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

Present was the Duke of York, arm-in-arm a young woman, while a companion beamed conspiratorially in the rear.

Without that photograph, taken at a gathering in 2001, who would have believed the assertions of a adolescent who said she was transported across the Atlantic and obliged to have cursory relations with a individual of the royal bloodline?

A curious, indicative action by someone who had openly claimed to have no been aware of her, said he could no have had relations with her, and yet provided a large amount of his mother's money to settle a long-delayed legal case.

Years of Disgrace

Against this backdrop, discussions of the royals acting firmly to cut Andrew off are misguided. This controversy has endured for the largest portion of 15 years since that picture, and a further snapshot of Andrew ambling pleasantly with a convicted sex offender surfaced.

• Hubris: To what extent did his siblings, maybe even his mother and father, know that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Problematic Connections: They must have understood, if his aides and the law enforcement were doing their jobs, that he had some highly questionable companions given he publicly invited them to estates.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the family did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his overspending with state resources.

Trips were listed in royal annual reports: helicopter travel from the estate to a golf course and back again in time for midday meal, chartered planes instead of scheduled services, all for the convenience of "Airmiles Andy".

Existence of Entitlement

Furthermore the arrogance which expected subservience when he walked into a area or the extreme obsession about his honorifics used on his letterheads in communication to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his mother, who unaccountably pampered him, was still living. The sovereign did at least strip him of official roles and military positions in the aftermath of his catastrophic and, it is now clear, mendacious television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last 14 days that events progressed rapidly, following the issuance of accounts giving more grim particulars of his actions and that of his associates.

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

The public (and the journalists) were far ahead of the royal family. There was not a single person of any consequence to speak up for him, a result of all those years of presumption.

Monarchical Concerns

The wiser monarchical figures understood that. The key objective is to hand down the crown, if not as before at least whole and unblemished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to undo the image of earlier rulers, showing they are useful, responsible and responsive to their subjects.

He was placing all that in jeopardy in an age when deference and privacy is no longer adequate.

Aftermath

Finally, the famously uncertain sovereign was pressured additional. There was little choice. The royal household had surrendered command of the story.

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

• Reduction: Demoted to just a private citizen
• Historical Precedent: The initial monarch to lose his honorifics in recent history
• Armed Forces: Notably stinging given his duty in the conflict

He is still a royal advisor, on paper able to substitute for the king, and he is still eighth in line to the monarchy, but not any of these will actually occur.

Coming Developments

Will people he encounters still acknowledge him? Might they still make mistakes and call him Prince? Will they even say Andrew,

Certainly, he is not withdrawing to an ordinary town, but to the sovereign's vast property at Sandringham.

There, he will be furnished by the sovereign with one of the royal residences and given some form of financial support.

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

Outstanding Concerns

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

• Parliamentary Interest: Might parliament demand more
• Fiscal Review: Or investigate the improper use of state resources
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his behavior

Possibly for the time being the harm to the monarchy to the institution is limited. The narrative from the palace was clearly that the stripping of honorifics was what the sovereign, and especially other senior monarchical figures, desired.

Changed Stance

No more deception that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, significantly, the concise statement showed evidently that the monarchy were siding with the accuser's account of incidents.

Even more, for the first time they finally showed regard for the affected individuals: "These actions are deemed necessary, regardless of the reality that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

Ultimately it is presumption, self-interest and inactivity that will kill the crown. In his foolishness, self-gratification and corruption, Andrew appears never to have understood that reality.