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The saga started with a isolated photograph, arguably the most significant ever snapped of a royal family member.

Present was the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a young woman, while a companion beamed conspiratorially in the background.

Without that photograph, taken at a party in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the allegations of a adolescent who stated she was trafficked across the ocean and compelled to have perfunctory intimate contact with a member of the royal family?

An odd, telling move by someone who had openly claimed to have not been aware of her, claimed he could never have had sex with her, and yet provided a large amount of his mother's resources to avert a drawn-out lawsuit.

A Long Period of Controversy

Against this backdrop, talk of the monarchy acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This affair has continued for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and an additional photo of Andrew walking amiably with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Hubris: How long did his siblings, possibly even his parents, realize that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his aides and the authorities were fulfilling their roles, that he had some highly questionable companions given he unabashedly welcomed them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the family did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with state resources.

Journeys were listed in official documents: private aircraft transfers from the royal residence to a country club and back again in time for dining, private flights instead of commercial flights, all for the comfort of "Airmiles Andy".

World of Deference

Additionally the presumption which demanded subservience when he entered a space or the supreme obsession about his honorifics used on his official documents in communication to his personal acquaintances.

He managed to escape consequences while his parent, who unaccountably indulged him, was still living. The sovereign did at least revoke him of royal responsibilities and ceremonial ranks in the aftermath of his ill-fated and, it is now clear, untruthful public statement six years ago.

Current Situation

Just in the last fortnight that events progressed rapidly, following the issuance of accounts giving more disturbing details of his behavior and that of his connections.

Further disclosures have again exposed Andrew's belief that he could escape lying about his interaction with a disgraced individual.

Society (and the journalists) were far ahead of the royal family. There was nobody of any significance to support him, a consequence of all those years of arrogance.

Monarchical Concerns

The wiser family members recognized that. The one imperative is to transfer the crown, if not as previously at least whole and unstained.

For generations the last 190 years trying to undo the reputation of past sovereigns, showing they are useful, responsible and attentive to their citizens.

Andrew was putting all that in peril in an age when respect and discretion is no longer enough.

Aftermath

Finally, the well-known indecisive sovereign was prodded additional. There was little choice. The institution had surrendered command of the narrative.

Currently the loss of honorifics and the ongoing and life-long public humiliation that will afflict Andrew most deeply.

• Demotion: Reduced to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Historical Precedent: The first member to forfeit his titles in contemporary era
• Naval Career: Notably hurtful given his role in the Falklands war

He is still a royal advisor, in principle able to stand in for the monarch, and he is still in the succession to the crown, but not any of these will truly come to pass.

Coming Developments

Will people he meets still defer to him? Will they still slip up and call him Sir? Will they even say Andrew,

Of course, he is not withdrawing to a common area, but to the royal family's extensive property at Sandringham.

In that place, he will be provided by the sovereign with one of the grace and favour houses and given some form of financial support.

It is not his former home, where he paid a minimal payment for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit remote, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Unresolved Issues

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

• Political Pressure: Might parliament demand more
• Fiscal Review: Or investigate the misuse of public money
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his conduct

Possibly for the time being the institutional damage to the crown is limited. The narrative from the institution was evidently that the removal of honorifics was what the king, and notably other senior monarchical figures, sought.

Changed Stance

The cessation of pretence that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, notably, the concise statement showed plainly that the institution were supporting the victim's version of events.

Additionally, for the premiere occasion they eventually showed regard for the survivors: "These actions are deemed necessary, regardless of the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him."

In the end it is entitlement, self-interest and indolence that will kill the institution. In his folly, personal excess and corruption, Andrew appears never to have grasped that truth.