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It all began with a single photograph, arguably the most significant ever taken of a individual from the royal household.

There stood the Baron Killyleagh, with his arm around a female youth, while a companion smiled conspiratorially in the backdrop.

Absent that image, shot at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the claims of a teenager who declared she was transported across the sea and compelled to have brief intimate contact with a member of the royal family?

An odd, revealing action by someone who had publicly asserted to have no heard of her, said he could not have had relations with her, and yet handed over a large amount of family resources to avert a long-delayed court action.

A Long Period of Disgrace

In this context, conversations of the monarchy acting decisively to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This affair has persisted for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and an additional photo of Andrew walking congenially with a convicted sex offender came to light.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his brothers and sisters, possibly even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his aides and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable friends given he publicly hosted them to estates.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the household did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with taxpayer funds.

Trips were printed in public records: chopper travel from the estate to a golf course and back again in time for midday meal, exclusive air travel instead of commercial flights, all for the convenience of "the travel enthusiast".

A Life of Privilege

Furthermore the entitlement which required subservience when he appeared in a space or the profound awareness about his designations used on his official documents in letters to his friends.

He could get away with it while his matriarch, who inexplicably spoiled him, was still alive. The sovereign did at least remove him of public duties and military positions in the consequence of his disastrous and, it is now clear, deceptive television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last two weeks that events sped up, following the release of books giving more troubling details of his conduct and that of his companions.

Further disclosures have again exposed Andrew's thinking that he could avoid being untruthful about his contact with a convicted criminal.

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

Monarchical Concerns

The more astute royals understood that. The primary concern is to hand down the crown, if not as before at least intact and unstained.

For generations the last 190 years trying to overcome the legacy of previous monarchs, demonstrating they are beneficial, accountable and reactive to their citizens.

Andrew was putting all that in peril in an age when submission and discretion is no longer adequate.

The Fallout

Ultimately, the well-known hesitant king was prodded more. There was little choice. The royal household had surrendered command of the story.

Now it is the loss of designations and the ongoing and lifetime public humiliation that will pain Andrew most deeply.

• Demotion: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The initial monarch to surrender his titles in modern times
• Naval Career: Particularly stinging given his service in the engagement

He continues to be a counsellor of state, theoretically able to stand in for the king, and he is still in the succession to the throne, but none of these will truly happen.

Coming Developments

Do individuals he comes across still show respect to him? Might they still make mistakes and call him Your Highness? Would they say Sir,

Certainly, he is not withdrawing to suburbia, but to the royal family's extensive property at Sandringham.

At that location, he will be supplied by the monarch with one of the grace and favour houses and given some type of personal stipend.

It is not his prior accommodation, 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 records in the custody of American legislators to be disclosed.

• Political Pressure: Will legislators seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or scrutinize the waste of public money
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a police investigation into his behavior

Possibly for the time being the reputational impact to the crown is limited. The message from the royal household was clearly that the stripping of titles was what the sovereign, and particularly other senior royals, sought.

Altered Approach

The cessation of pretence that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, significantly, the concise announcement showed evidently that the monarchy were supporting the victim's account of occurrences.

Additionally, for the premiere occasion they finally showed regard for the affected individuals: "The measures are deemed necessary, regardless of the reality that he continues to deny the accusations against him."

Ultimately it is presumption, self-seeking and indolence that will undermine the crown. In his folly, self-gratification and venality, Andrew seems never to have understood that truth.