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The saga started with a solitary photograph, perhaps the most consequential ever snapped of a royal family member.

In the frame appeared the Duke of York, standing closely beside a teenage girl, while another individual grinned knowingly in the background.

Without that snapshot, shot at a social event in 2001, few would have credited the claims of a adolescent who declared she was trafficked across the Atlantic and compelled to have cursory sexual encounters with a member of the royal bloodline?

An odd, indicative move by someone who had overtly stated to have never heard of her, claimed he could no have had sex with her, and yet provided a substantial sum of his mother's resources to avert a long-delayed legal case.

Years of Controversy

Considering this, conversations of the royals acting firmly to sever ties with Andrew are misguided. This scandal has continued for the majority of 15 years since that image, and another snapshot of Andrew strolling amiably with a convicted sex offender surfaced.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his family members, possibly even his parents, understand that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Problematic Connections: They must have understood, if his employees and the police were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable companions given he openly welcomed them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the household did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his overspending with taxpayer funds.

Journeys were listed in public records: helicopter flights from the estate to a golf course and back again in time for midday meal, exclusive air travel instead of commercial flights, all for the convenience of "the frequent flyer".

World of Deference

Furthermore the presumption which required respect when he entered a room or the supreme consciousness about his designations used on his letterheads in communication to his friends.

He could get away with it while his matriarch, who strangely pampered him, was still surviving. The monarch did at least revoke him of royal responsibilities and honorary colonelcies in the wake of his catastrophic and, it is now clear, mendacious television interview six years ago.

Recent Developments

It was only in the last 14 days that events progressed rapidly, following the release of accounts giving more disturbing information of his behavior and that of his associates.

Further disclosures have again exposed Andrew's thinking that he could get away with lying about his interaction with a disgraced individual.

The public (and the media) were far ahead of the royal family. There was nobody of any consequence to speak up for him, a consequence of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

The wiser royals understood that. The primary concern is to hand down the institution, if not as heretofore at least whole and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the legacy of previous monarchs, demonstrating they are valuable, responsible and attentive to their subjects.

Andrew was putting all that in peril in an age when submission and privacy is no longer enough.

Aftermath

Finally, the famously uncertain king was pushed additional. There was no other option. The institution had relinquished authority of the account.

Currently the removal of titles and the ongoing and lifetime social disgrace that will afflict Andrew the most.

• Downgrading: Lowered to just a commoner
• Past Example: The primary royal to forfeit his titles in contemporary era
• Naval Career: Particularly stinging given his service in the engagement

He is still a royal advisor, on paper able to substitute for the monarch, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but neither of these will truly happen.

Future Prospects

Do individuals he meets still acknowledge him? Could they still make mistakes and call him Sir? Will they even say Andrew,

Of course, he is not moving to suburbia, but to the sovereign's extensive property at a royal residence.

At that location, he will be furnished by the sovereign with one of the royal residences 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 county is a bit remote, but even so it may not be far enough.

Outstanding Concerns

Matters remain unresolved. There are still files in the custody of American legislators to be revealed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Could lawmakers demand more
• Monetary Probe: Or examine the improper use of state resources
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his conduct

Possibly for the present the institutional damage to the crown is limited. The statement from the palace was plainly that the removal of honorifics was what the king, and notably other senior monarchical figures, wanted.

Altered Approach

No more deception that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, notably, the concise communication showed clearly that the royals were supporting the victim's version of occurrences.

Additionally, for the first time they eventually showed consideration for the survivors: "The censures are considered essential, despite the fact that he continues to deny the claims against him."

In the end it is presumption, selfishness and laziness that will undermine the crown. In his foolishness, self-indulgence and venality, Andrew gives the impression never to have understood that reality.