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The saga started with a single photograph, possibly the most consequential ever captured of a royal family member.

Present was the Earl of Inverness, standing closely beside a teenage girl, while another individual beamed conspiratorially in the rear.

Lacking that image, shot at a social event in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the assertions of a teenager who declared she was transported across the sea and obliged to have cursory intimate contact with a member of the monarchy?

An odd, telling gesture by someone who had publicly asserted to have never been aware of her, said he could never have had sex with her, and yet paid a substantial sum of family resources to resolve a drawn-out legal case.

Years of Scandal

Considering this, conversations of the royal family acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This affair has continued for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and another image of Andrew walking pleasantly with a notorious individual emerged.

• Hubris: How long did his siblings, perhaps even his relatives, understand that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Questionable Associations: They must have realized, if his staff and the law enforcement were fulfilling their roles, that he had some deeply disreputable associates given he publicly welcomed them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the family did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his overspending with state resources.

Journeys were listed in official documents: private aircraft transfers from the estate to a country club and back again in time for midday meal, chartered planes instead of scheduled services, all for the benefit of "the travel enthusiast".

Existence of Entitlement

Then there was the arrogance which demanded deference when he entered a area or the extreme obsession about his royal titles used on his official documents in messages to his friends.

He managed to escape consequences while his mother, who unaccountably pampered him, was still alive. The sovereign did at least remove him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the consequence of his ill-fated and, we now know, untruthful media appearance six years ago.

Current Situation

Merely in the last two weeks that events accelerated, following the publication of accounts giving more grim information of his conduct and that of his associates.

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

Society (and the press) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was no one of any consequence to support him, a result of all those years of hubris.

Royal Worries

The wiser monarchical figures recognized that. The key objective is to hand down the crown, if not as previously at least complete and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the legacy of previous monarchs, showing they are useful, dutiful and responsive to their subjects.

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

Aftermath

Eventually, the notoriously indecisive sovereign was pushed additional. There was no other option. The palace had surrendered command of the story.

Currently the loss of titles and the continued and lifetime public humiliation that will afflict Andrew the most.

• Reduction: Reduced to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Past Example: The primary member to forfeit his titles in modern times
• Armed Forces: Especially hurtful given his duty in the Falklands war

He remains a counsellor of state, theoretically able to act for the monarch, and he is still in the succession to the monarchy, but none of these will truly come to pass.

Coming Developments

Will people he encounters still show respect to him? Could they still slip up and call him Sir? Might they say Mr,

Certainly, he is not retiring to a common area, but to the royal family's vast estate at a monarchical property.

There, he will be provided by the king with one of the estate properties and given some sort of private allowance.

This is not his previous residence, where he paid a minimal lease for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit remote, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Unresolved Issues

The situation continues. There are still documents in the hands of overseas authorities to be made public.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will legislators request additional information
• Fiscal Review: Or investigate the waste of state resources
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a criminal probe into his behavior

Possibly for the present the reputational impact to the monarchy is limited. The statement from the royal household was evidently that the revocation of honorifics was what the sovereign, and notably other senior family members, wanted.

Altered Approach

An end to deception that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, significantly, the short announcement showed plainly that the monarchy were aligning with the victim's narrative of incidents.

Even more, for the initial instance they eventually showed consideration for the survivors: "These actions are judged required, despite the fact that he maintains his innocence of the accusations against him."

Finally it is entitlement, self-interest and indolence that will kill the institution. In his folly, personal excess and venality, Andrew seems never to have learned that truth.