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This episode commenced with a isolated photograph, perhaps the most consequential ever taken of a member of the monarchy.

There stood the Earl of Inverness, arm-in-arm a female youth, while another individual grinned knowingly in the background.

Absent that image, taken at a party in 2001, who would have believed the assertions of a young woman who declared she was trafficked across the ocean and forced to have perfunctory intimate contact with a individual of the monarchy?

A curious, revealing move by someone who had openly stated to have never known about her, asserted he could not have had relations with her, and yet paid a substantial sum of his mother's money to settle a long-delayed court action.

A Long Period of Scandal

Against this backdrop, discussions of the royal family acting firmly to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This controversy has endured for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and an additional snapshot of Andrew walking amiably with a disgraced financier surfaced.

• Arrogance: To what extent did his family members, maybe even his mother and father, realize that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Problematic Connections: They must have known, if his aides and the police were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory associates given he unabashedly hosted them to estates.
• Financial Extravagance: If the household did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his overspending with public money.

Trips were listed in official documents: chopper transfers from the royal residence to a sporting venue and back again in time for midday meal, private flights instead of commercial flights, all for the convenience of "the travel enthusiast".

World of Deference

Additionally the presumption which required deference when he walked into a space or the extreme obsession about his designations used on his official documents in communication to his personal acquaintances.

He avoided accountability while his parent, who strangely indulged him, was still alive. The monarch did at least revoke him of royal responsibilities and ceremonial ranks in the consequence of his catastrophic and, as revealed, untruthful television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last two weeks that events progressed rapidly, following the issuance of accounts giving more disturbing particulars of his actions and that of his associates.

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

The public (and the media) were far ahead of the royal family. There was not a single person of any significance to support him, a result of all those years of arrogance.

Royal Worries

The more astute family members understood that. The key objective is to pass on the monarchy, if not as before at least whole and untarnished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to reverse the reputation of past sovereigns, proving they are valuable, accountable and reactive to their citizens.

Andrew was putting all that in jeopardy in an era when submission and discretion is no longer sufficient.

Aftermath

Eventually, the famously uncertain monarch was pushed further. There was no alternative. The royal household had relinquished authority of the narrative.

Currently the removal of titles and the persistent and lifetime personal shame that will afflict Andrew the most.

• Downgrading: Lowered to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Past Example: The first royal to forfeit his titles in modern times
• Armed Forces: Notably hurtful given his role in the Falklands war

He is still a counsellor of state, in principle able to substitute for the monarch, and he is still in the lineage to the monarchy, but none of these will actually happen.

Coming Developments

Do individuals he encounters still show respect to him? Might they still slip up and call him Your Highness? Would they say Sir,

Naturally, he is not moving to an ordinary town, but to the monarchy's large estate at a royal residence.

In that place, he will be provided by the sovereign with one of the estate properties and given some type of personal stipend.

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

Pending Matters

Matters remain unresolved. There are still documents in the possession of US Congress to be revealed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will legislators seek further action
• Financial Investigation: Or investigate the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a criminal probe into his actions

Maybe for the present the harm to the monarchy to the crown is contained. The message from the palace was plainly that the revocation of honorifics was what the sovereign, and especially other senior monarchical figures, desired.

Changed Stance

The cessation of pretence that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, remarkably, the brief communication showed clearly that the monarchy were siding with the victim's account of events.

Even more, for the premiere occasion they finally showed concern for the victims: "The censures are judged required, despite the reality that he continues to deny the allegations against him."

Ultimately it is arrogance, selfishness and indolence that will kill the crown. In his foolishness, personal excess and corruption, Andrew seems never to have grasped that reality.