🔗 Share this article

The saga started with a solitary photograph, perhaps the most impactful ever taken of a individual from the royal household.

In the frame appeared the Duke of York, arm-in-arm a teenage girl, while another individual beamed knowingly in the rear.

Absent that photograph, taken at a party in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a adolescent who declared she was trafficked across the ocean and compelled to have cursory relations with a individual of the royal bloodline?

An odd, revealing move by someone who had openly stated to have not known about her, said he could not have had sex with her, and yet provided millions of family funds to avert a long-delayed court action.

A Long Period of Controversy

Considering this, talk of the monarchy acting decisively to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This scandal has persisted for the better part of 15 years since that image, and an additional image of Andrew strolling pleasantly with a convicted sex offender surfaced.

• Arrogance: For what duration did his family members, maybe even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his staff and the police were performing their duties, that he had some deeply disreputable companions given he unabashedly invited them to royal residences.
• Financial Extravagance: If the household did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his overspending with state resources.

Journeys were printed in public records: private aircraft transfers from the palace to a country club and back again in time for lunch, chartered planes instead of scheduled services, all for the convenience of "the frequent flyer".

A Life of Privilege

Then there was the presumption which demanded respect when he entered a room or the profound consciousness about his honorifics used on his official documents in letters to his associates.

He managed to escape consequences while his mother, who strangely indulged him, was still surviving. The Queen did at least revoke him of official roles and ceremonial ranks in the wake of his ill-fated and, it is now clear, mendacious media appearance six years ago.

Current Situation

It was only in the last two weeks that events progressed rapidly, following the publication of accounts giving more disturbing particulars of his conduct and that of his connections.

More information have again exposed Andrew's belief that he could escape lying about his relationship with a notorious figure.

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

Royal Worries

The more intelligent family members recognized that. The primary concern is to transfer the monarchy, if not as before at least intact and unblemished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the image of previous monarchs, demonstrating they are useful, dutiful and attentive to their subjects.

He was placing all that in peril in an age when respect and secrecy is no longer sufficient.

The Fallout

Finally, the well-known uncertain monarch was pushed additional. There was little choice. The royal household had surrendered command of the narrative.

Presently the stripping of honorifics and the ongoing and life-long public humiliation that will pain Andrew the most.

• Demotion: Reduced to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Past Example: The initial royal to surrender his designations in modern times
• Naval Career: Especially hurtful given his service in the conflict

He remains a constitutional officer, on paper able to substitute for the monarch, and he is still eighth in line to the monarchy, but none of these will actually come to pass.

What Lies Ahead

Can persons he encounters still defer to him? Will they still slip up and call him Sir? Would they say Sir,

Naturally, he is not retiring to a common area, but to the sovereign's vast property at a royal residence.

At that location, he will be provided by the monarch with one of the estate properties and given some type of financial support.

It is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a token payment for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit distant, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Pending Matters

Matters remain unresolved. There are still records in the possession of overseas authorities to be revealed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will parliament demand more
• Monetary Probe: Or investigate the improper use of public money
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a police investigation into his behavior

Possibly for the time being the institutional damage to the crown is limited. The message from the palace was clearly that the removal of titles was what the sovereign, and especially other senior family members, desired.

A Shift in Position

The cessation of illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, remarkably, the short statement showed clearly that the royals were siding with the accuser's account of occurrences.

Furthermore, for the first time they ultimately showed consideration for the victims: "The censures are deemed necessary, despite the truth that he continues to deny the claims against him."

In the end it is entitlement, self-seeking and inactivity that will undermine the crown. In his folly, personal excess and greed, Andrew appears never to have learned that truth.