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This episode commenced with a solitary photograph, possibly the most significant ever captured of a royal family member.

There stood the Duke of York, with his arm around a female youth, while another individual grinned knowingly in the rear.

Absent that snapshot, captured at a party in 2001, who would have believed the allegations of a teenager who said she was transported across the sea and obliged to have cursory intimate contact with a prince of the royal bloodline?

A strange, telling move by someone who had publicly stated to have never been aware of her, asserted he could not have had intimate contact with her, and yet paid millions of monarchical money to settle a drawn-out lawsuit.

Over a Decade of Controversy

Considering this, discussions of the monarchy acting swiftly to cut Andrew off are misguided. This controversy has endured for the largest portion of 15 years since that image, and a further photo of Andrew ambling congenially with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Self-importance: How long did his siblings, maybe even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Problematic Connections: They must have known, if his aides and the authorities were doing their jobs, that he had some extremely unsavory associates given he publicly invited them to royal residences.
• Monetary Excess: If the household did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his overspending with public money.

Travel were printed in public records: chopper travel from the palace to a sporting venue and back again in time for dining, chartered planes instead of regular transport, all for the comfort of "Airmiles Andy".

A Life of Privilege

Additionally the entitlement which demanded respect when he entered a space or the profound obsession about his designations used on his letterheads in communication to his associates.

He managed to escape consequences while his parent, who strangely 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, deceptive public statement six years ago.

Recent Developments

Just in the last fortnight that events progressed rapidly, following the issuance of accounts giving more disturbing information of his behavior and that of his associates.

Additional revelations have again highlighted Andrew's assumption that he could escape being untruthful about his interaction with a disgraced individual.

The public (and the media) were far in advance of the royal family. There was not a single person of any consequence to speak up for him, a consequence of all those years of presumption.

Royal Worries

The more intelligent royals realized that. The primary concern is to hand down the institution, if not as heretofore at least intact and unstained.

For generations the last 190 years trying to undo the image of earlier rulers, demonstrating they are useful, dutiful and attentive to their people.

He was placing all that in peril in an time when submission and secrecy is no longer enough.

The Fallout

Finally, the famously indecisive sovereign was pushed additional. There was little choice. The royal household had relinquished authority of the story.

Now it is the removal of titles and the ongoing and permanent social disgrace that will afflict Andrew the most.

• Demotion: Demoted to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The initial member to lose his titles in modern times
• Armed Forces: Notably painful given his duty in the Falklands war

He remains a royal advisor, theoretically able to stand in for the sovereign, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but none of these will truly occur.

Coming Developments

Can persons he encounters still defer to him? Could they still make mistakes and call him Prince? Will they even say Sir,

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

There, he will be provided by the monarch with one of the estate properties and given some type of financial support.

This is not his previous residence, where he paid a token rent for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit far, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Outstanding Concerns

This is not over. There are still records in the custody of American legislators to be disclosed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will parliament seek further action
• Monetary Probe: Or investigate the improper use of state resources
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a police investigation into his conduct

Possibly for the moment the reputational impact to the crown is limited. The statement from the palace was evidently that the stripping of honorifics was what the sovereign, and particularly other senior monarchical figures, sought.

A Shift in Position

No more deception that Andrew was acting willingly. And, notably, the brief communication showed clearly that the monarchy were siding with the victim's account of events.

Additionally, for the first time they finally showed regard for the affected individuals: "The measures are judged required, notwithstanding the reality that he continues to deny the accusations against him."

In the end it is presumption, self-seeking and inactivity that will undermine the monarchy. In his stupidity, self-gratification and greed, Andrew gives the impression never to have grasped that truth.