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The saga started with a single photograph, possibly the most consequential ever snapped of a royal family member.

There stood the Baron Killyleagh, with his arm around a teenage girl, while an associate grinned conspiratorially in the rear.

Absent that photograph, captured at a party in 2001, who would have believed the allegations of a teenager who stated she was trafficked across the sea and obliged to have perfunctory sexual encounters with a individual of the monarchy?

A strange, indicative move by someone who had overtly claimed to have never been aware of her, asserted he could not have had relations with her, and yet paid millions of family resources to avert a drawn-out legal case.

Over a Decade of Scandal

Against this backdrop, discussions of the monarchy acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This affair has persisted for the largest portion of 15 years since that picture, and an additional snapshot of Andrew strolling amiably with a convicted sex offender surfaced.

• Self-importance: To what extent did his brothers and sisters, perhaps even his relatives, know that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have known, if his aides and the police were doing their jobs, that he had some highly questionable friends given he unabashedly hosted them to estates.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the family did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with state resources.

Trips were listed in public records: private aircraft flights from the palace to a golf course and back again in time for midday meal, exclusive air travel instead of scheduled services, all for the comfort of "Airmiles Andy".

A Life of Privilege

Then there was the entitlement which demanded deference when he appeared in a area or the supreme obsession about his designations used on his letterheads in messages to his associates.

He managed to escape consequences while his parent, who strangely indulged him, was still surviving. The monarch did at least remove him of royal responsibilities and military positions in the aftermath of his disastrous and, as revealed, deceptive television interview six years ago.

Recent Developments

Merely in the last two weeks that events sped up, following the issuance of biographical works giving more grim particulars of his conduct and that of his companions.

Further disclosures have again exposed Andrew's belief that he could escape being untruthful about his interaction with a notorious figure.

People (and the press) were far in advance of the royals. There was nobody of any consequence to speak up for him, a outcome of all those years of hubris.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent monarchical figures understood that. The key objective is to transfer the institution, if not as before at least complete and untarnished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to overcome the image of earlier rulers, demonstrating they are useful, dutiful and attentive to their citizens.

His actions endangered all that in danger in an era when deference and privacy is no longer adequate.

Aftermath

Ultimately, the notoriously indecisive monarch was pushed additional. There was no alternative. The palace had relinquished authority of the story.

Presently the removal of designations and the continued and permanent personal shame that will pain Andrew the most.

• Downgrading: Demoted to just a commoner
• Prior Instance: The initial royal to surrender his honorifics in contemporary era
• Armed Forces: Particularly hurtful given his service in the engagement

He remains a constitutional officer, theoretically able to substitute for the monarch, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but none of these will actually occur.

Future Prospects

Will people he meets still acknowledge him? Will they still slip up and call him Sir? Might they say Sir,

Certainly, he is not moving to an ordinary town, but to the sovereign's large estate at Sandringham.

In that place, he will be provided by the monarch with one of the royal residences and given some form of private allowance.

This differs from his former home, where he paid a nominal rent for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit remote, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Unresolved Issues

The situation continues. There are still documents in the hands of overseas authorities to be revealed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will legislators seek further action
• Financial Investigation: Or scrutinize the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a police investigation into his behavior

Possibly for the time being the harm to the monarchy to the monarchy is limited. The statement from the royal household was clearly that the revocation of honorifics was what the sovereign, and notably other senior royals, sought.

Changed Stance

An end to deception that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, notably, the short statement showed evidently that the institution were siding with the accuser's version of occurrences.

Even more, for the premiere occasion they eventually showed concern for the victims: "These actions are deemed necessary, despite the reality that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

Finally it is arrogance, self-interest and indolence that will kill the crown. In his stupidity, self-gratification and greed, Andrew gives the impression never to have understood that reality.