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

Present was the Earl of Inverness, arm-in-arm a teenage girl, while an associate grinned suggestively in the background.

Lacking that photograph, taken at a social event in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a adolescent who stated she was trafficked across the ocean and obliged to have brief sexual encounters with a individual of the royal bloodline?

An odd, indicative move by someone who had openly stated to have no heard of her, asserted he could not have had intimate contact with her, and yet paid a large amount of his mother's resources to avert a long-delayed legal case.

A Long Period of Controversy

Considering this, conversations of the monarchy acting decisively to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This scandal has endured for the largest portion of 15 years since that image, and an additional snapshot of Andrew walking congenially with a disgraced financier came to light.

• Hubris: How long did his siblings, maybe even his relatives, understand that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Problematic Connections: They must have known, if his employees and the law enforcement were fulfilling their roles, that he had some extremely unsavory associates given he unabashedly invited them to royal residences.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the family did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his overspending with state resources.

Travel were listed in royal annual reports: private aircraft transfers from the palace to a sporting venue and back again in time for midday meal, private flights instead of scheduled services, all for the comfort of "the travel enthusiast".

A Life of Privilege

Furthermore the arrogance which required subservience when he appeared in a area or the profound awareness about his honorifics used on his correspondence in letters to his associates.

He managed to escape consequences while his matriarch, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still living. The sovereign did at least strip him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the wake of his ill-fated and, as revealed, deceptive media appearance six years ago.

Latest Events

It was only in the last two weeks that events progressed rapidly, following the publication of accounts giving more grim particulars of his actions and that of his companions.

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

The public (and the journalists) were far in advance of the monarchy. There was no one of any importance to defend him, a outcome of all those years of presumption.

Monarchical Concerns

The more intelligent family members realized that. The primary concern is to transfer the crown, if not as heretofore at least intact and untarnished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to undo the reputation of past sovereigns, demonstrating they are beneficial, dutiful and attentive to their people.

Andrew was putting all that in danger in an era when deference and privacy is no longer sufficient.

The Fallout

Finally, the famously uncertain monarch was pushed more. There was no alternative. The palace had relinquished authority of the account.

Presently the removal of honorifics and the ongoing and lifetime public humiliation that will afflict Andrew the most.

• Reduction: Lowered to just a commoner
• Past Example: The primary member to lose his designations in contemporary era
• Armed Forces: Especially painful given his service in the Falklands war

He continues to be a constitutional officer, on paper able to stand in for the monarch, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but not any of these will truly happen.

What Lies Ahead

Can persons he comes across still show respect to him? Will they still slip up and call him Prince? Would they say Sir,

Naturally, he is not withdrawing to an ordinary town, but to the royal family's large grounds at Sandringham.

At that location, he will be provided by the monarch with one of the royal residences and given some sort of personal stipend.

It is not his previous residence, where he paid a token lease for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit remote, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Pending Matters

This is not over. There are still documents in the custody of American legislators to be revealed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will parliament request additional information
• Financial Investigation: Or scrutinize the misuse of state resources
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his conduct

Possibly for the moment the reputational impact to the institution is contained. The narrative from the royal household was evidently that the stripping of designations was what the monarch, and especially other senior royals, wanted.

A Shift in Position

The cessation of deception that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, notably, the concise communication showed evidently that the monarchy were supporting the complainant's narrative of occurrences.

Additionally, for the initial instance they finally showed regard for the survivors: "These actions are judged required, despite the reality that he continues to deny the claims against him."

Ultimately it is arrogance, self-seeking and laziness that will undermine the crown. In his folly, self-gratification and corruption, Andrew appears never to have understood that reality.