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

Present was the Earl of Inverness, standing closely beside a teenage girl, while an associate smiled suggestively in the background.

Absent that photograph, shot at a party in 2001, few would have credited the allegations of a young woman who stated she was moved across the sea and obliged to have brief intimate contact with a individual of the monarchy?

A strange, revealing move by someone who had publicly asserted to have not heard of her, asserted he could never have had intimate contact with her, and yet provided a substantial sum of family funds to resolve a drawn-out lawsuit.

Over a Decade of Controversy

In this context, discussions of the royals acting firmly to cut Andrew off are wide of the mark. This affair has persisted for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and another image of Andrew strolling congenially with a disgraced financier came to light.

• Arrogance: To what extent did his family members, possibly even his mother and father, know that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Problematic Connections: They must have realized, if his employees and the authorities were doing their jobs, that he had some deeply disreputable friends given he publicly welcomed them to royal residences.
• Monetary Excess: If the household did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with state resources.

Trips were listed in royal annual reports: private aircraft transfers from the palace to a sporting venue and back again in time for lunch, chartered planes instead of commercial flights, all for the convenience of "the frequent flyer".

A Life of Privilege

Additionally the arrogance which required respect when he walked into a space or the extreme obsession about his honorifics used on his correspondence in messages to his friends.

He could get away with it while his mother, who strangely spoiled him, was still alive. The sovereign did at least strip him of official roles and military positions in the aftermath of his disastrous and, we now know, mendacious media appearance six years ago.

Recent Developments

Merely in the last two weeks that events accelerated, following the release of accounts giving more grim information of his conduct and that of his companions.

More information have again highlighted Andrew's belief that he could avoid being untruthful about his interaction with a convicted criminal.

People (and the media) were far ahead of the royals. There was no one of any consequence to support him, a consequence of all those years of arrogance.

Institutional Fears

The more astute family members understood that. The key objective is to hand down the monarchy, if not as previously at least whole and unstained.

For generations the last 190 years trying to reverse the image of past sovereigns, demonstrating they are beneficial, accountable and attentive to their citizens.

He was placing all that in peril in an time when respect and secrecy is no longer enough.

The Fallout

Eventually, the notoriously indecisive sovereign was pressured additional. There was no alternative. The royal household had surrendered command of the narrative.

Presently the removal of honorifics and the persistent and life-long personal shame that will pain Andrew most deeply.

• Reduction: Reduced to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Historical Precedent: The primary member to forfeit his designations in recent history
• Naval Career: Especially painful given his role in the engagement

He is still a royal advisor, theoretically able to act for the sovereign, and he is still in the succession to the monarchy, but neither of these will truly come to pass.

Future Prospects

Can persons he encounters still acknowledge him? Will they still slip up and call him Your Highness? Might they say Sir,

Certainly, he is not moving to an ordinary town, but to the monarchy's large grounds at a monarchical property.

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

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

Outstanding Concerns

This is not over. There are still documents in the hands of US Congress to be made public.

• Parliamentary Interest: Could lawmakers seek further action
• Monetary Probe: Or scrutinize the waste of public money
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a police investigation into his actions

Maybe for the moment the reputational impact to the institution is contained. The message from the palace was evidently that the revocation of titles was what the king, and notably other senior family members, wanted.

Changed Stance

An end to pretence that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, significantly, the brief communication showed evidently that the monarchy were supporting the complainant's account of events.

Even more, for the first time they ultimately showed consideration for the survivors: "The measures are deemed necessary, regardless of the reality that he continues to deny the allegations against him."

Finally it is presumption, self-seeking and laziness that will destroy the institution. In his folly, personal excess and venality, Andrew gives the impression never to have grasped that truth.