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The saga started with a solitary photograph, arguably the most impactful ever snapped of a individual from the royal household.

There stood the Earl of Inverness, arm-in-arm a young woman, while a companion smiled conspiratorially in the background.

Lacking that photograph, captured at a gathering in 2001, few would have credited the claims of a teenager who stated she was transported across the Atlantic and forced to have perfunctory intimate contact with a member of the monarchy?

An odd, telling gesture by someone who had publicly claimed to have not been aware of her, asserted he could not have had relations with her, and yet paid a large amount of family resources to avert a drawn-out legal case.

A Long Period of Controversy

Against this backdrop, conversations of the royals acting firmly to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This affair has continued for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and another snapshot of Andrew ambling pleasantly with a disgraced financier surfaced.

• Self-importance: How long did his family members, possibly even his parents, realize that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Questionable Associations: They must have realized, if his staff and the law enforcement were doing their jobs, that he had some deeply disreputable companions given he unabashedly invited them to royal residences.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the family did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his extravagance with state resources.

Trips were documented in official documents: chopper travel from the palace to a sporting venue and back again in time for midday meal, exclusive air travel instead of commercial flights, all for the benefit of "the travel enthusiast".

A Life of Privilege

Additionally the entitlement which required subservience when he walked into a area or the supreme consciousness about his royal titles used on his letterheads in messages to his associates.

He could get away with it while his matriarch, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still alive. The Queen did at least strip him of official roles and military positions in the wake of his ill-fated and, as revealed, deceptive media appearance six years ago.

Recent Developments

Just in the last 14 days that events accelerated, following the issuance of books giving more grim information of his actions and that of his associates.

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

Society (and the journalists) were far ahead of the monarchy. There was nobody of any significance to support him, a result of all those years of arrogance.

Royal Worries

The more astute royals understood that. The one imperative is to transfer the institution, if not as before at least intact and untarnished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to undo the reputation of previous monarchs, showing they are valuable, accountable and reactive to their citizens.

His actions endangered all that in danger in an age when respect and secrecy is no longer adequate.

The Fallout

Eventually, the famously indecisive sovereign was prodded further. There was no other option. The royal household had relinquished authority of the story.

Now it is the loss of titles and the ongoing and lifetime public humiliation that will pain Andrew most severely.

• Downgrading: Lowered to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Prior Instance: The primary royal to forfeit his designations in contemporary era
• Armed Forces: Especially hurtful given his service in the Falklands war

He is still a counsellor of state, on paper able to substitute for the sovereign, and he is still in the succession to the monarchy, but none of these will actually come to pass.

Coming Developments

Can persons he encounters still acknowledge him? Will they still make mistakes and call him Sir? Might they say Sir,

Naturally, he is not retiring to an ordinary town, but to the sovereign's extensive property at Sandringham.

In that place, he will be provided by the monarch with one of the royal residences and given some type of personal stipend.

This is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a token payment for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit remote, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Unresolved Issues

Matters remain unresolved. There are still files in the custody of American legislators to be made public.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will legislators seek further action
• Monetary Probe: Or investigate the waste of public money
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a criminal probe into his actions

Maybe for the moment the institutional damage to the monarchy is contained. The statement from the palace was evidently that the revocation of titles was what the king, and particularly other senior monarchical figures, wanted.

A Shift in Position

The cessation of deception that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, significantly, the concise announcement showed evidently that the institution were supporting the accuser's account of incidents.

Furthermore, for the initial instance they ultimately showed concern for the victims: "The censures are deemed necessary, despite the truth that he maintains his innocence of the claims against him."

In the end it is entitlement, self-interest and laziness that will destroy the monarchy. In his foolishness, personal excess and corruption, Andrew gives the impression never to have understood that truth.