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

There stood the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a teenage girl, while another individual beamed suggestively in the background.

Lacking that image, captured at a social event in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a young woman who said she was transported across the Atlantic and obliged to have brief sexual encounters with a member of the royal family?

An odd, indicative move by someone who had overtly asserted to have no been aware of her, said he could not have had sex with her, and yet handed over millions of family funds to avert a long-delayed court action.

A Long Period of Scandal

Considering this, conversations of the royals acting firmly to cut Andrew off are misguided. This controversy has persisted for the majority of 15 years since that photograph, and a further snapshot of Andrew ambling congenially with a disgraced financier came to light.

• Arrogance: To what extent did his brothers and sisters, perhaps even his relatives, know that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Questionable Associations: They must have realized, if his employees and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory companions given he publicly invited them to palaces.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the monarchy did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with taxpayer funds.

Travel were documented in official documents: helicopter travel from the royal residence to a golf course and back again in time for midday meal, exclusive air travel instead of scheduled services, all for the convenience of "the travel enthusiast".

A Life of Privilege

Furthermore the entitlement which required subservience when he entered a space or the supreme obsession about his royal titles used on his letterheads in letters to his personal acquaintances.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who inexplicably pampered him, was still surviving. The sovereign did at least remove him of public duties and military positions in the consequence of his catastrophic and, it is now clear, untruthful television interview six years ago.

Recent Developments

It was only in the last 14 days that events accelerated, following the issuance of books giving more disturbing information of his behavior and that of his companions.

More information have again highlighted Andrew's assumption that he could escape deceiving about his relationship with a convicted criminal.

Society (and the journalists) were far more perceptive of the monarchy. There was no one of any consequence to speak up for him, a consequence of all those years of arrogance.

Institutional Fears

The more astute royals realized that. The one imperative is to hand down the institution, if not as previously at least intact and unblemished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to overcome the legacy of previous monarchs, proving they are useful, accountable and attentive to their citizens.

Andrew was putting all that in jeopardy in an age when respect and secrecy is no longer enough.

Aftermath

Finally, the famously hesitant king was pressured further. There was no other option. The institution had lost control of the narrative.

Presently the stripping of honorifics and the persistent and life-long personal shame that will hurt Andrew the most.

• Demotion: Demoted to just a commoner
• Historical Precedent: The primary member to surrender his designations in contemporary era
• Armed Forces: Particularly hurtful given his role in the Falklands war

He remains a royal advisor, theoretically able to stand in for the sovereign, and he is still eighth in line to the throne, but neither of these will actually happen.

Coming Developments

Will people he encounters still acknowledge him? Could they still slip up and call him Prince? Might they say Andrew,

Of course, he is not moving to suburbia, but to the royal family's extensive grounds at Sandringham.

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

This differs from his prior accommodation, where he paid a token rent for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit distant, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Outstanding Concerns

Matters remain unresolved. There are still records in the hands of American legislators to be disclosed.

• Political Pressure: Might parliament demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or scrutinize the waste of taxpayer funds
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a police investigation into his conduct

Possibly for the time being the institutional damage to the monarchy is contained. The message from the palace was clearly that the revocation of titles was what the sovereign, and notably other senior monarchical figures, wanted.

Changed Stance

The cessation of pretence that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, significantly, the short announcement showed plainly that the institution were aligning with the victim's narrative of incidents.

Additionally, for the first time they eventually showed concern for the affected individuals: "The censures are judged required, despite the fact that he maintains his innocence of the accusations against him."

Finally it is entitlement, selfishness and laziness that will destroy the institution. In his foolishness, self-indulgence and corruption, Andrew seems never to have grasped that reality.