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The saga started with a solitary photograph, perhaps the most consequential ever snapped of a royal family member.

Present was the Earl of Inverness, standing closely beside a teenage girl, while an associate smiled suggestively in the backdrop.

Absent that image, taken at a party in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the assertions of a teenager who said she was moved across the Atlantic and obliged to have perfunctory intimate contact with a prince of the royal family?

A strange, indicative action by someone who had openly stated to have no known about her, asserted he could no have had sex with her, and yet paid a substantial sum of his mother's money to settle a drawn-out court action.

A Long Period of Disgrace

Considering this, discussions of the royals acting firmly to cut Andrew off are misguided. This affair has persisted for the better part of 15 years since that image, and an additional image of Andrew walking amiably with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Hubris: To what extent did his family members, perhaps even his relatives, know that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his staff and the law enforcement were fulfilling their roles, that he had some highly questionable associates given he publicly welcomed them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the family did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his overspending with taxpayer funds.

Travel were documented in official documents: helicopter transfers from the palace to a sporting venue and back again in time for lunch, private flights instead of regular transport, all for the convenience of "the frequent flyer".

Existence of Entitlement

Then there was the arrogance which expected subservience when he walked into a room or the supreme obsession about his royal titles used on his letterheads in messages to his personal acquaintances.

He managed to escape consequences while his matriarch, who strangely indulged him, was still alive. The Queen did at least revoke him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the aftermath of his disastrous and, it is now clear, deceptive television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

It was only in the last 14 days that events progressed rapidly, following the publication of accounts giving more troubling information of his conduct and that of his connections.

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

Society (and the press) were far ahead of the royal family. There was not a single person of any significance to support him, a outcome of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

The more astute family members realized that. The primary concern is to hand down the crown, if not as before at least whole and unblemished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the image of earlier rulers, demonstrating they are valuable, responsible and attentive to their people.

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

The Fallout

Finally, the well-known indecisive king was pressured more. There was little choice. The palace had relinquished authority of the narrative.

Presently the loss of honorifics and the ongoing and permanent personal shame that will afflict Andrew most deeply.

• Downgrading: Demoted to just a commoner
• Historical Precedent: The first monarch to forfeit his honorifics in contemporary era
• Military Service: Particularly stinging given his service in the Falklands war

He remains a constitutional officer, on paper able to stand in for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but none of these will truly come to pass.

Future Prospects

Will people he comes across still show respect to him? Might they still make mistakes and call him Sir? Will they even say Andrew,

Certainly, he is not moving to a common area, but to the royal family's large grounds at Sandringham.

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

This differs from his previous residence, where he paid a minimal rent for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit far, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Pending Matters

The situation continues. There are still documents in the possession of American legislators to be disclosed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Might parliament seek further action
• Financial Investigation: Or investigate the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a criminal probe into his behavior

Maybe for the time being the harm to the monarchy to the institution is restricted. The statement from the institution was plainly that the revocation of titles was what the monarch, and especially other senior monarchical figures, sought.

Altered Approach

An end to deception that Andrew was acting willingly. And, significantly, the short announcement showed plainly that the monarchy were aligning with the victim's narrative of events.

Additionally, for the initial instance they finally showed concern for the survivors: "The censures are deemed necessary, regardless of the fact that he continues to deny the claims against him."

In the end it is entitlement, self-interest and indolence that will undermine the crown. In his stupidity, personal excess and corruption, Andrew appears never to have understood that truth.