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It all began with a isolated photograph, perhaps the most impactful ever captured of a royal family member.

In the frame appeared the Earl of Inverness, arm-in-arm a female youth, while another individual smiled suggestively in the rear.

Without that photograph, shot at a party in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a young woman who stated she was moved across the Atlantic and forced to have perfunctory intimate contact with a prince of the royal family?

A strange, telling move by someone who had publicly asserted to have no been aware of her, claimed he could no have had sex with her, and yet handed over millions of his mother's funds to resolve a protracted lawsuit.

A Long Period of Scandal

Considering this, conversations of the royals acting firmly to cut Andrew off are inaccurate. This affair has persisted for the majority of 15 years since that photograph, and a further photo of Andrew walking pleasantly with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Self-importance: How long did his siblings, possibly even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Problematic Connections: They must have understood, if his staff and the police were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable associates given he unabashedly hosted them to palaces.
• Monetary Excess: If the monarchy did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his overspending with public money.

Travel were documented in public records: chopper travel from the royal residence to a golf course and back again in time for dining, exclusive air travel instead of scheduled services, all for the benefit of "the frequent flyer".

Existence of Entitlement

Additionally the arrogance which required respect when he entered a room or the profound obsession about his honorifics used on his official documents in messages to his associates.

He could get away with it while his parent, who strangely indulged him, was still living. The sovereign did at least remove him of official roles and ceremonial ranks in the aftermath of his catastrophic and, we now know, mendacious public statement six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last fortnight that events progressed rapidly, following the publication of books giving more disturbing information of his conduct and that of his associates.

Additional revelations have again highlighted Andrew's assumption that he could avoid being untruthful about his relationship with a notorious figure.

People (and the journalists) were far in advance of the royal family. There was not a single person of any consequence to speak up for him, a result of all those years of presumption.

Monarchical Concerns

The more astute royals understood that. The one imperative is to pass on the crown, if not as previously at least whole and unblemished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to reverse the legacy of past sovereigns, proving they are valuable, dutiful and responsive to their citizens.

Andrew was putting all that in jeopardy in an era when submission and privacy is no longer enough.

The Fallout

Eventually, the famously uncertain king was pressured more. There was no alternative. The palace had surrendered command of the account.

Presently the stripping of honorifics and the persistent and life-long public humiliation that will afflict Andrew most severely.

• Reduction: Demoted to just a commoner
• Historical Precedent: The first royal to lose his designations in recent history
• Armed Forces: Especially hurtful given his role in the Falklands war

He remains a constitutional officer, on paper able to act for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but not any of these will truly occur.

Future Prospects

Can persons he meets still defer to him? Will they still forget themselves and call him Sir? Might they say Sir,

Naturally, he is not withdrawing to a common area, but to the sovereign's large property at a monarchical property.

In that place, he will be supplied by the sovereign with one of the grace and favour houses and given some sort of private allowance.

This is not his previous residence, where he paid a minimal rent for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit remote, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Pending Matters

Matters remain unresolved. There are still files in the hands of American legislators to be made public.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will parliament demand more
• Monetary Probe: Or investigate the waste of taxpayer funds
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a police investigation into his conduct

Perhaps for the present the reputational impact to the crown is restricted. The message from the institution was clearly that the revocation of designations was what the king, and notably other senior monarchical figures, sought.

Altered Approach

The cessation of pretence that Andrew was acting willingly. And, significantly, the concise announcement showed evidently that the monarchy were siding with the accuser's account of incidents.

Furthermore, for the initial instance they ultimately showed consideration for the survivors: "The measures are considered essential, regardless of the truth that he maintains his innocence of the accusations against him."

Finally it is arrogance, selfishness and indolence that will kill the crown. In his folly, personal excess and corruption, Andrew gives the impression never to have understood that truth.