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This episode commenced with a solitary photograph, perhaps the most consequential ever captured of a royal family member.

There stood the Earl of Inverness, standing closely beside a young woman, while an associate grinned suggestively in the backdrop.

Lacking that snapshot, captured at a gathering in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the allegations of a teenager who declared she was trafficked across the ocean and compelled to have cursory relations with a member of the royal bloodline?

A curious, telling action by someone who had overtly claimed to have not known about her, claimed he could never have had relations with her, and yet provided a substantial sum of family resources to settle a long-delayed lawsuit.

A Long Period of Disgrace

Considering this, talk of the royals acting swiftly to sever ties with Andrew are wide of the mark. This scandal has persisted for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and another image of Andrew strolling amiably with a notorious individual surfaced.

• Arrogance: For what duration did his brothers and sisters, maybe even his mother and father, know that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his staff and the authorities were doing their jobs, that he had some highly questionable associates given he openly invited them to palaces.
• Monetary Excess: If the monarchy did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his overspending with public money.

Journeys were listed in royal annual reports: helicopter flights from the royal residence to a golf course and back again in time for lunch, chartered planes instead of commercial flights, all for the benefit of "the frequent flyer".

Existence of Entitlement

Furthermore the entitlement which expected subservience when he entered a space or the profound obsession about his honorifics used on his official documents in letters to his personal acquaintances.

He managed to escape consequences while his parent, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still living. The sovereign did at least revoke him of public duties and military positions in the wake of his ill-fated and, it is now clear, mendacious public statement six years ago.

Recent Developments

Merely in the last two weeks that events sped up, following the release of accounts giving more troubling particulars of his behavior and that of his connections.

More information have again highlighted Andrew's thinking that he could get away with being untruthful about his interaction with a disgraced individual.

People (and the media) were far more perceptive of the royals. There was nobody of any significance to defend him, a outcome of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

The more astute family members realized that. The one imperative is to pass on the crown, if not as heretofore at least complete and unblemished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to reverse the image of past sovereigns, demonstrating they are valuable, dutiful and responsive to their subjects.

He was placing all that in danger in an age when submission and discretion is no longer sufficient.

Consequences

Eventually, the notoriously uncertain king was pressured additional. There was no other option. The royal household had surrendered command of the account.

Currently the stripping of titles and the ongoing and life-long social disgrace that will afflict Andrew the most.

• Reduction: Demoted to just a private citizen
• Historical Precedent: The initial monarch to lose his designations in recent history
• Military Service: Particularly stinging given his duty in the conflict

He is still a royal advisor, in principle able to act for the king, and he is still eighth in line to the throne, but none of these will ever occur.

Coming Developments

Do individuals he encounters still acknowledge him? Might they still slip up and call him Prince? Would they say Andrew,

Naturally, he is not retiring to an ordinary town, 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 sort of private allowance.

This is not his previous residence, where he paid a nominal payment for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit remote, but even so it may not be far enough.

Outstanding Concerns

This is not over. There are still records in the custody of US Congress to be revealed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Could parliament seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or investigate the misuse of public money
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a criminal probe into his actions

Perhaps for the present the harm to the monarchy to the monarchy is restricted. The narrative from the institution was clearly that the stripping of titles was what the sovereign, and notably other senior monarchical figures, wanted.

Altered Approach

No more deception that Andrew was acting willingly. And, significantly, the concise statement showed clearly that the institution were aligning with the victim's narrative of incidents.

Even more, for the first time they finally showed concern for the victims: "These actions are considered essential, regardless of the truth that he maintains his innocence of the accusations against him."

Ultimately it is presumption, selfishness and laziness that will kill the crown. In his stupidity, self-gratification and corruption, Andrew appears never to have learned that truth.