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The saga started with a solitary photograph, possibly the most impactful ever snapped of a royal family member.

There stood the Baron Killyleagh, with his arm around a teenage girl, while another individual smiled knowingly in the backdrop.

Lacking that snapshot, shot at a social event in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a teenager who said she was moved across the Atlantic and compelled to have brief intimate contact with a individual of the royal bloodline?

A curious, revealing move by someone who had openly asserted to have never known about her, claimed he could not have had relations with her, and yet handed over a substantial sum of his mother's money to avert a long-delayed lawsuit.

A Long Period of Controversy

In this context, conversations of the monarchy acting decisively to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This controversy has persisted for the majority of 15 years since that image, and another snapshot of Andrew walking amiably with a convicted sex offender came to light.

• Arrogance: How long did his siblings, perhaps even his mother and father, know that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Problematic Connections: They must have realized, if his aides and the authorities were fulfilling their roles, that he had some extremely unsavory companions given he openly invited them to royal residences.
• Monetary Excess: If the family did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with public money.

Journeys were documented in official documents: private aircraft travel from the royal residence to a sporting venue and back again in time for dining, chartered planes instead of regular transport, all for the convenience of "the travel enthusiast".

A Life of Privilege

Additionally the arrogance which demanded subservience when he entered a space or the profound awareness about his honorifics used on his letterheads in letters to his associates.

He could get away with it while his matriarch, who unaccountably pampered him, was still alive. The monarch did at least remove him of official roles and military positions in the aftermath of his catastrophic and, we now know, deceptive media appearance six years ago.

Latest Events

It was only in the last two weeks that events sped up, following the release of books giving more disturbing particulars of his actions and that of his companions.

Further disclosures have again highlighted Andrew's assumption that he could escape being untruthful about his contact with a disgraced individual.

People (and the media) were far in advance of the royal family. There was not a single person of any significance to defend him, a result of all those years of hubris.

Institutional Fears

The more astute monarchical figures recognized that. The key objective is to hand down the crown, if not as previously at least intact and untarnished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the reputation of earlier rulers, proving they are beneficial, accountable and attentive to their people.

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

The Fallout

Eventually, the notoriously uncertain sovereign was pressured additional. There was no alternative. The royal household had lost control of the story.

Currently the removal of honorifics and the ongoing and lifetime personal shame that will hurt Andrew most deeply.

• Downgrading: Lowered to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Historical Precedent: The primary monarch to lose his honorifics in modern times
• Naval Career: Notably hurtful given his role in the engagement

He is still a counsellor of state, theoretically able to act for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but not any of these will actually happen.

Coming Developments

Will people he comes across still show respect to him? Might they still make mistakes and call him Your Highness? Might they say Mr,

Of course, he is not retiring to suburbia, but to the royal family's large property at Sandringham.

In that place, he will be provided by the king with one of the estate properties and given some type of private allowance.

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

Outstanding Concerns

Matters remain unresolved. There are still files in the hands of overseas authorities to be revealed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will parliament seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or examine the misuse of public money
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his behavior

Possibly for the time being the institutional damage to the institution is contained. The narrative from the palace was plainly that the removal of honorifics was what the sovereign, and notably other senior monarchical figures, desired.

Changed Stance

No more pretence that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, significantly, the brief statement showed plainly that the institution were aligning with the victim's version of events.

Furthermore, for the premiere occasion they finally showed concern for the victims: "The censures are deemed necessary, regardless of the truth that he maintains his innocence of the accusations against him."

In the end it is arrogance, self-interest and laziness that will undermine the institution. In his foolishness, personal excess and corruption, Andrew seems never to have learned that reality.