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This episode commenced with a single photograph, possibly the most consequential ever taken of a royal family member.

There stood the Duke of York, with his arm around a teenage girl, while a companion smiled knowingly in the rear.

Absent that snapshot, taken at a social event in 2001, few would have credited the claims of a adolescent who said she was transported across the sea and forced to have cursory intimate contact with a prince of the royal family?

A strange, indicative action by someone who had openly asserted to have never been aware of her, asserted he could never have had intimate contact with her, and yet paid a large amount of his mother's funds to avert a long-delayed court action.

Years of Disgrace

Against this backdrop, discussions of the monarchy acting decisively to sever ties with Andrew are inaccurate. This controversy has endured for the largest portion of 15 years since that picture, and a further photo of Andrew walking congenially with a notorious individual surfaced.

• Hubris: How long did his family members, possibly even his mother and father, realize that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Questionable Associations: They must have realized, if his aides and the law enforcement were doing their jobs, that he had some extremely unsavory friends given he openly hosted them to royal residences.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the household did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with taxpayer funds.

Travel were printed in royal annual reports: chopper transfers from the estate to a golf course and back again in time for lunch, exclusive air travel instead of regular transport, all for the comfort of "the travel enthusiast".

World of Deference

Then there was the presumption which expected subservience when he walked into a room or the profound awareness about his royal titles used on his official documents in letters to his personal acquaintances.

He managed to escape consequences while his parent, who unaccountably pampered him, was still living. The monarch did at least strip him of official roles and military positions in the consequence of his catastrophic and, as revealed, mendacious media appearance six years ago.

Current Situation

Just in the last two weeks that events accelerated, following the release of accounts giving more troubling particulars of his actions and that of his companions.

Further disclosures have again revealed Andrew's assumption that he could get away with lying about his contact with a convicted criminal.

People (and the journalists) were far ahead of the royals. There was not a single person 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 one imperative is to hand down the monarchy, if not as heretofore at least whole and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to reverse the image of past sovereigns, showing they are beneficial, dutiful and reactive to their subjects.

His actions endangered all that in jeopardy in an age when deference and privacy is no longer enough.

Consequences

Eventually, the well-known hesitant monarch was pressured more. There was little choice. The royal household had relinquished authority of the narrative.

Currently the loss of designations and the continued and permanent public humiliation that will hurt Andrew most severely.

• Demotion: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The initial monarch to lose his titles in modern times
• Armed Forces: Particularly hurtful given his service in the Falklands war

He remains a counsellor of state, on paper able to stand in for the sovereign, and he is still in the succession to the throne, but neither of these will actually happen.

What Lies Ahead

Do individuals he comes across still show respect to him? Could they still make mistakes and call him Prince? Might they say Sir,

Naturally, he is not moving to suburbia, but to the royal family's extensive estate at a royal residence.

There, he will be supplied by the monarch with one of the royal residences and given some form of personal stipend.

This is not his former home, where he paid a token rent for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit remote, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Pending Matters

Matters remain unresolved. There are still files in the possession of overseas authorities to be revealed.

• Political Pressure: Could parliament request additional information
• Financial Investigation: Or investigate the improper use of state resources
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a criminal probe into his conduct

Perhaps for the time being the institutional damage to the monarchy is limited. The message from the palace was clearly that the stripping of honorifics was what the monarch, and especially other senior monarchical figures, sought.

Altered Approach

No more pretence that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, remarkably, the concise communication showed plainly that the monarchy were supporting the complainant's version of occurrences.

Additionally, for the first time they ultimately showed regard for the victims: "The censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the reality that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

In the end it is arrogance, selfishness and indolence that will undermine the monarchy. In his folly, self-gratification and venality, Andrew gives the impression never to have grasped that truth.