🔗 Share this article

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

In the frame appeared the Duke of York, with his arm around a young woman, while an associate smiled conspiratorially in the rear.

Absent that snapshot, shot at a gathering in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the allegations of a teenager who stated she was trafficked across the Atlantic and compelled to have brief sexual encounters with a member of the royal family?

A curious, indicative gesture by someone who had overtly claimed to have never been aware of her, asserted he could never have had sex with her, and yet paid a large amount of monarchical money to settle a protracted legal case.

Over a Decade of Scandal

In this context, discussions of the royals acting firmly to sever ties with Andrew are wide of the mark. This affair has persisted for the largest portion of 15 years since that picture, and an additional photo of Andrew walking amiably with a convicted sex offender emerged.

• Arrogance: For what duration did his family members, perhaps even his relatives, know that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Problematic Connections: They must have understood, if his staff and the authorities were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory associates given he publicly welcomed them to estates.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the household did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with state resources.

Trips were documented in public records: chopper transfers from the royal residence to a sporting venue and back again in time for midday meal, chartered planes instead of commercial flights, all for the convenience of "Airmiles Andy".

Existence of Entitlement

Additionally the presumption which expected respect when he entered a space or the profound obsession about his designations used on his correspondence in letters to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his matriarch, who strangely spoiled him, was still surviving. The Queen did at least remove him of official roles and military positions in the aftermath of his ill-fated and, it is now clear, deceptive public statement six years ago.

Latest Events

Just in the last 14 days that events progressed rapidly, following the issuance of books giving more disturbing details of his behavior and that of his connections.

More information have again highlighted Andrew's thinking that he could escape being untruthful about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

Society (and the journalists) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was no one of any significance to defend him, a result of all those years of arrogance.

Royal Worries

The more astute monarchical figures realized that. The one imperative is to transfer the monarchy, if not as previously at least intact and untarnished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the reputation of earlier rulers, showing they are valuable, dutiful and attentive to their citizens.

He was placing all that in danger in an era when submission and privacy is no longer sufficient.

The Fallout

Eventually, the well-known hesitant monarch was pressured further. There was no other option. The royal household had relinquished authority of the story.

Now it is the removal of titles and the persistent and lifetime social disgrace that will hurt Andrew most severely.

• Downgrading: Demoted to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Past Example: The primary monarch to lose his honorifics in modern times
• Armed Forces: Notably stinging given his role in the Falklands war

He continues to be a constitutional officer, in principle able to act for the monarch, and he is still in the succession to the crown, but neither of these will ever come to pass.

Future Prospects

Can persons he encounters still acknowledge him? Might they still make mistakes and call him Prince? Will they even say Mr,

Certainly, he is not withdrawing to suburbia, but to the royal family's extensive property at a royal residence.

There, he will be supplied by the monarch with one of the grace and favour houses and given some form of financial support.

This is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a minimal lease 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 custody of US Congress to be revealed.

• Political Pressure: Might lawmakers demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or scrutinize the misuse of public money
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his conduct

Perhaps for the time being the institutional damage to the crown is limited. The statement from the royal household was evidently that the removal of honorifics was what the king, and particularly other senior royals, wanted.

Altered Approach

No more pretence that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, significantly, the brief statement showed plainly that the institution were supporting the accuser's version of incidents.

Additionally, for the first time they ultimately showed regard for the victims: "The censures are deemed necessary, regardless of the truth that he maintains his innocence of the claims against him."

In the end it is presumption, selfishness and laziness that will kill the monarchy. In his stupidity, self-indulgence and corruption, Andrew appears never to have grasped that lesson.