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The saga started with a solitary photograph, possibly the most significant ever snapped of a member of the monarchy.

Present was the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a teenage girl, while an associate beamed knowingly in the rear.

Lacking that photograph, captured at a gathering in 2001, few would have credited the claims of a adolescent who declared she was transported across the sea and forced to have cursory intimate contact with a member of the monarchy?

A strange, indicative move by someone who had publicly claimed to have never known about her, asserted he could not have had sex with her, and yet provided a substantial sum of his mother's resources to settle a protracted legal case.

Years of Controversy

Considering this, talk of the monarchy acting swiftly to cut Andrew off are misguided. This controversy has endured for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and an additional image of Andrew walking congenially with a disgraced financier came to light.

• Arrogance: To what extent did his brothers and sisters, possibly even his mother and father, know that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his employees and the police were doing their jobs, that he had some deeply disreputable companions given he publicly hosted them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the household did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with state resources.

Travel were printed in public records: private aircraft flights 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 convenience of "the travel enthusiast".

Existence of Entitlement

Then there was the arrogance which expected deference when he entered a area or the supreme consciousness about his honorifics used on his correspondence in letters to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his parent, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still living. The monarch did at least remove him of official roles and honorary colonelcies in the consequence of his ill-fated and, it is now clear, untruthful television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

It was only in the last 14 days that events accelerated, following the issuance of biographical works giving more disturbing details of his behavior and that of his companions.

Further disclosures have again revealed Andrew's assumption that he could get away with deceiving about his interaction with a notorious figure.

People (and the press) were far ahead of the royals. There was no one of any significance to speak up for him, a result of all those years of presumption.

Monarchical Concerns

The more astute royals understood that. The key objective is to transfer the crown, if not as before at least intact and untarnished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to undo the legacy of previous monarchs, demonstrating they are useful, dutiful and attentive to their citizens.

He was placing all that in jeopardy in an time when submission and secrecy is no longer adequate.

The Fallout

Finally, the famously uncertain king was prodded more. There was no alternative. The palace had lost control of the narrative.

Now it is the loss of designations and the continued and life-long social disgrace that will afflict Andrew most severely.

• Downgrading: Reduced to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Prior Instance: The primary monarch to lose his honorifics in modern times
• Armed Forces: Notably hurtful given his role in the conflict

He is still a royal advisor, theoretically able to act for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but neither of these will truly happen.

Coming Developments

Will people he encounters still defer to him? Could they still forget themselves and call him Prince? Might they say Sir,

Of course, he is not withdrawing to an ordinary town, but to the sovereign's large grounds at a monarchical property.

There, he will be provided by the king with one of the royal residences and given some form of financial support.

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

Pending Matters

The situation continues. There are still documents in the custody of US Congress to be disclosed.

• Political Pressure: Will lawmakers demand more
• Monetary Probe: Or scrutinize the waste of state resources
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a criminal probe into his actions

Maybe for the moment the reputational impact to the institution is contained. The message from the royal household was plainly that the revocation of designations was what the sovereign, and especially other senior family members, desired.

Altered Approach

The cessation of deception that Andrew was acting willingly. And, significantly, the short announcement showed clearly that the monarchy were supporting the victim's version of events.

Even more, for the initial instance they eventually showed concern for the survivors: "The measures are considered essential, regardless of the fact that he maintains his innocence of the claims against him."

Finally it is entitlement, self-seeking and laziness that will undermine the monarchy. In his folly, personal excess and corruption, Andrew gives the impression never to have grasped that truth.