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It all began with a isolated photograph, possibly the most significant ever snapped of a individual from the royal household.

In the frame appeared the Baron Killyleagh, standing closely beside a female youth, while a companion grinned knowingly in the backdrop.

Lacking that image, captured at a social event in 2001, few would have credited the assertions of a adolescent who declared she was trafficked across the sea and obliged to have cursory intimate contact with a prince of the royal family?

An odd, indicative gesture by someone who had openly asserted to have not known about her, asserted he could never have had relations with her, and yet provided a substantial sum of his mother's resources to avert a long-delayed legal case.

Over a Decade of Controversy

Against this backdrop, conversations of the royal family acting firmly to cut Andrew off are wide of the mark. This affair has endured for the largest portion of 15 years since that image, and a further photo of Andrew walking congenially with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Arrogance: How long did his siblings, maybe even his parents, know that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have known, if his aides and the authorities were fulfilling their roles, that he had some extremely unsavory friends given he openly hosted them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the family did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his extravagance with state resources.

Trips were printed in official documents: private aircraft travel from the palace to a country club and back again in time for lunch, private flights instead of regular transport, all for the benefit of "the frequent flyer".

A Life of Privilege

Furthermore the arrogance which required deference when he entered a area or the supreme awareness about his designations used on his official documents in messages to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his mother, who inexplicably indulged him, was still surviving. The sovereign did at least strip him of public duties and military positions in the wake of his ill-fated and, it is now clear, mendacious television interview six years ago.

Current Situation

Just in the last 14 days that events progressed rapidly, following the publication of books giving more disturbing details of his conduct and that of his companions.

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

People (and the media) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was not a single person of any consequence to support him, a consequence of all those years of hubris.

Royal Worries

The more astute family members understood that. The primary concern is to pass on the institution, if not as previously at least whole and untarnished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to undo the reputation of previous monarchs, demonstrating they are beneficial, accountable and attentive to their people.

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

Aftermath

Eventually, the well-known hesitant monarch was pressured more. There was no alternative. The palace had lost control of the account.

Currently the stripping of titles and the continued and permanent public humiliation that will afflict Andrew the most.

• Reduction: Reduced to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Prior Instance: The first monarch to forfeit his honorifics in modern times
• Military Service: Particularly hurtful given his service in the conflict

He is still a counsellor of state, in principle able to act for the sovereign, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but none of these will truly happen.

Future Prospects

Can persons he comes across still acknowledge him? Could they still make mistakes and call him Your Highness? Might they say Sir,

Certainly, he is not withdrawing to an ordinary town, but to the royal family's extensive property at a royal residence.

At that location, he will be supplied by the sovereign with one of the estate properties and given some sort of private allowance.

This is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a token lease for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit remote, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Pending Matters

This is not over. There are still files in the possession of US Congress to be disclosed.

• Political Pressure: Could lawmakers seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or scrutinize the waste of public money
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his conduct

Perhaps for the moment the institutional damage to the institution is contained. The statement from the palace was evidently that the revocation of titles was what the sovereign, and particularly other senior family members, desired.

Altered Approach

No more illusion that Andrew was acting willingly. And, remarkably, the concise communication showed clearly that the institution were siding with the complainant's version of incidents.

Furthermore, for the initial instance they eventually showed consideration for the survivors: "The measures are deemed necessary, despite the reality that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

In the end it is presumption, self-seeking and indolence that will undermine the monarchy. In his foolishness, self-indulgence and venality, Andrew gives the impression never to have grasped that reality.