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It all began with a solitary photograph, arguably the most consequential ever taken of a royal family member.

In the frame appeared the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a teenage girl, while a companion smiled suggestively in the background.

Absent that photograph, taken at a social event in 2001, few would have credited the claims of a young woman who said she was transported across the ocean and obliged to have cursory relations with a individual of the royal family?

A strange, indicative gesture by someone who had publicly asserted to have no known about her, said he could not have had intimate contact with her, and yet provided a large amount of family money to avert a drawn-out legal case.

A Long Period of Disgrace

Considering this, talk of the royal family acting firmly to distance themselves from Andrew are misguided. This controversy has continued for the better part of 15 years since that photograph, and a further image of Andrew ambling pleasantly with a notorious individual surfaced.

• Hubris: For what duration did his brothers and sisters, maybe even his mother and father, realize that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Questionable Associations: They must have realized, if his aides and the law enforcement were doing their jobs, that he had some deeply disreputable companions given he openly hosted them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the household did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with taxpayer funds.

Trips were listed in public records: helicopter transfers from the estate to a sporting venue and back again in time for lunch, private flights instead of regular transport, all for the benefit of "the travel enthusiast".

A Life of Privilege

Then there was the presumption which demanded deference when he walked into a space or the extreme obsession about his honorifics used on his correspondence in messages to his personal acquaintances.

He managed to escape consequences while his parent, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still alive. The sovereign did at least strip him of official roles and honorary colonelcies in the wake of his disastrous and, we now know, mendacious television interview six years ago.

Current Situation

Just in the last 14 days that events progressed rapidly, following the issuance of accounts giving more troubling information of his actions and that of his companions.

More information have again highlighted Andrew's assumption that he could escape deceiving about his relationship with a notorious figure.

People (and the press) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was nobody of any consequence to support him, a consequence of all those years of presumption.

Royal Worries

The more astute family members realized that. The key objective is to hand down the monarchy, if not as heretofore at least intact and unstained.

Over time the last 190 years trying to overcome the image of previous monarchs, demonstrating they are beneficial, accountable and attentive to their subjects.

Andrew was putting all that in jeopardy in an time when submission and privacy is no longer sufficient.

Consequences

Ultimately, the famously hesitant monarch was pushed additional. There was little choice. The royal household had lost control of the story.

Now it is the loss of designations and the persistent and lifetime social disgrace that will afflict Andrew most severely.

• Reduction: Demoted to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Prior Instance: The primary member to surrender his designations in recent history
• Military Service: Notably stinging given his service in the Falklands war

He continues to be a royal advisor, theoretically able to substitute for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but not any of these will ever occur.

Coming Developments

Will people he encounters still acknowledge him? Might they still forget themselves and call him Your Highness? Might they say Andrew,

Certainly, he is not retiring to suburbia, but to the sovereign's large estate at a monarchical property.

There, he will be furnished by the monarch with one of the grace and favour houses and given some sort of financial support.

It is not his former home, where he paid a minimal rent for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit distant, but even so it may not be far enough.

Unresolved Issues

Matters remain unresolved. There are still documents in the custody of American legislators to be disclosed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will lawmakers demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or investigate the improper use of state resources
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a criminal probe into his behavior

Perhaps for the moment the institutional damage to the crown is contained. The narrative from the institution was plainly that the removal of titles was what the sovereign, and especially other senior royals, sought.

Changed Stance

No more pretence that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, significantly, the short statement showed evidently that the monarchy were supporting the complainant's account of incidents.

Even more, for the initial instance they eventually showed consideration for the victims: "The measures are judged required, regardless of the reality that he continues to deny the accusations against him."

Finally it is entitlement, selfishness and indolence that will undermine the institution. In his stupidity, self-gratification and greed, Andrew seems never to have understood that lesson.