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

In the frame appeared the Duke of York, with his arm around a young woman, while an associate grinned suggestively in the background.

Absent that image, taken at a party in 2001, who would have believed the claims of a teenager who stated she was trafficked across the Atlantic and forced to have perfunctory intimate contact with a member of the royal family?

A strange, indicative action by someone who had openly asserted to have no been aware of her, asserted he could no have had intimate contact with her, and yet provided a substantial sum of his mother's funds to avert a protracted lawsuit.

A Long Period of Scandal

In this context, conversations of the royals acting firmly to cut Andrew off are misguided. This affair has persisted for the better part of 15 years since that image, and another snapshot of Andrew ambling pleasantly with a notorious individual surfaced.

• Hubris: To what extent did his family members, maybe even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Problematic Connections: They must have understood, if his staff and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory companions given he publicly welcomed them to palaces.
• Monetary Excess: If the monarchy did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his overspending with taxpayer funds.

Travel were documented in official documents: helicopter transfers from the royal residence to a country club and back again in time for lunch, private flights instead of commercial flights, all for the convenience of "the frequent flyer".

Existence of Entitlement

Additionally the arrogance which demanded respect when he appeared in a space or the extreme obsession about his royal titles used on his official documents in letters to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his matriarch, who unaccountably indulged him, was still alive. The sovereign did at least revoke him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the wake of his disastrous and, we now know, untruthful television interview six years ago.

Recent Developments

Merely in the last 14 days that events accelerated, following the publication of books giving more troubling particulars of his behavior and that of his associates.

Additional revelations have again exposed Andrew's thinking that he could avoid deceiving about his contact with a convicted criminal.

The public (and the media) were far more perceptive of the royals. There was no one of any importance to defend him, a outcome of all those years of hubris.

Institutional Fears

The wiser royals understood that. The key objective is to transfer the institution, if not as heretofore at least intact and untarnished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to reverse the legacy of past sovereigns, demonstrating they are useful, dutiful and attentive to their citizens.

Andrew was putting all that in danger in an age when deference and privacy is no longer adequate.

The Fallout

Ultimately, the notoriously hesitant king was pressured additional. There was no alternative. The palace had lost control of the narrative.

Now it is the removal of honorifics and the continued and life-long social disgrace that will afflict Andrew the most.

• Downgrading: Demoted to just a private citizen
• Past Example: The initial member to lose his designations in contemporary era
• Naval Career: Notably stinging given his duty in the Falklands war

He continues to be a constitutional officer, in principle able to substitute for the monarch, and he is still eighth in line to the monarchy, but neither of these will truly happen.

What Lies Ahead

Can persons he meets still acknowledge him? Might they still make mistakes and call him Prince? Will they even say Mr,

Certainly, he is not retiring to a common area, but to the sovereign's vast estate at Sandringham.

At that location, he will be supplied by the monarch with one of the royal residences and given some type of financial support.

This differs from his former home, where he paid a nominal lease for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit far, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Unresolved Issues

This is not over. There are still documents in the hands of American legislators to be revealed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will parliament request additional information
• Monetary Probe: Or examine the waste of public money
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a criminal probe into his actions

Maybe for the time being the reputational impact to the crown is limited. The message from the royal household was evidently that the removal of designations was what the monarch, and particularly other senior royals, sought.

A Shift in Position

The cessation of deception that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, notably, the concise statement showed plainly that the institution were aligning with the complainant's version of incidents.

Even more, for the premiere occasion they ultimately showed consideration for the survivors: "The measures are judged required, notwithstanding the fact that he persists in refuting the accusations against him."

Ultimately it is presumption, self-seeking and inactivity that will undermine the monarchy. In his foolishness, self-gratification and venality, Andrew appears never to have grasped that truth.