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This episode commenced with a solitary photograph, arguably the most impactful ever taken of a individual from the royal household.

There stood the Baron Killyleagh, with his arm around a female youth, while a companion grinned conspiratorially in the rear.

Lacking that image, captured at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the assertions of a adolescent who declared she was trafficked across the sea and obliged to have brief sexual encounters with a prince of the royal bloodline?

An odd, indicative gesture by someone who had publicly claimed to have not heard of her, said he could not have had sex with her, and yet paid millions of his mother's funds to settle a long-delayed legal case.

Years of Controversy

In this context, conversations of the royals acting firmly to cut Andrew off are inaccurate. This controversy has continued for the majority of 15 years since that image, and another snapshot of Andrew walking amiably with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Hubris: How long did his family members, possibly even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his aides and the authorities were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory companions given he unabashedly hosted them to estates.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the monarchy did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his overspending with public money.

Trips were printed in royal annual reports: private aircraft travel from the estate to a country club and back again in time for lunch, chartered planes instead of commercial flights, all for the comfort of "Airmiles Andy".

A Life of Privilege

Then there was the entitlement which demanded deference when he entered a room or the extreme awareness about his royal titles used on his letterheads in communication to his associates.

He could get away with it while his mother, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still alive. The Queen did at least remove him of public duties and ceremonial ranks in the wake of his disastrous and, as revealed, mendacious media appearance six years ago.

Current Situation

Just in the last fortnight that events progressed rapidly, following the release of books giving more disturbing information of his behavior and that of his associates.

Further disclosures have again revealed Andrew's thinking that he could get away with deceiving about his interaction with a notorious figure.

Society (and the media) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was not a single person of any significance to speak up for him, a outcome of all those years of presumption.

Royal Worries

The more astute royals recognized that. The key objective is to pass on the monarchy, if not as before at least whole and unblemished.

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

His actions endangered all that in peril in an era when submission and discretion is no longer adequate.

Consequences

Eventually, the famously indecisive king was pushed more. There was no other option. The institution had lost control of the account.

Presently the loss of titles and the ongoing and life-long social disgrace that will hurt Andrew most deeply.

• Reduction: Demoted to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Past Example: The primary monarch to forfeit his titles in modern times
• Armed Forces: Especially hurtful given his service in the engagement

He remains a counsellor of state, theoretically able to stand in for the monarch, and he is still eighth in line to the crown, but neither of these will truly come to pass.

What Lies Ahead

Can persons he encounters still show respect to him? Will they still forget themselves and call him Prince? Might they say Mr,

Naturally, he is not withdrawing to suburbia, but to the monarchy's extensive grounds at a monarchical property.

There, he will be furnished by the king with one of the royal residences and given some sort of private allowance.

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

Unresolved Issues

The situation continues. There are still documents in the custody of US Congress to be revealed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will legislators seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or scrutinize the waste of public money
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a criminal probe into his actions

Possibly for the moment the institutional damage to the institution is limited. The narrative from the institution was plainly that the revocation of honorifics was what the king, and especially other senior royals, desired.

A Shift in Position

No more illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, notably, the short announcement showed evidently that the monarchy were aligning with the accuser's narrative of occurrences.

Furthermore, for the first time they finally showed concern for the survivors: "These actions are considered essential, regardless of the reality that he persists in refuting the claims against him."

Finally it is presumption, self-interest and laziness that will undermine the institution. In his stupidity, personal excess and venality, Andrew gives the impression never to have grasped that reality.