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It all began with a solitary photograph, arguably the most impactful ever snapped of a royal family member.

There stood the Duke of York, standing closely beside a teenage girl, while an associate beamed knowingly in the background.

Without that photograph, captured at a social event in 2001, few would have credited the assertions of a adolescent who stated she was transported across the ocean and forced to have brief sexual encounters with a prince of the royal bloodline?

An odd, revealing gesture by someone who had overtly asserted to have not been aware of her, asserted he could never have had intimate contact with her, and yet provided millions of his mother's money to settle a long-delayed court action.

Years of Controversy

In this context, discussions of the royals acting swiftly to cut Andrew off are inaccurate. This affair has endured for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and a further snapshot of Andrew strolling amiably with a disgraced financier came to light.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his brothers and sisters, maybe even his mother and father, know that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have realized, if his aides and the police were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable friends given he publicly invited them to estates.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the household did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his extravagance with state resources.

Travel were printed in royal annual reports: private aircraft transfers from the palace to a country club and back again in time for lunch, private flights instead of scheduled services, all for the convenience of "the travel enthusiast".

Existence of Entitlement

Additionally the arrogance which expected subservience when he entered a room or the profound obsession about his honorifics used on his letterheads in communication to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his mother, who unaccountably indulged him, was still surviving. The monarch did at least strip him of royal responsibilities and military positions in the aftermath of his ill-fated and, it is now clear, deceptive television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last 14 days that events accelerated, following the release of biographical works giving more grim information of his behavior and that of his companions.

Further disclosures have again revealed Andrew's belief that he could get away with being untruthful about his contact with a notorious figure.

People (and the media) were far ahead of the monarchy. There was nobody of any significance to speak up for him, a outcome of all those years of hubris.

Monarchical Concerns

The more astute monarchical figures understood that. The primary concern is to pass on the monarchy, if not as before at least complete and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the legacy of previous monarchs, showing they are useful, dutiful and attentive to their citizens.

His actions endangered all that in peril in an era when respect and discretion is no longer adequate.

The Fallout

Eventually, the notoriously uncertain sovereign was pushed more. There was no alternative. The institution had relinquished authority of the story.

Presently the stripping of honorifics and the persistent and lifetime personal shame that will afflict Andrew most severely.

• Demotion: Demoted to just a commoner
• Past Example: The primary monarch to forfeit his titles in contemporary era
• Armed Forces: Notably stinging given his duty in the engagement

He remains a constitutional officer, in principle able to substitute for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but neither of these will actually come to pass.

Future Prospects

Do individuals he encounters still defer to him? Could they still forget themselves and call him Your Highness? Would they say Mr,

Naturally, he is not withdrawing to an ordinary town, but to the sovereign's extensive grounds at a monarchical property.

In that place, he will be supplied by the monarch with one of the royal residences and given some sort of personal stipend.

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

Pending Matters

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

• Parliamentary Interest: Might legislators seek further action
• Financial Investigation: Or investigate the waste of taxpayer funds
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a police investigation into his behavior

Maybe for the moment the institutional damage to the institution is contained. The message from the palace was plainly that the revocation of titles was what the monarch, and particularly other senior family members, wanted.

A Shift in Position

No more illusion that Andrew was acting willingly. And, significantly, the concise announcement showed plainly that the royals were siding with the complainant's version of incidents.

Even more, for the initial instance they finally showed consideration for the survivors: "The measures are judged required, regardless of the truth that he maintains his innocence of the claims against him."

In the end it is arrogance, selfishness and laziness that will kill the crown. In his folly, self-gratification and venality, Andrew appears never to have learned that reality.