sovereign, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but none of these will actually occur.

Coming Developments

Do individuals he comes across still show respect to him? Could they still forget themselves and call him Your Highness? Would they say Andrew,

Naturally, he is not withdrawing to suburbia, but to the royal family's large estate at a royal residence.

There, he will be provided by the sovereign with one of the estate properties and given some form of personal stipend.

This differs from his previous residence, where he paid a token lease for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit distant, but even so it may not be far enough.

Unresolved Issues

This is not over. There are still files in the hands of US Congress to be disclosed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Could lawmakers demand more
• Fiscal Review: Or investigate the improper use of public money
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a criminal probe into his behavior

Possibly for the present the reputational impact to the crown is limited. The narrative from the palace was plainly that the removal of designations was what the king, and especially other senior monarchical figures, desired.

Changed Stance

The cessation of pretence that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, remarkably, the brief statement showed clearly that the monarchy were aligning with the victim's narrative of events.

Furthermore, for the initial instance they finally showed regard for the survivors: "The measures are judged required, despite the fact that he maintains his innocence of the accusations against him."

Finally it is presumption, selfishness and laziness that will kill the monarchy. In his folly, self-indulgence and greed, Andrew gives the impression never to have grasped that reality.