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The saga started with a solitary photograph, perhaps the most significant ever snapped of a member of the monarchy.

Present was the Duke of York, arm-in-arm a teenage girl, while a companion grinned suggestively in the rear.

Lacking that image, captured at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the allegations of a teenager who stated she was trafficked across the sea and obliged to have cursory sexual encounters with a individual of the royal family?

An odd, indicative action by someone who had overtly claimed to have not heard of her, claimed he could never have had relations with her, and yet paid a large amount of monarchical funds to settle a protracted lawsuit.

Years of Controversy

In this context, conversations of the monarchy acting swiftly to sever ties with Andrew are wide of the mark. This scandal has endured for the majority of 15 years since that image, and another image of Andrew ambling congenially with a notorious individual emerged.

• Hubris: How long did his brothers and sisters, maybe even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have known, if his aides and the police were fulfilling their roles, that he had some deeply disreputable associates given he publicly invited them to royal residences.
• Monetary Excess: If the monarchy did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his extravagance with taxpayer funds.

Trips were printed in royal annual reports: private aircraft flights from the estate to a sporting venue and back again in time for dining, private flights instead of scheduled services, all for the benefit of "the travel enthusiast".

World of Deference

Furthermore the entitlement which expected deference when he appeared in a area or the supreme consciousness about his honorifics used on his correspondence in communication to his associates.

He managed to escape consequences while his parent, who strangely indulged him, was still living. The monarch did at least remove him of public duties and ceremonial ranks in the wake of his disastrous and, we now know, deceptive television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

Just in the last 14 days that events sped up, following the release of biographical works giving more grim particulars of his actions and that of his companions.

Additional revelations have again highlighted Andrew's assumption that he could escape deceiving about his relationship with a notorious figure.

People (and the journalists) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was no one of any importance to support him, a result of all those years of presumption.

Royal Worries

The wiser royals understood that. The one imperative is to hand down the institution, if not as heretofore at least intact and unstained.

For generations the last 190 years trying to overcome the image of earlier rulers, demonstrating they are beneficial, accountable and responsive to their citizens.

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

Aftermath

Eventually, the famously hesitant king was prodded further. There was no other option. The royal household had lost control of the story.

Currently the removal of designations and the ongoing and life-long personal shame that will pain Andrew most deeply.

• Reduction: Demoted to just a private citizen
• Past Example: The primary monarch to surrender his designations in recent history
• Armed Forces: Especially hurtful given his duty in the Falklands war

He remains a royal advisor, on paper able to stand in for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but not any of these will truly happen.

What Lies Ahead

Do individuals he encounters still defer to him? Could they still forget themselves and call him Sir? Will they even say Sir,

Certainly, he is not withdrawing to an ordinary town, but to the royal family's large estate at a royal residence.

There, he will be provided by the sovereign with one of the grace and favour houses and given some form of financial support.

This differs from his prior accommodation, where he paid a minimal payment for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit distant, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Pending Matters

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

• Political Pressure: Will parliament seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or scrutinize the waste of taxpayer funds
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his behavior

Maybe for the time being the institutional damage to the institution is limited. The message from the palace was plainly that the revocation of designations was what the monarch, and notably other senior monarchical figures, wanted.

Altered Approach

The cessation of pretence that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, significantly, the short communication showed evidently that the institution were supporting the accuser's narrative of incidents.

Even more, for the first time they ultimately showed regard for the survivors: "The censures are deemed necessary, despite the truth that he continues to deny the allegations against him."

In the end it is entitlement, self-interest and laziness that will kill the monarchy. In his folly, personal excess and venality, Andrew appears never to have understood that lesson.