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The saga started with a single photograph, possibly the most impactful ever taken of a member of the monarchy.

There stood the Duke of York, standing closely beside a female youth, while a companion smiled knowingly in the background.

Absent that image, captured at a gathering in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the assertions of a young woman who stated she was transported across the ocean and forced to have perfunctory intimate contact with a member of the royal family?

An odd, revealing move by someone who had openly claimed to have never heard of her, said he could never have had sex with her, and yet provided a substantial sum of his mother's resources to avert a protracted legal case.

A Long Period of Controversy

Considering this, talk of the monarchy acting firmly to cut Andrew off are misguided. This affair has persisted for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and an additional photo of Andrew ambling amiably with a convicted sex offender came to light.

• Self-importance: How long did his siblings, possibly even his mother and father, know that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Problematic Connections: They must have realized, if his aides and the law enforcement were doing their jobs, that he had some deeply disreputable friends given he unabashedly invited them to royal residences.
• Financial Extravagance: If the household did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his extravagance with taxpayer funds.

Trips were documented in public records: chopper flights from the palace to a golf course and back again in time for lunch, private flights instead of scheduled services, all for the convenience of "Airmiles Andy".

Existence of Entitlement

Additionally the entitlement which expected respect when he walked into a area or the profound obsession about his designations used on his letterheads in communication to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his matriarch, who inexplicably indulged him, was still living. The monarch did at least strip him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the consequence of his catastrophic and, it is now clear, deceptive media appearance six years ago.

Current Situation

Just in the last 14 days that events sped up, following the release of accounts giving more troubling details of his actions and that of his companions.

Additional revelations have again highlighted Andrew's belief that he could avoid lying about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

The public (and the press) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was not a single person of any importance to support him, a consequence of all those years of arrogance.

Institutional Fears

The wiser family members recognized that. The one imperative is to hand down the monarchy, if not as before at least complete and unblemished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to overcome the reputation of past sovereigns, showing they are useful, responsible and reactive to their citizens.

His actions endangered all that in peril in an era when submission and discretion is no longer adequate.

The Fallout

Ultimately, the famously uncertain sovereign was pressured more. There was no alternative. The royal household had surrendered command of the story.

Now it is the stripping of honorifics and the ongoing and permanent social disgrace that will afflict Andrew the most.

• Demotion: Lowered to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Prior Instance: The first royal to lose his titles in recent history
• Military Service: Notably hurtful given his service in the engagement

He is still a royal advisor, in principle able to stand in for the sovereign, and he is still in the succession to the crown, but neither of these will actually come to pass.

What Lies Ahead

Can persons he comes across still defer to him? Might they still make mistakes and call him Sir? Will they even say Andrew,

Certainly, he is not retiring to a common area, but to the royal family's large property at Sandringham.

In that place, he will be furnished by the monarch with one of the estate properties and given some type of financial support.

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

Outstanding Concerns

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

• Parliamentary Interest: Will lawmakers demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or investigate the waste of state resources
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his behavior

Perhaps for the time being the institutional damage to the crown is restricted. The message from the institution was clearly that the removal of titles was what the monarch, and particularly other senior family members, sought.

Altered Approach

No more deception that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, notably, the short communication showed clearly that the institution were supporting the victim's version of incidents.

Additionally, for the initial instance they finally showed regard for the survivors: "These actions are deemed necessary, regardless of the reality that he maintains his innocence of the claims against him."

Ultimately it is arrogance, self-seeking and laziness that will undermine the institution. In his folly, self-gratification and greed, Andrew seems never to have grasped that reality.