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This episode commenced with a single photograph, arguably the most impactful ever taken of a individual from the royal household.

There stood the Baron Killyleagh, with his arm around a teenage girl, while a companion smiled suggestively in the background.

Without that snapshot, captured at a party in 2001, who would have believed the claims of a adolescent who stated she was moved across the ocean and forced to have perfunctory relations with a prince of the monarchy?

An odd, indicative move by someone who had openly claimed to have not known about her, asserted he could never have had intimate contact with her, and yet handed over millions of his mother's money to settle a long-delayed court action.

Over a Decade of Disgrace

In this context, talk of the royals acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This scandal has endured for the better part of 15 years since that image, and an additional photo of Andrew strolling congenially with a convicted sex offender came to light.

• Arrogance: How long did his brothers and sisters, perhaps even his mother and father, realize that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have realized, if his aides and the law enforcement were doing their jobs, that he had some highly questionable friends given he unabashedly welcomed them to palaces.
• Monetary Excess: If the family did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

Trips were documented in royal annual reports: private aircraft transfers from the palace to a country club and back again in time for dining, exclusive air travel instead of scheduled services, all for the convenience of "the frequent flyer".

World of Deference

Then there was the presumption which required deference when he appeared in a room or the extreme obsession about his honorifics used on his official documents in letters to his associates.

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

Latest Events

Just in the last 14 days that events accelerated, following the publication of biographical works giving more troubling particulars of his actions and that of his connections.

More information have again revealed Andrew's assumption that he could get away with deceiving about his interaction with a notorious figure.

Society (and the media) were far ahead of the monarchy. There was not a single person of any consequence to support him, a result of all those years of arrogance.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent family members recognized that. The key objective is to hand down the institution, if not as heretofore at least complete and untarnished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the reputation of past sovereigns, showing they are useful, dutiful and attentive to their citizens.

He was placing all that in danger in an time when deference and privacy is no longer enough.

Aftermath

Finally, the well-known hesitant monarch was prodded more. There was no alternative. The royal household had relinquished authority of the account.

Now it is the removal of titles and the ongoing and life-long social disgrace that will pain Andrew the most.

• Downgrading: Demoted to just a private citizen
• Past Example: The initial member to forfeit his designations in recent history
• Military Service: Notably hurtful given his duty in the Falklands war

He is still a constitutional officer, on paper able to substitute for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but not any of these will actually occur.

Coming Developments

Can persons he meets still defer to him? Could they still slip up and call him Prince? Will they even say Mr,

Of course, he is not moving to a common area, but to the monarchy's vast grounds at a monarchical property.

At that location, he will be supplied by the sovereign with one of the royal residences and given some sort of personal stipend.

It is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a nominal lease for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit remote, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Outstanding Concerns

The situation continues. There are still records in the possession of US Congress to be made public.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Might legislators demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or scrutinize the misuse of public money
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his behavior

Possibly for the moment the institutional damage to the institution is restricted. The statement from the royal household was plainly that the stripping of honorifics was what the sovereign, and especially other senior family members, sought.

A Shift in Position

The cessation of illusion that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, notably, the brief statement showed evidently that the royals were supporting the accuser's version of incidents.

Additionally, for the initial instance they ultimately showed concern for the survivors: "The censures are considered essential, despite the fact that he continues to deny the claims against him."

Finally it is entitlement, self-interest and inactivity that will undermine the monarchy. In his folly, personal excess and corruption, Andrew seems never to have learned that lesson.