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The saga started with a isolated photograph, perhaps the most consequential ever captured of a royal family member.

Present was the Duke of York, with his arm around a young woman, while an associate beamed suggestively in the backdrop.

Without that snapshot, taken at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the allegations of a teenager who declared she was moved across the Atlantic and compelled to have cursory sexual encounters with a individual of the monarchy?

A strange, revealing move by someone who had openly claimed to have never been aware of her, said he could no have had sex with her, and yet provided millions of family resources to resolve a protracted court action.

A Long Period of Controversy

In this context, discussions of the royal family acting decisively to cut Andrew off are misguided. This affair has endured for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and an additional photo of Andrew walking amiably with a convicted sex offender came to light.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his family members, perhaps even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Problematic Connections: They must have realized, if his employees and the authorities were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory associates given he openly invited them to royal residences.
• Financial Extravagance: If the monarchy did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his overspending with taxpayer funds.

Trips were listed in official documents: helicopter travel from the palace to a golf course and back again in time for dining, exclusive air travel instead of commercial flights, all for the benefit of "the travel enthusiast".

A Life of Privilege

Additionally the arrogance which expected respect when he entered a area or the extreme consciousness about his honorifics used on his official documents in communication to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who unaccountably indulged him, was still alive. The Queen did at least strip him of royal responsibilities and ceremonial ranks in the consequence of his disastrous and, as revealed, untruthful television interview six years ago.

Recent Developments

Merely in the last two weeks that events sped up, following the publication of biographical works giving more grim information of his behavior and that of his companions.

Additional revelations have again revealed Andrew's thinking that he could escape deceiving about his relationship with a convicted criminal.

People (and the journalists) were far in advance of the royals. There was no one of any significance to defend him, a outcome of all those years of arrogance.

Royal Worries

The more intelligent family members understood that. The primary concern is to transfer the institution, if not as previously at least whole and unstained.

For generations the last 190 years trying to undo the legacy of past sovereigns, showing they are beneficial, dutiful and reactive to their subjects.

His actions endangered all that in jeopardy in an age when respect and secrecy is no longer enough.

The Fallout

Eventually, the well-known indecisive king was prodded further. There was no other option. The palace had lost control of the narrative.

Presently the loss of designations and the ongoing and lifetime social disgrace that will pain Andrew most deeply.

• Reduction: Demoted to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Historical Precedent: The primary royal to forfeit his designations in modern times
• Naval Career: Especially painful given his duty in the conflict

He continues to be a royal advisor, on paper able to substitute for the king, and he is still in the succession to the throne, but not any of these will ever occur.

What Lies Ahead

Can persons he meets still acknowledge him? Might they still slip up and call him Sir? Might they say Andrew,

Certainly, he is not moving to suburbia, but to the royal family's large grounds at Sandringham.

In that place, he will be furnished by the king with one of the royal residences and given some type of financial support.

It is not his former home, where he paid a minimal lease for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit remote, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Unresolved Issues

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

• Parliamentary Interest: Will lawmakers request additional information
• Fiscal Review: Or examine the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a criminal probe into his conduct

Perhaps for the moment the institutional damage to the institution is restricted. The narrative from the institution was clearly that the stripping of titles was what the monarch, and notably other senior royals, sought.

Changed Stance

The cessation of pretence that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, significantly, the brief statement showed evidently that the institution were supporting the accuser's narrative of events.

Furthermore, for the initial instance they ultimately showed consideration for the survivors: "The measures are considered essential, despite the truth that he continues to deny the claims against him."

Ultimately it is entitlement, selfishness and indolence that will undermine the institution. In his folly, self-indulgence and greed, Andrew appears never to have grasped that lesson.