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This episode commenced with a solitary photograph, possibly the most impactful ever captured of a royal family member.

In the frame appeared the Duke of York, arm-in-arm a teenage girl, while another individual smiled suggestively in the backdrop.

Absent that image, taken at a party in 2001, who would have believed the assertions of a young woman who stated she was moved across the Atlantic and forced to have perfunctory sexual encounters with a member of the monarchy?

An odd, revealing gesture by someone who had publicly stated to have never known about her, said he could not have had relations with her, and yet paid a substantial sum of family resources to settle a long-delayed legal case.

Years of Controversy

In this context, talk of the royal family acting firmly to cut Andrew off are misguided. This scandal has endured for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and an additional photo of Andrew ambling pleasantly with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Hubris: For what duration did his brothers and sisters, perhaps even his mother and father, know that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have known, if his employees and the authorities were fulfilling their roles, that he had some deeply disreputable friends given he openly hosted them to royal residences.
• Monetary Excess: If the family did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his overspending with public money.

Travel were listed in royal annual reports: private aircraft travel from the royal residence to a golf course and back again in time for dining, chartered planes instead of commercial flights, all for the benefit of "the frequent flyer".

Existence of Entitlement

Additionally the entitlement which demanded respect when he entered a room or the profound obsession about his royal titles used on his correspondence in letters to his associates.

He could get away with it while his mother, who strangely spoiled him, was still alive. The Queen did at least remove him of public duties and military positions in the aftermath of his catastrophic and, we now know, deceptive media appearance six years ago.

Recent Developments

Merely in the last fortnight that events progressed rapidly, following the issuance of books giving more troubling details of his conduct and that of his associates.

Additional revelations have again exposed Andrew's assumption that he could escape lying about his relationship with a notorious figure.

People (and the journalists) were far ahead of the monarchy. There was not a single person of any consequence to speak up for him, a result of all those years of hubris.

Royal Worries

The more astute monarchical figures understood that. The primary concern is to hand down the crown, if not as previously at least complete and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the image of past sovereigns, proving they are beneficial, accountable and reactive to their citizens.

Andrew was putting all that in jeopardy in an era when submission and secrecy is no longer enough.

Aftermath

Finally, the well-known uncertain monarch was pushed more. There was no other option. The palace had relinquished authority of the narrative.

Currently the removal of titles and the continued and lifetime social disgrace that will afflict Andrew most deeply.

• Reduction: Demoted to just a private citizen
• Past Example: The primary royal to forfeit his honorifics in recent history
• Naval Career: Especially hurtful given his duty in the engagement

He remains a royal advisor, in principle able to stand in for the monarch, and he is still eighth in line to the crown, but not any of these will ever happen.

Coming Developments

Do individuals he meets still show respect to him? Could they still slip up and call him Sir? Might they say Andrew,

Certainly, he is not moving to suburbia, but to the sovereign's vast estate at a royal residence.

In that place, he will be provided by the king with one of the grace and favour houses and given some type of private allowance.

This is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a minimal rent for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit distant, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Pending Matters

This is not over. There are still records in the possession of American legislators to be disclosed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will parliament request additional information
• Fiscal Review: Or investigate the misuse of public money
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a police investigation into his conduct

Perhaps for the time being the reputational impact to the crown is contained. The message from the institution was evidently that the removal of designations was what the monarch, and notably other senior monarchical figures, sought.

Altered Approach

An end to illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, significantly, the concise statement showed clearly that the monarchy were siding with the accuser's account of events.

Even more, for the initial instance they eventually showed consideration for the victims: "The measures are considered essential, despite the reality that he persists in refuting the claims against him."

Finally it is arrogance, self-interest and indolence that will destroy the institution. In his foolishness, self-gratification and corruption, Andrew appears never to have understood that lesson.