🔗 Share this article

The saga started with a isolated photograph, perhaps the most consequential ever taken of a individual from the royal household.

There stood the Baron Killyleagh, arm-in-arm a teenage girl, while a companion beamed suggestively in the backdrop.

Lacking that photograph, captured at a gathering in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a young woman who stated she was transported across the Atlantic and forced to have perfunctory sexual encounters with a prince of the royal bloodline?

A curious, revealing action by someone who had publicly asserted to have no been aware of her, claimed he could not have had sex with her, and yet handed over a large amount of family money to settle a drawn-out lawsuit.

Years of Controversy

Against this backdrop, talk of the royals acting decisively to distance themselves from Andrew are misguided. This affair has persisted for the better part of 15 years since that photograph, and an additional snapshot of Andrew strolling congenially with a notorious individual came to light.

• Self-importance: To what extent did his brothers and sisters, perhaps even his parents, understand that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have understood, if his aides and the police were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable companions given he openly invited them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the family did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with state resources.

Journeys were documented in royal annual reports: chopper transfers from the palace to a country club and back again in time for dining, private flights instead of commercial flights, all for the convenience of "Airmiles Andy".

Existence of Entitlement

Furthermore the entitlement which expected respect when he walked into a room or the extreme obsession about his honorifics used on his correspondence in communication to his associates.

He managed to escape consequences while his parent, who strangely pampered him, was still alive. The Queen did at least strip him of royal responsibilities and military positions in the aftermath of his ill-fated and, as revealed, mendacious public statement six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last 14 days that events sped up, following the issuance of accounts giving more disturbing details of his behavior and that of his connections.

More information have again highlighted Andrew's belief that he could get away with deceiving about his relationship with a convicted criminal.

Society (and the press) were far in advance of the monarchy. There was not a single person of any importance to defend him, a result of all those years of arrogance.

Monarchical Concerns

The more astute monarchical figures realized that. The primary concern is to pass on the monarchy, if not as previously at least whole and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the image of earlier rulers, demonstrating they are valuable, accountable and responsive to their people.

His actions endangered all that in peril in an time when respect and privacy is no longer sufficient.

The Fallout

Eventually, the notoriously hesitant king was pushed further. There was no alternative. The institution had surrendered command of the story.

Currently the loss of titles and the continued and life-long social disgrace that will hurt Andrew most deeply.

• Demotion: Lowered to just a commoner
• Prior Instance: The initial monarch to lose his titles in contemporary era
• Military Service: Particularly painful given his role in the engagement

He is still a royal advisor, on paper able to substitute for the sovereign, and he is still eighth in line to the monarchy, but not any of these will actually occur.

Coming Developments

Can persons he encounters still show respect to him? Could they still forget themselves and call him Your Highness? Would they say Andrew,

Certainly, he is not withdrawing to a common area, but to the royal family's extensive estate at Sandringham.

At that location, he will be provided by the king with one of the royal residences and given some sort of personal stipend.

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

Pending Matters

The situation continues. There are still records in the possession of American legislators to be disclosed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will legislators seek further action
• Monetary Probe: Or investigate the waste of state resources
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a police investigation into his behavior

Perhaps for the moment the reputational impact to the monarchy is restricted. The message from the institution was plainly that the stripping of titles was what the monarch, and especially other senior royals, wanted.

A Shift in Position

An end to illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, remarkably, the concise announcement showed plainly that the institution were siding with the victim's account of occurrences.

Furthermore, for the premiere occasion they eventually showed concern for the survivors: "These actions are considered essential, notwithstanding the reality that he maintains his innocence of the accusations against him."

Ultimately it is arrogance, selfishness and indolence that will destroy the institution. In his stupidity, self-indulgence and greed, Andrew appears never to have understood that truth.