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The saga started with a solitary photograph, possibly the most significant ever snapped of a individual from the royal household.

There stood the Duke of York, standing closely beside a female youth, while another individual smiled conspiratorially in the rear.

Absent that snapshot, captured at a social event in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a young woman who declared she was transported across the ocean and forced to have brief sexual encounters with a individual of the royal bloodline?

A curious, telling gesture by someone who had overtly stated to have not known about her, said he could no have had sex with her, and yet handed over a substantial sum of his mother's funds to resolve a drawn-out lawsuit.

A Long Period of Disgrace

Against this backdrop, discussions of the royal family acting firmly to distance themselves from Andrew are misguided. This controversy has continued for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and another photo of Andrew ambling pleasantly with a notorious individual emerged.

• Arrogance: For what duration did his siblings, possibly even his relatives, realize that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Questionable Associations: They must have realized, if his staff and the authorities were fulfilling their roles, that he had some extremely unsavory friends given he unabashedly hosted them to palaces.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the family did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

Travel were printed in public records: helicopter transfers from the royal residence to a golf course and back again in time for lunch, private flights instead of regular transport, all for the benefit of "the frequent flyer".

Existence of Entitlement

Furthermore the arrogance which expected respect when he appeared in a area or the extreme awareness about his royal titles used on his correspondence in messages to his friends.

He managed to escape consequences while his parent, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still living. The Queen did at least strip him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the aftermath of his ill-fated and, we now know, mendacious television interview six years ago.

Recent Developments

Just in the last 14 days that events sped up, following the release of biographical works giving more grim details of his behavior and that of his associates.

Further disclosures have again exposed Andrew's belief that he could escape lying about his relationship with a convicted criminal.

The public (and the journalists) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was no one of any importance to speak up for him, a outcome of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

The wiser family members realized that. The key objective is to hand down the institution, if not as previously at least intact and unblemished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to overcome the legacy of earlier rulers, demonstrating they are valuable, accountable and reactive to their citizens.

He was placing all that in jeopardy in an era when respect and privacy is no longer adequate.

Aftermath

Finally, the well-known uncertain king was prodded additional. There was no alternative. The palace had lost control of the account.

Now it is the removal of honorifics and the ongoing and lifetime social disgrace that will hurt Andrew the most.

• Downgrading: Lowered to just a commoner
• Prior Instance: The primary member to surrender his honorifics in recent history
• Armed Forces: Especially stinging given his role in the Falklands war

He is still a royal advisor, on paper able to act for the sovereign, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but none of these will truly occur.

Future Prospects

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

Naturally, 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 estate properties and given some type of private allowance.

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

Pending Matters

The situation continues. There are still records in the custody of American legislators to be revealed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Might lawmakers demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or examine the improper use of state resources
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his behavior

Perhaps for the time being the reputational impact to the crown is restricted. The message from the palace was clearly that the stripping of designations was what the sovereign, and especially other senior royals, wanted.

Altered Approach

An end to pretence that Andrew was acting willingly. And, significantly, the short announcement showed clearly that the institution were supporting the victim's narrative of incidents.

Even more, for the first time they finally showed concern for the survivors: "The measures are considered essential, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the accusations against him."

In the end it is presumption, self-interest and inactivity that will kill the institution. In his stupidity, self-indulgence and greed, Andrew seems never to have learned that reality.