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This episode commenced with a single photograph, perhaps the most significant ever captured of a member of the monarchy.

In the frame appeared the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a teenage girl, while an associate beamed suggestively in the rear.

Absent that image, captured at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the assertions of a adolescent who said she was moved across the Atlantic and forced to have cursory sexual encounters with a individual of the monarchy?

An odd, revealing gesture by someone who had openly stated to have no heard of her, said he could never have had intimate contact with her, and yet provided a substantial sum of family funds to resolve a protracted court action.

Over a Decade of Scandal

Considering this, talk of the royals acting firmly to cut Andrew off are wide of the mark. This scandal has continued for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and an additional image of Andrew ambling congenially with a convicted sex offender emerged.

• Arrogance: To what extent did his siblings, perhaps even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have realized, if his employees and the authorities were doing their jobs, that he had some extremely unsavory associates given he publicly invited them to palaces.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the family did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his overspending with taxpayer funds.

Trips were documented in public records: helicopter transfers from the palace to a country club and back again in time for lunch, private flights instead of commercial flights, all for the convenience of "Airmiles Andy".

World of Deference

Furthermore the entitlement which expected deference when he entered a area or the extreme consciousness about his royal titles used on his official documents in letters to his associates.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who strangely indulged him, was still alive. The monarch did at least remove him of official roles and military positions in the consequence of his ill-fated and, it is now clear, untruthful public statement six years ago.

Recent Developments

Merely in the last two weeks that events progressed rapidly, following the release of biographical works giving more grim particulars of his actions and that of his associates.

Additional revelations have again highlighted Andrew's thinking that he could escape lying about his contact with a notorious figure.

People (and the media) were far in advance of the royals. There was not a single person of any importance to support him, a consequence of all those years of arrogance.

Royal Worries

The more intelligent royals understood that. The one imperative is to pass on the monarchy, if not as previously at least intact and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the legacy of earlier rulers, proving they are beneficial, dutiful and attentive to their people.

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

The Fallout

Finally, the notoriously uncertain sovereign was pushed further. There was no alternative. The royal household had surrendered command of the account.

Presently the removal of designations and the ongoing and lifetime personal shame that will hurt Andrew most severely.

• Reduction: Reduced to just a commoner
• Historical Precedent: The initial monarch to surrender his designations in contemporary era
• Naval Career: Notably painful given his duty in the engagement

He is still a counsellor of state, theoretically able to substitute for the king, and he is still in the succession to the monarchy, but none of these will truly occur.

Future Prospects

Will people he encounters still defer to him? Might they still slip up and call him Your Highness? Will they even say Mr,

Certainly, he is not moving to an ordinary town, but to the monarchy's vast property at a royal residence.

In that place, he will be furnished by the monarch with one of the royal residences and given some sort of private allowance.

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 far enough.

Outstanding Concerns

The situation continues. There are still files in the possession of US Congress to be disclosed.

• Political Pressure: Will parliament demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or examine the improper use of taxpayer funds
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a police investigation into his actions

Possibly for the time being the institutional damage to the crown is contained. The statement from the institution was plainly that the revocation of titles was what the sovereign, and particularly other senior monarchical figures, wanted.

Changed Stance

An end to pretence that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, remarkably, the brief communication showed clearly that the institution were siding with the victim's narrative of events.

Additionally, for the first time they finally showed consideration for the survivors: "These actions are considered essential, notwithstanding the reality that he maintains his innocence of the claims against him."

In the end it is entitlement, selfishness and inactivity that will destroy the crown. In his foolishness, personal excess and corruption, Andrew appears never to have learned that lesson.