🔗 Share this article

The saga started with a isolated photograph, perhaps the most significant ever snapped of a member of the monarchy.

In the frame appeared the Duke of York, with his arm around a female youth, while another individual beamed conspiratorially in the rear.

Without that photograph, shot at a gathering in 2001, who would have believed the assertions of a teenager who said she was transported across the Atlantic and obliged to have brief sexual encounters with a individual of the royal family?

A strange, telling move by someone who had overtly claimed to have not been aware of her, claimed he could never have had intimate contact with her, and yet handed over millions of monarchical funds to avert a long-delayed lawsuit.

Years of Scandal

Considering this, talk of the monarchy acting decisively to cut Andrew off are wide of the mark. This affair has persisted for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and an additional snapshot of Andrew walking pleasantly with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Arrogance: How long did his brothers and sisters, maybe even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Questionable Associations: They must have understood, if his aides and the authorities were performing their duties, that he had some deeply disreputable friends given he openly invited them to palaces.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the family did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with taxpayer funds.

Trips were documented in public records: chopper flights from the estate to a country club and back again in time for dining, chartered planes instead of commercial flights, all for the convenience of "the travel enthusiast".

World of Deference

Additionally the entitlement which expected respect when he entered a space or the supreme consciousness about his designations used on his correspondence in letters to his friends.

He managed to escape consequences while his mother, who inexplicably spoiled him, was still surviving. The monarch did at least strip him of official roles and ceremonial ranks in the consequence of his disastrous and, we now know, mendacious television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

Just in the last 14 days that events sped up, following the issuance of accounts giving more grim particulars of his actions and that of his connections.

More information have again revealed Andrew's assumption that he could get away with lying about his interaction with a convicted criminal.

Society (and the journalists) were far ahead of the monarchy. There was no one of any consequence to speak up for him, a result of all those years of hubris.

Monarchical Concerns

The more astute royals recognized that. The primary concern is to transfer the crown, if not as previously at least whole and untarnished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to overcome the legacy of earlier rulers, demonstrating they are useful, responsible and attentive to their citizens.

Andrew was putting all that in danger in an era when deference and privacy is no longer enough.

Aftermath

Ultimately, the well-known uncertain sovereign was pushed additional. There was no alternative. The institution had lost control of the narrative.

Presently the stripping of designations and the persistent and life-long social disgrace that will afflict Andrew most severely.

• Demotion: Lowered to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Prior Instance: The primary monarch to lose his honorifics in contemporary era
• Armed Forces: Especially painful given his service in the Falklands war

He remains a royal advisor, on paper able to act for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but neither of these will truly happen.

Coming Developments

Can persons he meets still acknowledge him? Could they still forget themselves and call him Your Highness? Might they say Sir,

Naturally, he is not withdrawing to an ordinary town, but to the monarchy's vast grounds at a monarchical property.

At that location, he will be furnished by the king with one of the royal residences and given some form of private allowance.

This is not his previous residence, where he paid a minimal lease 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 overseas authorities to be revealed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will legislators request additional information
• Fiscal Review: Or investigate the misuse of state resources
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a criminal probe into his behavior

Possibly for the moment the institutional damage to the monarchy is limited. The message from the palace was clearly that the stripping of designations was what the king, and particularly other senior royals, wanted.

Altered Approach

No more pretence that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, significantly, the brief statement showed evidently that the monarchy were supporting the victim's account of occurrences.

Additionally, for the premiere occasion they finally showed concern for the affected individuals: "The measures are judged required, regardless of the reality that he maintains his innocence of the accusations against him."

In the end it is arrogance, selfishness and laziness that will destroy the monarchy. In his foolishness, self-gratification and corruption, Andrew appears never to have grasped that truth.