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It all began with a solitary photograph, possibly the most significant ever snapped of a member of the monarchy.

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

Lacking that image, shot at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the claims of a teenager who declared she was moved across the Atlantic and forced to have cursory relations with a individual of the monarchy?

An odd, indicative action by someone who had publicly stated to have not been aware of her, asserted he could not have had intimate contact with her, and yet handed over a substantial sum of his mother's money to avert a protracted court action.

A Long Period of Controversy

Considering this, discussions of the royal family acting decisively to distance themselves from Andrew are misguided. This controversy has persisted for the largest portion of 15 years since that image, and another snapshot of Andrew strolling congenially with a disgraced financier surfaced.

• Self-importance: How long did his siblings, maybe even his mother and father, realize that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Questionable Associations: They must have realized, if his staff and the police were fulfilling their roles, that he had some extremely unsavory friends given he unabashedly welcomed them to palaces.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the monarchy did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with public money.

Travel were printed in public records: private aircraft travel from the palace to a golf course and back again in time for lunch, exclusive air travel instead of commercial flights, all for the benefit of "the travel enthusiast".

World of Deference

Furthermore the entitlement which expected deference when he walked into a room or the supreme awareness about his royal titles used on his correspondence in messages to his friends.

He managed to escape consequences while his parent, who inexplicably pampered him, was still alive. The Queen did at least revoke him of official roles and ceremonial ranks in the consequence of his catastrophic and, we now know, mendacious television interview six years ago.

Recent Developments

Just in the last two weeks that events progressed rapidly, following the publication of books giving more troubling particulars of his conduct and that of his associates.

Further disclosures have again exposed Andrew's thinking that he could get away with being untruthful about his contact with a disgraced individual.

People (and the media) were far ahead of the royals. There was not a single person of any significance to support him, a outcome of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

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

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the image of previous monarchs, showing they are beneficial, responsible and responsive to their citizens.

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

Consequences

Finally, the notoriously indecisive monarch was pressured further. There was no other option. The palace had lost control of the account.

Now it is the stripping of titles and the continued and life-long public humiliation that will hurt Andrew most severely.

• Reduction: Lowered to just a commoner
• Historical Precedent: The initial member to forfeit his honorifics in contemporary era
• Naval Career: Notably stinging given his role in the engagement

He remains a constitutional officer, on paper able to act for the sovereign, and he is still in the succession to the crown, but not any of these will ever occur.

Coming Developments

Can persons he encounters still defer to him? Could they still make mistakes and call him Your Highness? Will they even say Andrew,

Certainly, he is not retiring to an ordinary town, but to the royal family's large grounds at Sandringham.

At that location, he will be furnished by the sovereign with one of the royal residences and given some form of personal stipend.

It is not his previous residence, where he paid a nominal payment for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit distant, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Unresolved Issues

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

• Parliamentary Interest: Could lawmakers request additional information
• Fiscal Review: Or scrutinize the misuse of state resources
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a criminal probe into his actions

Possibly for the time being the reputational impact to the institution is contained. The statement from the palace was evidently that the stripping of honorifics was what the sovereign, and especially other senior family members, desired.

Changed Stance

An end to pretence that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, remarkably, the concise announcement showed clearly that the institution were aligning with the accuser's narrative of occurrences.

Furthermore, for the first time they eventually showed concern for the survivors: "The measures are deemed necessary, regardless of the reality that he continues to deny the accusations against him."

In the end it is presumption, selfishness and indolence that will undermine the crown. In his stupidity, personal excess and greed, Andrew gives the impression never to have understood that reality.