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The saga started with a single photograph, perhaps the most consequential ever captured of a individual from the royal household.

There stood the Duke of York, arm-in-arm a female youth, while a companion grinned conspiratorially in the backdrop.

Lacking that snapshot, taken at a social event in 2001, few would have credited the allegations of a young woman who said she was moved across the ocean and compelled to have cursory relations with a individual of the royal bloodline?

A strange, telling move by someone who had overtly stated to have never heard of her, said he could never have had intimate contact with her, and yet provided a large amount of monarchical money to resolve a long-delayed legal case.

A Long Period of Scandal

In this context, talk of the royal family acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are misguided. This affair has endured for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and another photo of Andrew ambling congenially with a notorious individual came to light.

• Self-importance: How long did his family members, perhaps even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have known, if his aides and the authorities were fulfilling their roles, that he had some highly questionable associates given he unabashedly invited them to royal residences.
• Monetary Excess: If the monarchy did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his extravagance with state resources.

Trips were printed in official documents: private aircraft transfers from the estate to a golf course and back again in time for lunch, private flights instead of commercial flights, all for the comfort of "the frequent flyer".

A Life of Privilege

Additionally the entitlement which demanded subservience when he appeared in a area or the supreme consciousness about his designations used on his letterheads in communication to his associates.

He could get away with it while his matriarch, who unaccountably pampered him, was still surviving. The Queen did at least strip him of public duties and ceremonial ranks in the aftermath of his ill-fated and, as revealed, untruthful public statement six years ago.

Current Situation

Just in the last 14 days that events accelerated, following the issuance of biographical works giving more troubling details of his conduct and that of his companions.

Additional revelations have again highlighted Andrew's belief that he could avoid being untruthful about his relationship with a convicted criminal.

The public (and the press) were far more perceptive of the monarchy. There was not a single person of any significance to support him, a result of all those years of arrogance.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent family members recognized that. The key objective is to transfer the institution, if not as heretofore at least intact and unblemished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to undo the legacy of earlier rulers, proving they are valuable, responsible and responsive to their people.

His actions endangered all that in danger in an time when submission and secrecy is no longer sufficient.

The Fallout

Finally, the notoriously hesitant king was pushed additional. There was little choice. The royal household had lost control of the story.

Now it is the stripping of designations and the persistent and lifetime social disgrace that will hurt Andrew most deeply.

• Reduction: Demoted to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Historical Precedent: The initial member to surrender his titles in recent history
• Armed Forces: Particularly hurtful given his duty in the engagement

He is still a constitutional officer, on paper able to stand in for the sovereign, and he is still eighth in line to the monarchy, but not any of these will actually come to pass.

What Lies Ahead

Will people he meets still show respect to him? Could they still slip up and call him Prince? Would they say Mr,

Naturally, he is not withdrawing to an ordinary town, but to the monarchy's large property at a royal residence.

In that place, he will be supplied by the monarch with one of the grace and favour houses and given some sort of financial support.

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

Pending Matters

This is not over. There are still documents in the hands of overseas authorities to be revealed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will lawmakers demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or examine the waste of state resources
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a criminal probe into his actions

Possibly for the time being the institutional damage to the institution is limited. The statement from the institution was clearly that the stripping of titles was what the king, and notably other senior family members, sought.

Altered Approach

The cessation of deception that Andrew was acting willingly. And, significantly, the concise communication showed clearly that the institution were supporting the victim's account of occurrences.

Even more, for the premiere occasion they ultimately showed regard for the survivors: "The censures are judged required, regardless of the reality that he continues to deny the claims against him."

Finally it is arrogance, selfishness and indolence that will undermine the crown. In his stupidity, personal excess and greed, Andrew appears never to have grasped that truth.