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

Present was the Duke of York, arm-in-arm a female youth, while an associate grinned knowingly in the background.

Without that photograph, captured at a party in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a adolescent who said she was moved across the ocean and obliged to have cursory sexual encounters with a individual of the royal bloodline?

A strange, indicative gesture by someone who had publicly asserted to have no known about her, claimed he could never have had intimate contact with her, and yet handed over a substantial sum of family money to resolve a drawn-out court action.

Years of Disgrace

Considering this, discussions of the royal family acting swiftly to cut Andrew off are inaccurate. This controversy has endured for the better part of 15 years since that image, and a further photo of Andrew walking pleasantly with a disgraced financier came to light.

• Self-importance: To what extent did his family members, perhaps even his mother and father, realize that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have understood, if his staff and the authorities were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable friends given he openly invited them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the family did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his overspending with public money.

Trips were listed in official documents: helicopter transfers from the royal residence to a country club and back again in time for midday meal, exclusive air travel instead of commercial flights, all for the convenience of "the travel enthusiast".

Existence of Entitlement

Additionally the presumption which required subservience when he walked into a area or the supreme awareness about his royal titles used on his correspondence in messages to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who unaccountably indulged him, was still surviving. The sovereign did at least strip him of royal responsibilities and honorary colonelcies in the aftermath of his ill-fated and, we now know, untruthful public statement six years ago.

Recent Developments

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

More information have again exposed Andrew's thinking that he could avoid being untruthful about his contact with a notorious figure.

People (and the journalists) were far in advance of the monarchy. There was not a single person of any importance to speak up for him, a outcome of all those years of hubris.

Institutional Fears

The more astute royals recognized that. The primary concern is to hand down the crown, if not as before at least whole and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the legacy of past sovereigns, proving they are beneficial, responsible and responsive to their people.

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

Consequences

Ultimately, the well-known uncertain sovereign was prodded more. There was little choice. The institution had surrendered command of the narrative.

Now it is the stripping of designations and the persistent and lifetime public humiliation that will hurt Andrew most deeply.

• Reduction: Reduced to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Past Example: The initial member to lose his designations in modern times
• Armed Forces: Especially painful given his role in the conflict

He remains a counsellor of state, in principle able to stand in for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but neither of these will ever happen.

Coming Developments

Can persons he encounters still defer to him? Will they still forget themselves and call him Prince? Would they say Sir,

Of course, he is not moving to a common area, but to the sovereign's large property at a monarchical property.

In that place, he will be provided by the sovereign with one of the grace and favour houses and given some type of personal stipend.

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

Pending Matters

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

• Parliamentary Interest: Might parliament seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or investigate the misuse of state resources
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a police investigation into his behavior

Maybe for the time being the reputational impact to the monarchy is restricted. The message from the royal household was evidently that the removal of designations was what the sovereign, and especially other senior family members, desired.

Changed Stance

The cessation of illusion that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, notably, the concise announcement showed evidently that the monarchy were supporting the victim's version of incidents.

Even more, for the initial instance they eventually showed consideration for the survivors: "These actions are judged required, despite the fact that he maintains his innocence of the claims against him."

In the end it is presumption, selfishness and indolence that will kill the monarchy. In his stupidity, self-indulgence and corruption, Andrew seems never to have understood that reality.