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This episode commenced with a single photograph, arguably the most consequential ever snapped of a individual from the royal household.

There stood the Duke of York, standing closely beside a young woman, while an associate beamed suggestively in the background.

Without that photograph, shot at a gathering in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the assertions of a young woman who declared she was moved across the Atlantic and obliged to have cursory sexual encounters with a prince of the royal bloodline?

An odd, telling gesture by someone who had overtly claimed to have not been aware of her, said he could not have had relations with her, and yet provided a large amount of monarchical resources to settle a protracted court action.

Over a Decade of Scandal

Against this backdrop, discussions of the royals acting decisively to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This affair has persisted for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and an additional image of Andrew walking congenially with a notorious individual surfaced.

• Arrogance: How long did his siblings, maybe even his parents, understand that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Questionable Associations: They must have understood, if his employees and the police were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory friends given he publicly hosted them to palaces.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the family did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his overspending with taxpayer funds.

Journeys were listed in royal annual reports: private aircraft transfers from the royal residence to a golf course and back again in time for midday meal, private flights instead of regular transport, all for the benefit of "the frequent flyer".

Existence of Entitlement

Furthermore the arrogance which demanded subservience when he entered a space or the supreme consciousness about his honorifics used on his official documents in letters to his personal acquaintances.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who strangely indulged him, was still surviving. The monarch did at least revoke him of royal responsibilities and military positions in the aftermath of his disastrous and, it is now clear, untruthful media appearance six years ago.

Current Situation

Merely in the last fortnight that events sped up, following the release of biographical works giving more grim particulars of his behavior and that of his connections.

More information have again highlighted Andrew's belief that he could get away with deceiving about his interaction with a convicted criminal.

People (and the press) were far in advance of the royal family. There was no one of any significance to defend him, a result of all those years of hubris.

Monarchical Concerns

The more astute royals understood that. The one imperative is to transfer the crown, if not as previously at least whole and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the legacy of earlier rulers, demonstrating they are beneficial, accountable and reactive to their citizens.

Andrew was putting all that in peril in an age when submission and secrecy is no longer adequate.

Aftermath

Finally, the notoriously uncertain sovereign was pressured additional. There was no alternative. The royal household had lost control of the account.

Presently the stripping of titles and the continued and permanent public humiliation that will hurt Andrew most deeply.

• Demotion: Lowered to just a commoner
• Historical Precedent: The initial royal to surrender his honorifics in recent history
• Naval Career: Particularly painful given his role in the conflict

He continues to be a counsellor of state, in principle able to substitute for the sovereign, and he is still in the lineage to the monarchy, but not any of these will actually occur.

Coming Developments

Can persons he encounters still acknowledge him? Might they still make mistakes and call him Sir? Will they even say Sir,

Naturally, he is not retiring to an ordinary town, but to the royal family's vast grounds at a royal residence.

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

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

Pending Matters

This is not over. There are still files in the hands of American legislators to be revealed.

• Political Pressure: Might legislators demand more
• Fiscal Review: Or scrutinize the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his actions

Perhaps for the present the institutional damage to the monarchy is limited. The statement from the royal household was plainly that the revocation of designations was what the sovereign, and notably other senior monarchical figures, desired.

Changed Stance

An end to pretence that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, remarkably, the short statement showed clearly that the institution were aligning with the complainant's narrative of events.

Furthermore, for the premiere occasion they finally showed consideration for the survivors: "The censures are considered essential, despite the fact that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

Finally it is arrogance, selfishness and laziness that will destroy the institution. In his folly, personal excess and greed, Andrew appears never to have grasped that reality.