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

In the frame appeared the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a teenage girl, while another individual smiled knowingly in the rear.

Without that image, shot at a party in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a young woman who said she was moved across the Atlantic and compelled to have perfunctory relations with a prince of the monarchy?

An odd, indicative gesture by someone who had overtly claimed to have no heard of her, asserted he could never have had relations with her, and yet paid millions of monarchical funds to avert a long-delayed lawsuit.

A Long Period of Controversy

Against this backdrop, conversations of the monarchy acting firmly to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This scandal has persisted for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and another snapshot of Andrew ambling congenially with a convicted sex offender surfaced.

• Arrogance: For what duration did his family members, maybe even his parents, understand that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have realized, if his employees and the law enforcement were fulfilling their roles, that he had some deeply disreputable associates given he publicly hosted them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the monarchy did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his overspending with public money.

Travel were listed in public records: private aircraft travel from the royal residence to a country club and back again in time for midday meal, private flights instead of commercial flights, all for the comfort of "Airmiles Andy".

Existence of Entitlement

Furthermore the entitlement which required respect when he entered a area or the extreme consciousness about his royal titles used on his official documents in communication to his associates.

He could get away with it while his matriarch, who unaccountably pampered him, was still alive. The Queen did at least remove him of official roles and military positions in the consequence of his disastrous and, as revealed, mendacious television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

Just in the last fortnight that events accelerated, following the release of biographical works giving more troubling particulars of his behavior and that of his connections.

More information have again revealed Andrew's thinking that he could avoid being untruthful about his relationship with a convicted criminal.

Society (and the press) were far more perceptive of the royals. There was no one of any consequence to defend him, a outcome of all those years of presumption.

Monarchical Concerns

The more astute royals realized that. The primary concern is to transfer the institution, if not as previously at least intact and untarnished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to reverse the image of past sovereigns, showing they are beneficial, accountable and reactive to their subjects.

Andrew was putting all that in danger in an age when respect and discretion is no longer sufficient.

Consequences

Ultimately, the famously hesitant monarch was pressured more. There was no other option. The institution had relinquished authority of the narrative.

Now it is the loss of honorifics and the continued and permanent personal shame that will hurt Andrew the most.

• Reduction: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The first monarch to surrender his titles in contemporary era
• Military Service: Notably painful given his duty in the conflict

He remains a royal advisor, theoretically able to stand in for the monarch, and he is still in the succession to the throne, but neither of these will truly happen.

Coming Developments

Can persons he encounters still defer to him? Might they still slip up and call him Sir? Would they say Andrew,

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

There, he will be supplied by the sovereign with one of the royal residences and given some form of private allowance.

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

Unresolved Issues

Matters remain unresolved. There are still documents in the hands of American legislators to be revealed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Could parliament demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or investigate the waste of state resources
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a criminal probe into his conduct

Maybe for the moment the harm to the monarchy to the institution is limited. The message from the institution was plainly that the removal of designations was what the king, and notably other senior family members, desired.

Altered Approach

The cessation of illusion that Andrew was acting willingly. And, remarkably, the concise announcement showed clearly that the monarchy were supporting the complainant's narrative of events.

Even more, for the initial instance they ultimately showed concern for the affected individuals: "The censures are judged required, despite the fact that he persists in refuting the allegations against him."

In the end it is arrogance, selfishness and indolence that will kill the institution. In his stupidity, self-indulgence and corruption, Andrew appears never to have grasped that truth.