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This episode commenced with a single photograph, perhaps the most impactful ever taken of a royal family member.

In the frame appeared the Duke of York, standing closely beside a teenage girl, while a companion beamed knowingly in the background.

Lacking that photograph, taken at a party in 2001, few would have credited the allegations of a teenager who said she was trafficked across the ocean and forced to have perfunctory relations with a member of the royal bloodline?

An odd, revealing gesture by someone who had openly stated to have never known about her, claimed he could not have had sex with her, and yet handed over a substantial sum of his mother's money to resolve a drawn-out lawsuit.

A Long Period of Scandal

Against this backdrop, conversations of the monarchy acting firmly to sever ties with Andrew are inaccurate. This scandal has endured for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and a further image of Andrew ambling amiably with a notorious individual emerged.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his siblings, perhaps even his mother and father, know that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have known, if his aides and the law enforcement were fulfilling their roles, that he had some extremely unsavory companions given he publicly hosted them to estates.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the family did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his extravagance with taxpayer funds.

Travel were listed in official documents: private aircraft flights from the estate to a sporting venue and back again in time for midday meal, private flights instead of regular transport, all for the comfort of "Airmiles Andy".

World of Deference

Then there was the arrogance which required subservience when he walked into a area or the extreme obsession about his honorifics used on his official documents in messages to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his parent, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still living. The monarch did at least revoke him of public duties and ceremonial ranks in the wake of his ill-fated and, it is now clear, mendacious media appearance six years ago.

Latest Events

Just in the last fortnight that events sped up, following the release of accounts giving more troubling details of his conduct and that of his connections.

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

People (and the press) were far in advance of the royal family. There was nobody of any consequence to defend him, a outcome of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent royals understood that. The one imperative is to hand down the monarchy, if not as previously at least whole and untarnished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the image of earlier rulers, demonstrating they are beneficial, dutiful and responsive to their citizens.

He was placing all that in jeopardy in an time when submission and discretion is no longer adequate.

The Fallout

Finally, the notoriously hesitant monarch was pushed more. There was no alternative. The institution had surrendered command of the account.

Presently the removal of designations and the persistent and life-long public humiliation that will afflict Andrew the most.

• Downgrading: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Past Example: The first monarch to surrender his titles in contemporary era
• Naval Career: Especially hurtful given his service in the Falklands war

He remains a royal advisor, theoretically able to substitute for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but neither of these will truly come to pass.

What Lies Ahead

Will people he encounters still show respect to him? Will they still slip up and call him Prince? Might they say Mr,

Of course, he is not moving to a common area, but to the sovereign's vast grounds at Sandringham.

At that location, he will be supplied by the monarch with one of the grace and favour houses and given some sort of financial support.

It is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a minimal rent for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit distant, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Pending Matters

This is not over. There are still documents in the hands of American legislators to be revealed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will parliament request additional information
• Financial Investigation: Or examine the waste of state resources
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a criminal probe into his behavior

Perhaps for the present the harm to the monarchy to the monarchy is contained. The narrative from the institution was plainly that the removal of titles was what the king, and notably other senior monarchical figures, sought.

Changed Stance

No more illusion that Andrew was acting willingly. And, notably, the brief announcement showed clearly that the monarchy were supporting the accuser's account of occurrences.

Even more, for the premiere occasion they ultimately showed consideration for the survivors: "These actions are deemed necessary, regardless of the reality that he continues to deny the claims against him."

Ultimately it is entitlement, self-interest and laziness that will destroy the institution. In his folly, self-indulgence and greed, Andrew seems never to have learned that reality.