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The saga started with a isolated photograph, perhaps the most significant ever captured of a member of the monarchy.

Present was the Baron Killyleagh, with his arm around a teenage girl, while a companion smiled knowingly in the backdrop.

Absent that photograph, taken at a gathering in 2001, who would have believed the claims of a young woman who declared she was transported across the Atlantic and obliged to have cursory sexual encounters with a member of the royal bloodline?

A strange, telling gesture by someone who had openly claimed to have no known about her, said he could no have had sex with her, and yet handed over a substantial sum of family money to resolve a protracted lawsuit.

Over a Decade of Disgrace

In this context, conversations of the monarchy acting decisively to cut Andrew off are wide of the mark. This scandal has continued for the largest portion of 15 years since that image, and an additional image of Andrew walking amiably with a convicted sex offender emerged.

• Self-importance: How long did his siblings, maybe even his mother and father, know that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have known, if his aides and the authorities were fulfilling their roles, that he had some deeply disreputable companions 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.

Travel were documented in royal annual reports: private aircraft flights from the royal residence to a sporting venue and back again in time for lunch, private flights instead of scheduled services, all for the convenience of "the travel enthusiast".

Existence of Entitlement

Then there was the presumption which required deference when he walked into a area or the supreme awareness about his designations used on his letterheads in letters to his personal acquaintances.

He managed to escape consequences while his parent, who inexplicably indulged him, was still surviving. The Queen did at least revoke him of official roles and honorary colonelcies in the consequence of his disastrous and, we now know, deceptive television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

Just in the last 14 days that events sped up, following the issuance of biographical works giving more troubling details of his conduct and that of his associates.

More information have again revealed Andrew's belief that he could escape being untruthful about his interaction with a notorious figure.

The public (and the media) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was no one of any importance to speak up for him, a consequence of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent family members understood that. The one imperative is to hand down the crown, if not as previously at least whole and unblemished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to undo the legacy of earlier rulers, proving they are useful, accountable and responsive to their people.

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

Aftermath

Ultimately, the notoriously uncertain sovereign was pushed more. There was little choice. The palace had surrendered command of the account.

Presently the loss of honorifics and the ongoing and lifetime public humiliation that will hurt Andrew the most.

• Demotion: Lowered to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Prior Instance: The primary monarch to surrender his titles in recent history
• Military Service: Notably painful given his service in the Falklands war

He continues to be a constitutional officer, theoretically able to stand in for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the monarchy, but not any of these will truly come to pass.

Coming Developments

Do individuals he meets still defer to him? Might they still slip up and call him Your Highness? Will they even say Andrew,

Naturally, he is not moving to a common area, but to the sovereign's large property at a monarchical property.

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

This is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a minimal rent for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit distant, but even so it may not be far enough.

Unresolved Issues

Matters remain unresolved. There are still documents in the custody of American legislators to be disclosed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Could legislators demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or investigate the waste of state resources
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a criminal probe into his behavior

Perhaps for the present the institutional damage to the institution is limited. The statement from the institution was clearly that the removal of titles was what the monarch, and especially other senior monarchical figures, desired.

Changed Stance

No more deception that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, notably, the short communication showed clearly that the monarchy were supporting the accuser's account of occurrences.

Additionally, for the initial instance they eventually showed concern for the victims: "The censures are judged required, notwithstanding the reality that he persists in refuting the allegations against him."

In the end it is presumption, self-interest and laziness that will kill the institution. In his foolishness, personal excess and corruption, Andrew seems never to have understood that lesson.