🔗 Share this article

The saga started with a solitary photograph, arguably the most significant ever captured of a individual from the royal household.

In the frame appeared the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a female youth, while a companion beamed conspiratorially in the background.

Without that snapshot, captured at a party in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a adolescent who declared she was transported across the ocean and compelled to have brief intimate contact with a individual of the royal bloodline?

A curious, telling action by someone who had openly stated to have not heard of her, asserted he could not have had relations with her, and yet handed over a substantial sum of monarchical resources to resolve a protracted lawsuit.

Years of Disgrace

Considering this, conversations of the monarchy acting swiftly to sever ties with Andrew are wide of the mark. This controversy has endured for the largest portion of 15 years since that photograph, and a further photo of Andrew walking pleasantly with a convicted sex offender surfaced.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his brothers and sisters, perhaps even his relatives, know that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Questionable Associations: They must have realized, if his employees and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable friends given he unabashedly invited them to royal residences.
• Monetary Excess: If the household did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his extravagance with state resources.

Travel were printed in royal annual reports: chopper transfers from the palace to a sporting venue and back again in time for lunch, chartered planes instead of scheduled services, all for the convenience of "the travel enthusiast".

World of Deference

Then there was the entitlement which expected respect when he entered a space or the profound consciousness about his royal titles used on his correspondence in communication to his personal acquaintances.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still alive. The Queen did at least remove him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the consequence of his ill-fated and, it is now clear, mendacious public statement six years ago.

Current Situation

It was only in the last fortnight that events sped up, following the release of books giving more grim details of his actions and that of his companions.

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

The public (and the media) were far ahead of the royal family. There was not a single person of any importance to defend him, a outcome of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

The more astute family members understood that. The one imperative is to pass on the institution, if not as before at least intact and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the reputation of previous monarchs, demonstrating they are beneficial, accountable and reactive to their people.

He was placing all that in peril in an time when submission and secrecy is no longer adequate.

Aftermath

Eventually, the notoriously indecisive king was pushed further. There was little choice. The palace had lost control of the narrative.

Presently the loss of honorifics and the persistent and lifetime public humiliation that will afflict Andrew the most.

• Downgrading: Demoted to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Prior Instance: The primary monarch to surrender his designations in modern times
• Armed Forces: Especially painful given his duty in the engagement

He remains a constitutional officer, on paper able to stand in for the king, and he is still in the succession to the monarchy, but not any of these will truly happen.

What Lies Ahead

Do individuals he encounters still defer to him? Could they still forget themselves and call him Prince? Would they say Andrew,

Certainly, he is not retiring to suburbia, but to the sovereign's vast grounds at a royal residence.

At that location, he will be furnished by the king with one of the grace and favour houses and given some type of private allowance.

This differs from his prior accommodation, where he paid a minimal payment for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit far, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Unresolved Issues

This is not over. There are still documents in the hands of American legislators to be revealed.

• Political Pressure: Might parliament seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or investigate the improper use of public money
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a criminal probe into his conduct

Perhaps for the moment the institutional damage to the monarchy is contained. The message from the palace was clearly that the stripping of titles was what the monarch, and notably other senior family members, sought.

Altered Approach

The cessation of illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, remarkably, the concise communication showed clearly that the royals were supporting the victim's version of events.

Even more, for the first time they ultimately showed regard for the survivors: "The censures are judged required, regardless of the fact that he maintains his innocence of the accusations against him."

Finally it is arrogance, self-seeking and laziness that will destroy the monarchy. In his stupidity, self-gratification and corruption, Andrew gives the impression never to have grasped that truth.