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

In the frame appeared the Baron Killyleagh, with his arm around a female youth, while an associate smiled suggestively in the rear.

Lacking that snapshot, shot at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the assertions of a adolescent who said she was transported across the Atlantic and obliged to have perfunctory sexual encounters with a individual of the monarchy?

An odd, telling move by someone who had openly asserted to have not known about her, asserted he could not have had relations with her, and yet paid millions of family funds to avert a protracted legal case.

Over a Decade of Controversy

In this context, discussions of the royal family acting firmly to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This controversy has endured for the largest portion of 15 years since that image, and an additional photo of Andrew ambling congenially with a disgraced financier surfaced.

• Self-importance: To what extent did his brothers and sisters, possibly even his relatives, realize that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Problematic Connections: They must have understood, if his aides and the law enforcement were doing their jobs, that he had some deeply disreputable associates given he openly hosted them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the family did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his overspending with state resources.

Travel were documented in public records: helicopter flights from the palace to a sporting venue and back again in time for midday meal, private flights instead of scheduled services, all for the comfort of "Airmiles Andy".

A Life of Privilege

Furthermore the presumption which expected deference when he appeared in a space or the profound awareness about his honorifics used on his correspondence in messages to his personal acquaintances.

He avoided accountability while his parent, who unaccountably indulged him, was still living. The sovereign did at least strip him of royal responsibilities and honorary colonelcies in the consequence of his catastrophic and, it is now clear, mendacious television interview six years ago.

Current Situation

It was only in the last two weeks that events accelerated, following the release of accounts giving more disturbing information of his behavior and that of his companions.

Additional revelations have again exposed Andrew's assumption that he could get away with being untruthful about his relationship with a notorious figure.

The public (and the press) were far ahead of the monarchy. There was no one of any importance to support him, a result of all those years of presumption.

Royal Worries

The more intelligent monarchical figures understood that. The key objective is to pass on the institution, if not as heretofore at least complete and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the legacy of past sovereigns, demonstrating they are beneficial, dutiful and reactive to their people.

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

Aftermath

Ultimately, the notoriously uncertain king was pressured additional. There was no other option. The royal household had surrendered command of the account.

Now it is the stripping of honorifics and the ongoing and life-long public humiliation that will pain Andrew most deeply.

• Demotion: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The first monarch to lose his honorifics in recent history
• Naval Career: Particularly painful given his duty in the conflict

He remains a counsellor of state, theoretically able to act for the king, and he is still in the succession to the monarchy, but not any of these will actually occur.

Future Prospects

Do individuals he meets still defer to him? Could they still make mistakes and call him Sir? Might they say Mr,

Naturally, he is not withdrawing to suburbia, but to the sovereign's vast property at a monarchical property.

At that location, he will be furnished by the king with one of the estate properties and given some form of personal stipend.

This differs from his former home, where he paid a nominal lease for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit remote, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Unresolved Issues

Matters remain unresolved. There are still files in the possession of American legislators to be made public.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will lawmakers seek further action
• Financial Investigation: Or examine the waste of taxpayer funds
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a police investigation into his behavior

Possibly for the present the harm to the monarchy to the crown is restricted. The statement from the palace was evidently that the removal of designations was what the sovereign, and particularly other senior family members, desired.

Altered Approach

The cessation of pretence that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, significantly, the brief statement showed evidently that the royals were aligning with the victim's version of incidents.

Even more, for the first time they ultimately showed concern for the survivors: "These actions are judged required, regardless of the fact that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

Finally it is arrogance, self-seeking and laziness that will kill the monarchy. In his folly, personal excess and venality, Andrew gives the impression never to have grasped that reality.