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This episode commenced with a single photograph, perhaps the most significant ever captured of a individual from the royal household.

Present was the Duke of York, arm-in-arm a female youth, while a companion beamed conspiratorially in the background.

Lacking that snapshot, captured at a gathering in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the allegations of a young woman who stated she was trafficked across the sea and obliged to have cursory intimate contact with a individual of the royal family?

A strange, revealing action by someone who had openly claimed to have not known about her, asserted he could never have had sex with her, and yet provided a substantial sum of family money to resolve a drawn-out legal case.

A Long Period of Disgrace

In this context, talk of the royal family acting decisively to cut Andrew off are inaccurate. This scandal has endured for the majority of 15 years since that image, and a further photo of Andrew walking pleasantly with a convicted sex offender emerged.

• Arrogance: How long did his brothers and sisters, perhaps even his mother and father, realize that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Problematic Connections: They must have understood, if his employees and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory companions given he unabashedly invited them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the household did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his extravagance with state resources.

Journeys were documented in official documents: private aircraft transfers from the estate to a sporting venue and back again in time for dining, chartered planes instead of commercial flights, all for the comfort of "Airmiles Andy".

World of Deference

Furthermore the entitlement which required deference when he walked into a space or the extreme awareness about his royal titles used on his letterheads in communication to his associates.

He avoided accountability while his mother, who unaccountably indulged him, was still alive. The monarch did at least revoke him of royal responsibilities and honorary colonelcies in the wake of his ill-fated and, we now know, deceptive public statement six years ago.

Current Situation

Merely in the last 14 days that events sped up, following the issuance of books giving more disturbing details of his conduct and that of his companions.

Further disclosures have again exposed Andrew's assumption that he could avoid deceiving about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

People (and the media) were far ahead of the royal family. There was no one of any significance to defend him, a outcome of all those years of arrogance.

Monarchical Concerns

The wiser family members understood that. The one imperative is to transfer the crown, if not as before at least complete and untarnished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to overcome the reputation of past sovereigns, demonstrating they are useful, accountable and reactive to their subjects.

Andrew was putting all that in jeopardy in an age when submission and discretion is no longer sufficient.

Aftermath

Eventually, the famously hesitant king was pressured further. There was little choice. The royal household had lost control of the narrative.

Currently the removal of honorifics and the continued and permanent personal shame that will afflict Andrew the most.

• Demotion: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Past Example: The primary royal to forfeit his titles in recent history
• Military Service: Notably hurtful given his role in the engagement

He continues to be a royal advisor, on paper able to substitute for the monarch, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but none of these will truly come to pass.

Coming Developments

Do individuals he encounters still acknowledge him? Might they still forget themselves and call him Your Highness? Might they say Andrew,

Certainly, he is not retiring to suburbia, but to the sovereign's large grounds at a royal residence.

There, he will be furnished by the monarch with one of the royal residences and given some type of personal stipend.

This differs from his previous residence, where he paid a minimal lease for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit distant, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Unresolved Issues

The situation continues. There are still documents in the possession of overseas authorities to be made public.

• Parliamentary Interest: Might parliament demand more
• Fiscal Review: Or investigate the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a police investigation into his actions

Perhaps for the present the institutional damage to the crown is limited. The message from the royal household was plainly that the revocation of titles was what the monarch, and notably other senior monarchical figures, wanted.

Altered Approach

An end to pretence that Andrew was acting willingly. And, notably, the concise statement showed plainly that the institution were siding with the complainant's narrative of occurrences.

Furthermore, for the initial instance they eventually showed regard for the survivors: "The censures are considered essential, regardless of the reality that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

Finally it is arrogance, self-interest and indolence that will destroy the crown. In his stupidity, self-gratification and venality, Andrew appears never to have learned that reality.