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This episode commenced with a solitary photograph, perhaps the most consequential ever snapped of a royal family member.

In the frame appeared the Baron Killyleagh, with his arm around a female youth, while another individual grinned conspiratorially in the rear.

Absent that photograph, captured at a social event in 2001, few would have credited the allegations of a adolescent who said she was moved across the ocean and compelled to have brief relations with a member of the royal family?

An odd, revealing action by someone who had openly stated to have never been aware of her, said he could not have had relations with her, and yet paid a substantial sum of family funds to avert a drawn-out legal case.

Years of Disgrace

Considering this, conversations of the royal family acting firmly to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This affair has endured for the largest portion of 15 years since that image, and a further image of Andrew strolling amiably with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Self-importance: To what extent did his family members, maybe even his relatives, know that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have understood, if his aides and the police were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable associates given he unabashedly welcomed them to palaces.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the monarchy did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

Trips were documented in official documents: chopper flights from the royal residence to a sporting venue and back again in time for dining, chartered planes instead of regular transport, all for the benefit of "the travel enthusiast".

World of Deference

Additionally the arrogance which required deference when he entered a area or the supreme obsession about his honorifics used on his official documents in communication to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his matriarch, who inexplicably indulged him, was still living. The Queen did at least strip him of public duties and ceremonial ranks in the wake of his ill-fated and, we now know, mendacious public statement six years ago.

Current Situation

It was only in the last fortnight that events sped up, following the publication of books giving more troubling particulars of his conduct and that of his companions.

More information have again highlighted Andrew's thinking that he could escape being untruthful about his contact with a notorious figure.

People (and the press) were far in advance of the royal family. There was nobody of any consequence to support him, a outcome of all those years of arrogance.

Monarchical Concerns

The wiser family members realized that. The primary concern is to hand down the monarchy, if not as before at least intact and untarnished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the image of previous monarchs, demonstrating they are beneficial, responsible and attentive to their citizens.

He was placing all that in danger in an era when submission and privacy is no longer sufficient.

The Fallout

Finally, the notoriously uncertain king was pressured more. There was little choice. The institution had lost control of the account.

Presently the removal of honorifics and the continued and life-long personal shame that will pain Andrew most severely.

• Downgrading: Reduced to just a commoner
• Prior Instance: The initial member to lose his designations in recent history
• Armed Forces: Especially hurtful given his role in the conflict

He is still a royal advisor, on paper able to stand in for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but none of these will truly come to pass.

What Lies Ahead

Can persons he encounters still defer to him? Will they still make mistakes and call him Sir? Would they say Sir,

Of course, he is not retiring to a common area, but to the monarchy's large estate at Sandringham.

At that location, he will be provided by the king with one of the royal residences and given some form of financial support.

It is not his former home, where he paid a minimal payment for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit remote, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Pending Matters

The situation continues. There are still documents in the hands of overseas authorities to be made public.

• Political Pressure: Could lawmakers seek further action
• Financial Investigation: Or examine the improper use of public money
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his conduct

Possibly for the time being the harm to the monarchy to the institution is contained. The narrative from the institution was plainly that the revocation of titles was what the king, and notably other senior family members, wanted.

Altered Approach

The cessation of pretence that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, remarkably, the short statement showed evidently that the institution were siding with the accuser's version of occurrences.

Even more, for the initial instance they ultimately showed concern for the survivors: "These actions are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the truth that he continues to deny the claims against him."

In the end it is presumption, self-seeking and laziness that will undermine the monarchy. In his folly, self-indulgence and corruption, Andrew seems never to have learned that truth.