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The saga started with a isolated photograph, possibly the most consequential ever taken of a royal family member.

In the frame appeared the Baron Killyleagh, standing closely beside a teenage girl, while an associate beamed suggestively in the background.

Lacking that image, shot at a party in 2001, who would have believed the allegations of a young woman who stated she was transported across the sea and obliged to have perfunctory intimate contact with a member of the monarchy?

An odd, telling gesture by someone who had overtly asserted to have no been aware of her, said he could not have had intimate contact with her, and yet paid a large amount of monarchical money to resolve a long-delayed legal case.

A Long Period of Disgrace

Against this backdrop, discussions of the royals acting firmly to cut Andrew off are inaccurate. This controversy has persisted for the better part of 15 years since that photograph, and another image of Andrew walking amiably with a disgraced financier surfaced.

• Hubris: For what duration did his family members, perhaps even his relatives, know that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Problematic Connections: They must have realized, if his aides and the authorities were doing their jobs, that he had some deeply disreputable friends given he unabashedly welcomed them to palaces.
• Monetary Excess: If the household did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with state resources.

Trips were listed in public records: private aircraft transfers from the palace to a country club and back again in time for midday meal, chartered planes instead of scheduled services, all for the convenience of "Airmiles Andy".

A Life of Privilege

Additionally the arrogance which demanded deference when he entered a room or the extreme awareness about his honorifics used on his correspondence in messages to his associates.

He managed to escape consequences while his parent, who strangely pampered him, was still alive. The monarch did at least remove him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the aftermath of his ill-fated and, it is now clear, deceptive television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last fortnight that events sped up, following the issuance of accounts giving more disturbing information of his actions and that of his associates.

Further disclosures have again highlighted Andrew's belief that he could avoid deceiving about his contact with a convicted criminal.

The public (and the media) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was not a single person of any consequence to defend him, a outcome of all those years of arrogance.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent family members recognized that. The one imperative is to transfer the institution, if not as before at least whole and untarnished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to overcome the image of earlier rulers, demonstrating they are valuable, responsible and reactive to their people.

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

Consequences

Finally, the notoriously indecisive monarch was pressured further. There was no alternative. The palace had surrendered command of the narrative.

Presently the stripping of designations and the persistent and life-long public humiliation that will afflict Andrew most deeply.

• Reduction: Lowered to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The initial monarch to lose his titles in contemporary era
• Naval Career: Particularly stinging given his service in the Falklands war

He remains a constitutional officer, in principle able to act for the sovereign, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but neither of these will ever happen.

What Lies Ahead

Will people he encounters still show respect to him? Could they still slip up and call him Your Highness? Might they say Sir,

Of course, he is not retiring to suburbia, but to the royal family's extensive estate at Sandringham.

At that location, he will be provided by the sovereign with one of the grace and favour houses and given some type of private allowance.

This differs from his former home, where he paid a token payment for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit far, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Unresolved Issues

Matters remain unresolved. There are still files in the possession of American legislators to be disclosed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Could parliament seek further action
• Monetary Probe: Or investigate the improper use of state resources
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his behavior

Perhaps for the moment the institutional damage to the institution is restricted. The narrative from the palace was plainly that the revocation of honorifics was what the king, and especially other senior monarchical figures, sought.

A Shift in Position

The cessation of deception that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, notably, the short communication showed clearly that the institution were supporting the victim's version of events.

Additionally, for the premiere occasion they finally showed regard for the survivors: "The censures are judged required, despite the reality that he maintains his innocence of the claims against him."

Ultimately it is entitlement, self-seeking and indolence that will destroy the institution. In his folly, self-indulgence and greed, Andrew gives the impression never to have understood that truth.