🔗 Share this article

It all began with a isolated photograph, possibly the most impactful ever snapped of a royal family member.

Present was the Duke of York, with his arm around a young woman, while another individual smiled conspiratorially in the rear.

Absent that snapshot, taken at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the claims of a teenager who declared she was trafficked across the sea and obliged to have cursory sexual encounters with a member of the royal family?

An odd, revealing gesture by someone who had overtly asserted to have never been aware of her, claimed he could never have had relations with her, and yet paid millions of his mother's money to avert a drawn-out court action.

Years of Controversy

Against this backdrop, talk of the monarchy acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This scandal has persisted for the better part of 15 years since that photograph, and another photo of Andrew strolling congenially with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Self-importance: To what extent did his siblings, maybe even his relatives, realize that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Questionable Associations: They must have understood, if his employees and the police were doing their jobs, that he had some highly questionable friends given he openly hosted them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the monarchy did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

Trips were documented in public records: private aircraft travel from the royal residence to a sporting venue and back again in time for dining, chartered planes instead of regular transport, all for the convenience of "the frequent flyer".

Existence of Entitlement

Additionally the entitlement which expected deference when he appeared in a space or the supreme consciousness about his designations used on his letterheads in letters to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his matriarch, who inexplicably indulged him, was still living. The sovereign did at least revoke him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the wake of his ill-fated and, we now know, untruthful public statement six years ago.

Current Situation

It was only in the last two weeks that events progressed rapidly, following the release of biographical works giving more troubling particulars of his conduct and that of his companions.

More information have again highlighted Andrew's belief that he could get away with lying about his contact with a convicted criminal.

People (and the journalists) were far in advance of the monarchy. There was not a single person of any significance to speak up for him, a outcome of all those years of arrogance.

Royal Worries

The wiser royals realized that. The key objective is to hand down the crown, if not as before at least intact and untarnished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to undo the legacy of past sovereigns, demonstrating they are valuable, dutiful and responsive to their subjects.

His actions endangered all that in peril in an time when submission and discretion is no longer sufficient.

The Fallout

Finally, the well-known hesitant monarch was prodded additional. There was little choice. The royal household had lost control of the account.

Presently the loss of designations and the ongoing and permanent public humiliation that will afflict Andrew most deeply.

• Reduction: Reduced to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Historical Precedent: The initial monarch to forfeit his designations in modern times
• Naval Career: Notably painful given his service in the engagement

He continues to be a counsellor of state, on paper able to substitute for the sovereign, and he is still eighth in line to the throne, but none of these will ever come to pass.

What Lies Ahead

Do individuals he encounters still show respect to him? Might they still make mistakes and call him Prince? Would they say Mr,

Of course, he is not withdrawing to an ordinary town, but to the monarchy's vast grounds at a royal residence.

There, he will be provided by the monarch with one of the estate properties and given some sort of financial support.

It is not his former home, where he paid a nominal payment for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit far, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Unresolved Issues

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

• Political Pressure: Will legislators seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or examine the waste of public money
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a police investigation into his behavior

Maybe for the present the institutional damage to the crown is limited. The statement from the institution was evidently that the removal of titles was what the king, and especially other senior monarchical figures, sought.

Altered Approach

The cessation of deception that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, significantly, the short statement showed clearly that the institution were supporting the complainant's account of events.

Even more, for the first time they ultimately showed concern for the affected individuals: "The measures are considered essential, notwithstanding the reality that he continues to deny the claims against him."

In the end it is presumption, self-interest and inactivity that will destroy the monarchy. In his folly, personal excess and greed, Andrew seems never to have understood that truth.