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It all began with a isolated photograph, perhaps the most significant ever snapped of a royal family member.

There stood the Baron Killyleagh, standing closely beside a female youth, while another individual grinned conspiratorially in the background.

Without that image, shot at a social event in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the assertions of a teenager who said she was transported across the sea and obliged to have brief relations with a member of the royal bloodline?

A curious, revealing gesture by someone who had overtly stated to have no heard of her, said he could no have had sex with her, and yet paid a large amount of family funds to settle a drawn-out lawsuit.

Over a Decade of Controversy

Considering this, talk of the royals acting swiftly to cut Andrew off are misguided. This affair has endured for the majority of 15 years since that photograph, and an additional photo of Andrew ambling amiably with a convicted sex offender emerged.

• Self-importance: To what extent did his family members, perhaps even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Questionable Associations: They must have understood, if his staff and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable associates given he openly invited them to estates.
• Financial Extravagance: If the household did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his extravagance with taxpayer funds.

Trips were printed in public records: helicopter flights from the estate to a golf course and back again in time for dining, exclusive air travel instead of scheduled services, all for the convenience of "Airmiles Andy".

World of Deference

Furthermore the entitlement which required deference when he walked into a room or the profound consciousness about his designations used on his letterheads in communication to his associates.

He managed to escape consequences while his parent, who unaccountably pampered him, was still alive. The monarch did at least revoke him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the wake of his disastrous and, it is now clear, untruthful media appearance six years ago.

Recent Developments

Merely in the last two weeks that events sped up, following the release of accounts giving more troubling information of his behavior and that of his connections.

Additional revelations have again revealed Andrew's belief that he could avoid lying about his relationship with a notorious figure.

People (and the press) were far in advance of the royal family. There was no one of any significance to support him, a consequence of all those years of hubris.

Royal Worries

The more intelligent royals 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 reverse the image of past sovereigns, demonstrating they are beneficial, responsible and attentive to their people.

He was placing all that in peril in an age when submission and discretion is no longer enough.

Aftermath

Eventually, the well-known hesitant sovereign was pushed additional. There was no alternative. The palace had surrendered command of the account.

Currently the stripping of titles and the persistent and lifetime social disgrace that will afflict Andrew the most.

• Downgrading: Lowered to just a private citizen
• Past Example: The primary monarch to surrender his titles in contemporary era
• Military Service: Especially painful given his duty in the engagement

He continues to be a royal advisor, theoretically able to act for the sovereign, and he is still in the succession to the throne, but not any of these will ever occur.

Future Prospects

Will people he comes across still defer to him? Will they still make mistakes and call him Your Highness? Will they even say Sir,

Naturally, he is not retiring to a common area, but to the monarchy's large property at Sandringham.

In that place, he will be supplied by the monarch with one of the estate properties and given some sort of personal stipend.

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

Outstanding Concerns

Matters remain unresolved. There are still files in the custody of overseas authorities to be made public.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Might lawmakers demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or investigate the waste of taxpayer funds
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his conduct

Maybe for the time being the institutional damage to the monarchy is contained. The message from the royal household was plainly that the stripping of titles was what the monarch, and notably other senior family members, sought.

Altered Approach

The cessation of pretence that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, notably, the concise statement showed clearly that the institution were supporting the victim's version of events.

Furthermore, for the initial instance they eventually showed regard for the affected individuals: "The measures are deemed necessary, despite the fact that he maintains his innocence of the claims against him."

Finally it is presumption, self-interest and laziness that will destroy the crown. In his folly, self-gratification and corruption, Andrew seems never to have grasped that truth.