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This episode commenced with a single photograph, possibly the most significant ever snapped of a royal family member.

There stood the Baron Killyleagh, arm-in-arm a teenage girl, while a companion smiled knowingly in the rear.

Absent that snapshot, captured at a party in 2001, who would have believed the claims of a young woman who stated she was moved across the Atlantic and forced to have cursory intimate contact with a member of the royal family?

A strange, revealing gesture by someone who had overtly stated to have not known about her, said he could never have had relations with her, and yet paid a substantial sum of his mother's funds to settle a protracted lawsuit.

Years of Controversy

In this context, discussions of the monarchy acting decisively to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This controversy has continued for the largest portion of 15 years since that photograph, and an additional snapshot of Andrew strolling amiably with a convicted sex offender surfaced.

• Hubris: To what extent did his brothers and sisters, maybe even his relatives, realize that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have realized, if his aides and the police were doing their jobs, that he had some deeply disreputable companions given he unabashedly hosted them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the monarchy did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

Trips were listed in official documents: helicopter flights from the royal residence to a golf course and back again in time for dining, chartered planes instead of regular transport, all for the convenience of "Airmiles Andy".

World of Deference

Additionally the presumption which expected respect when he entered a space or the supreme obsession about his royal titles used on his letterheads in letters to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his parent, who unaccountably indulged him, was still living. The sovereign did at least revoke him of royal responsibilities and ceremonial ranks in the wake of his ill-fated and, as revealed, deceptive television interview six years ago.

Current Situation

It was only in the last two weeks that events sped up, following the issuance of accounts giving more disturbing information of his behavior and that of his associates.

Additional revelations have again highlighted Andrew's assumption that he could get away with lying about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

The public (and the press) were far ahead of the royal family. There was nobody of any significance to speak up for him, a outcome of all those years of hubris.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent royals recognized that. The key objective is to hand down the crown, if not as heretofore at least complete and unblemished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the legacy of previous monarchs, proving they are beneficial, accountable and attentive to their citizens.

Andrew was putting all that in jeopardy in an time when deference and privacy is no longer adequate.

The Fallout

Eventually, the well-known uncertain king was pushed more. There was no other option. The institution had relinquished authority of the narrative.

Presently the removal of titles and the persistent and life-long public humiliation that will afflict Andrew most deeply.

• Downgrading: Lowered to just a commoner
• Past Example: The initial monarch to forfeit his honorifics in modern times
• Armed Forces: Particularly hurtful given his role in the engagement

He is still a royal advisor, in principle able to substitute for the king, and he is still eighth in line to the crown, but none of these will actually come to pass.

Coming Developments

Will people he encounters still show respect to him? Will they still slip up and call him Prince? Would they say Sir,

Naturally, he is not withdrawing to suburbia, but to the sovereign's large property at Sandringham.

In that place, he will be supplied by the king with one of the grace and favour houses and given some type of private allowance.

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

Outstanding Concerns

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

• Parliamentary Interest: Might legislators request additional information
• Fiscal Review: Or scrutinize the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a criminal probe into his conduct

Maybe for the moment the institutional damage to the monarchy is contained. The narrative from the palace was evidently that the removal of titles was what the monarch, and particularly other senior royals, wanted.

A Shift in Position

An end to illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, remarkably, the concise announcement showed evidently that the institution were siding with the victim's narrative of incidents.

Even more, for the premiere occasion they finally showed regard for the affected individuals: "These actions are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the claims against him."

In the end it is entitlement, self-seeking and inactivity that will destroy the crown. In his stupidity, self-gratification and greed, Andrew gives the impression never to have grasped that lesson.