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This episode commenced with a solitary photograph, perhaps the most consequential ever taken of a member of the monarchy.

There stood the Baron Killyleagh, standing closely beside a female youth, while another individual smiled conspiratorially in the rear.

Absent that snapshot, shot at a gathering in 2001, who would have believed the claims of a adolescent who declared she was moved across the Atlantic and obliged to have cursory relations with a member of the royal bloodline?

A curious, telling gesture by someone who had overtly stated to have no been aware of her, claimed he could no have had relations with her, and yet paid millions of his mother's funds to resolve a drawn-out lawsuit.

A Long Period of Scandal

Considering this, discussions of the monarchy acting swiftly to cut Andrew off are inaccurate. This affair has continued for the better part of 15 years since that photograph, and an additional image of Andrew walking pleasantly with a convicted sex offender emerged.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his brothers and sisters, possibly even his relatives, understand that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have known, if his employees and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some deeply disreputable associates given he unabashedly hosted them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the monarchy did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his overspending with taxpayer funds.

Journeys were documented in official documents: private aircraft flights from the palace to a golf course and back again in time for midday meal, exclusive air travel instead of commercial flights, all for the convenience of "the travel enthusiast".

World of Deference

Furthermore the entitlement which required respect when he walked into a area or the extreme obsession about his honorifics used on his letterheads in letters to his personal acquaintances.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who unaccountably pampered him, was still living. The monarch did at least revoke him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the wake of his disastrous and, it is now clear, deceptive television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

It was only in the last two weeks that events sped up, following the publication of books giving more troubling information of his actions and that of his connections.

More information have again highlighted Andrew's thinking that he could avoid being untruthful about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

Society (and the press) were far in advance of the monarchy. There was nobody of any significance to defend him, a result of all those years of arrogance.

Institutional Fears

The wiser monarchical figures realized that. The one imperative is to transfer the crown, if not as heretofore at least whole and unblemished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to reverse the legacy of earlier rulers, demonstrating they are beneficial, responsible and responsive to their citizens.

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

Consequences

Eventually, the famously indecisive sovereign was pressured more. There was no alternative. The institution had relinquished authority of the account.

Currently the loss of honorifics and the persistent and lifetime public humiliation that will pain Andrew the most.

• Reduction: Reduced to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Past Example: The initial monarch to forfeit his honorifics in recent history
• Naval Career: Particularly stinging given his service in the conflict

He remains a counsellor of state, theoretically able to substitute for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but not any of these will actually come to pass.

Coming Developments

Will people he comes across still show respect to him? Might they still forget themselves and call him Your Highness? Might they say Mr,

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

At that location, he will be provided by the king with one of the royal residences and given some sort of financial support.

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

Unresolved Issues

The situation continues. There are still records in the custody of US Congress to be disclosed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Might legislators seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or scrutinize the improper use of taxpayer funds
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a police investigation into his behavior

Possibly for the moment the harm to the monarchy to the crown is limited. The message from the institution was plainly that the removal of honorifics was what the king, and particularly other senior royals, wanted.

Changed Stance

An end to deception that Andrew was acting willingly. And, remarkably, the brief statement showed clearly that the royals were aligning with the victim's account of occurrences.

Additionally, for the initial instance they finally showed regard for the survivors: "The measures are judged required, regardless of the fact that he continues to deny the claims against him."

In the end it is presumption, self-interest and inactivity that will undermine the monarchy. In his folly, self-indulgence and venality, Andrew seems never to have learned that reality.