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The saga started with a solitary photograph, perhaps the most significant ever taken of a royal family member.

There stood the Duke of York, standing closely beside a teenage girl, while another individual grinned conspiratorially in the background.

Without that photograph, captured at a party in 2001, few would have credited the claims of a teenager who said she was trafficked across the sea and forced to have perfunctory relations with a member of the royal family?

An odd, indicative move by someone who had openly asserted to have not heard of her, said he could not have had sex with her, and yet provided millions of his mother's money to avert a long-delayed legal case.

Years of Disgrace

Considering this, conversations of the monarchy acting decisively to cut Andrew off are inaccurate. This affair has endured for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and a further photo of Andrew ambling pleasantly with a convicted sex offender surfaced.

• Self-importance: To what extent did his family members, possibly even his mother and father, know that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have realized, if his staff and the authorities were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory associates given he openly invited them to royal residences.
• Financial Extravagance: If the family did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his overspending with state resources.

Trips were listed in official documents: chopper transfers from the royal residence to a golf course and back again in time for dining, chartered planes instead of regular transport, all for the comfort of "the travel enthusiast".

World of Deference

Additionally the arrogance which demanded subservience when he entered a space or the profound consciousness about his designations used on his official documents in messages to his associates.

He could get away with it while his matriarch, who inexplicably spoiled him, was still surviving. The sovereign did at least remove him of royal responsibilities and honorary colonelcies in the aftermath of his ill-fated and, as revealed, mendacious media appearance six years ago.

Latest Events

Just in the last fortnight that events accelerated, following the release of biographical works giving more disturbing details of his actions and that of his companions.

Additional revelations have again exposed Andrew's thinking that he could avoid deceiving about his interaction with a disgraced individual.

People (and the journalists) were far ahead of the royal family. There was not a single person of any consequence to support him, a consequence of all those years of arrogance.

Royal Worries

The more astute family members understood that. The primary concern is to hand down the crown, if not as before at least whole and unstained.

For generations the last 190 years trying to reverse the reputation of previous monarchs, demonstrating they are valuable, dutiful and responsive to their subjects.

His actions endangered all that in jeopardy in an age when submission and discretion is no longer adequate.

Consequences

Finally, the notoriously uncertain monarch was prodded more. There was little choice. The palace had lost control of the narrative.

Currently the loss of designations and the persistent and permanent public humiliation that will afflict Andrew the most.

• Demotion: Reduced to just a commoner
• Historical Precedent: The first royal to surrender his honorifics in contemporary era
• Naval Career: Especially stinging given his role in the engagement

He is still a counsellor of state, on paper able to stand in for the monarch, and he is still eighth in line to the crown, but none of these will actually come to pass.

Coming Developments

Will people he meets still acknowledge him? Might they still make mistakes and call him Prince? Might they say Sir,

Certainly, he is not retiring to an ordinary town, but to the monarchy's large estate at a royal residence.

In that place, he will be furnished by the sovereign with one of the estate properties and given some type of financial support.

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

Outstanding Concerns

The situation continues. There are still files in the custody of American legislators to be revealed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Could lawmakers demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or examine the improper use of public money
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a criminal probe into his actions

Possibly for the present the institutional damage to the crown is limited. The message from the royal household was evidently that the revocation of honorifics was what the king, and especially other senior royals, wanted.

Changed Stance

An end to pretence that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, remarkably, the concise statement showed plainly that the monarchy were siding with the accuser's account of incidents.

Furthermore, for the first time they finally showed regard for the affected individuals: "The censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the reality that he continues to deny the claims against him."

In the end it is presumption, self-interest and laziness that will destroy the institution. In his stupidity, self-gratification and venality, Andrew appears never to have understood that truth.