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This episode commenced with a solitary photograph, possibly the most significant ever taken of a individual from the royal household.

There stood the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a young woman, while another individual grinned knowingly in the background.

Absent that photograph, taken at a gathering in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the allegations of a teenager who declared she was moved across the sea and forced to have cursory sexual encounters with a member of the monarchy?

A curious, revealing action by someone who had openly stated to have not known about her, asserted he could not have had intimate contact with her, and yet paid a substantial sum of monarchical funds to avert a protracted lawsuit.

A Long Period of Controversy

Against this backdrop, discussions of the royals acting swiftly to cut Andrew off are misguided. This scandal has endured for the majority of 15 years since that image, and another snapshot of Andrew walking pleasantly with a convicted sex offender emerged.

• Self-importance: To what extent did his brothers and sisters, possibly even his parents, know that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his staff and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory associates given he publicly hosted them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the monarchy did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with state resources.

Journeys were documented in public records: helicopter flights from the royal residence to a sporting venue and back again in time for dining, exclusive air travel instead of scheduled services, all for the benefit of "the frequent flyer".

A Life of Privilege

Furthermore the presumption which demanded deference when he entered a area or the profound awareness about his royal titles used on his correspondence in letters to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his matriarch, who inexplicably pampered him, was still alive. The Queen did at least revoke him of public duties and ceremonial ranks in the consequence of his disastrous and, we now know, deceptive media appearance six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last 14 days that events progressed rapidly, following the issuance of biographical works giving more grim particulars of his conduct and that of his connections.

Further disclosures have again revealed Andrew's thinking that he could get away with lying about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

People (and the media) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was not a single person of any consequence to support him, a consequence of all those years of arrogance.

Institutional Fears

The more astute royals recognized that. The one imperative is to hand down the institution, if not as heretofore at least intact and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to reverse the reputation of earlier rulers, showing they are useful, responsible and reactive to their people.

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

The Fallout

Eventually, the notoriously uncertain monarch was pressured additional. There was little choice. The institution had surrendered command of the narrative.

Presently the loss of titles and the ongoing and lifetime social disgrace that will hurt Andrew most severely.

• Demotion: Demoted to just a private citizen
• Historical Precedent: The primary monarch to surrender his titles in contemporary era
• Armed Forces: Especially stinging given his service in the conflict

He remains a royal advisor, on paper able to stand in for the sovereign, and he is still in the succession to the crown, but not any of these will truly occur.

What Lies Ahead

Can persons he encounters still defer to him? Might they still forget themselves and call him Sir? Might they say Sir,

Certainly, he is not withdrawing to suburbia, but to the monarchy's vast estate at a royal residence.

There, he will be furnished by the sovereign with one of the grace and favour houses and given some form of financial support.

It is not his former home, where he paid a token rent for more than 20 years, and the county 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 overseas authorities to be revealed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will lawmakers request additional information
• Monetary Probe: Or examine the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his behavior

Maybe for the time being the harm to the monarchy to the crown is contained. The statement from the palace was plainly that the removal of titles was what the sovereign, and particularly other senior family members, desired.

Changed Stance

No more illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, significantly, the brief communication showed clearly that the institution were aligning with the victim's account of occurrences.

Even more, for the first time they eventually showed concern for the victims: "The censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the reality that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

Ultimately it is presumption, selfishness and laziness that will destroy the crown. In his folly, self-gratification and corruption, Andrew seems never to have understood that reality.