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The saga started with a single photograph, arguably the most consequential ever captured of a royal family member.

In the frame appeared the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a teenage girl, while another individual smiled conspiratorially in the backdrop.

Absent that photograph, captured at a gathering in 2001, who would have believed the allegations of a adolescent who declared she was trafficked across the sea and forced to have cursory sexual encounters with a individual of the monarchy?

A strange, telling action by someone who had openly claimed to have not known about her, claimed he could never have had sex with her, and yet provided a substantial sum of family funds to avert a long-delayed court action.

Years of Controversy

In this context, talk of the royal family acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This controversy has continued for the majority of 15 years since that image, and another snapshot of Andrew ambling congenially with a notorious individual surfaced.

• Self-importance: How long did his brothers and sisters, maybe even his mother and father, realize that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have realized, if his staff and the police were fulfilling their roles, that he had some extremely unsavory companions given he unabashedly invited them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the family did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

Trips were printed in official documents: private aircraft transfers from the estate to a sporting venue and back again in time for lunch, chartered planes instead of regular transport, all for the convenience of "Airmiles Andy".

Existence of Entitlement

Furthermore the entitlement which required deference when he walked into a space or the profound obsession about his designations used on his letterheads in communication to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still alive. The Queen did at least strip him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the wake of his disastrous and, it is now clear, mendacious media appearance six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last 14 days that events accelerated, following the issuance of accounts giving more grim information of his behavior and that of his connections.

Additional revelations have again revealed Andrew's assumption that he could avoid deceiving about his interaction with a notorious figure.

The public (and the media) were far more perceptive of the monarchy. There was not a single person of any significance to defend him, a result of all those years of arrogance.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent family members recognized that. The one imperative is to transfer the institution, if not as heretofore at least intact and untarnished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to overcome the reputation of earlier rulers, proving they are useful, responsible and responsive to their citizens.

He was placing all that in jeopardy in an age when respect and privacy is no longer enough.

The Fallout

Eventually, the famously uncertain sovereign was prodded more. There was no other option. The palace had relinquished authority of the account.

Currently the loss of designations and the ongoing and permanent personal shame that will afflict Andrew most deeply.

• Reduction: Reduced to just a commoner
• Past Example: The initial monarch to forfeit his titles in recent history
• Military Service: Especially hurtful given his service in the engagement

He continues to be a royal advisor, in principle able to substitute for the monarch, and he is still eighth in line to the crown, but none of these will ever occur.

What Lies Ahead

Can persons he comes across still show respect to him? Might they still make mistakes and call him Sir? Would they say Mr,

Certainly, he is not moving to a common area, but to the sovereign's vast estate at Sandringham.

In that place, he will be supplied by the monarch with one of the royal residences and given some form of financial support.

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

Pending Matters

Matters remain unresolved. There are still files in the possession of US Congress to be made public.

• Parliamentary Interest: Might lawmakers request additional information
• Monetary Probe: Or scrutinize the improper use of public money
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a criminal probe into his conduct

Perhaps for the present the harm to the monarchy to the monarchy is contained. The message from the royal household was clearly that the stripping of honorifics was what the king, and especially other senior royals, sought.

Altered Approach

An end to deception that Andrew was acting willingly. And, significantly, the short statement showed clearly that the institution were supporting the accuser's account of incidents.

Furthermore, for the initial instance they ultimately showed regard for the survivors: "The censures are deemed necessary, despite the truth that he continues to deny the accusations against him."

Finally it is arrogance, selfishness and indolence that will destroy the crown. In his stupidity, self-gratification and corruption, Andrew appears never to have grasped that lesson.