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The saga started with a single photograph, perhaps the most impactful ever snapped of a royal family member.

In the frame appeared the Duke of York, standing closely beside a teenage girl, while another individual grinned suggestively in the rear.

Without that photograph, taken at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the allegations of a adolescent who said she was trafficked across the Atlantic and compelled to have brief relations with a prince of the royal family?

A curious, telling action by someone who had openly stated to have not been aware of her, asserted he could not have had sex with her, and yet handed over a large amount of monarchical money to settle a long-delayed legal case.

A Long Period of Scandal

Against this backdrop, talk of the royal family acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This affair has continued for the better part of 15 years since that photograph, and another image of Andrew walking amiably with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Self-importance: How long did his family members, maybe even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Problematic Connections: They must have understood, if his staff and the police were doing their jobs, that he had some highly questionable associates given he publicly invited them to royal residences.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the household did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with public money.

Journeys were documented in royal annual reports: private aircraft transfers from the estate to a golf course and back again in time for lunch, exclusive air travel instead of scheduled services, all for the comfort of "the travel enthusiast".

World of Deference

Additionally the entitlement which expected subservience when he appeared in a room or the supreme awareness about his honorifics used on his official documents in communication to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his parent, who strangely indulged him, was still living. The sovereign did at least revoke him of public duties and ceremonial ranks in the aftermath of his disastrous and, it is now clear, untruthful television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last two weeks that events accelerated, following the publication of books giving more grim particulars of his actions and that of his connections.

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

People (and the media) were far ahead of the royals. There was no one of any significance to defend him, a result of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

The wiser monarchical figures realized that. The one imperative is to hand down the institution, if not as before at least complete and unstained.

Over time the last 190 years trying to undo the image of earlier rulers, showing they are useful, responsible and attentive to their subjects.

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

The Fallout

Ultimately, the notoriously uncertain king was pushed more. There was no other option. The palace had surrendered command of the story.

Currently the stripping of titles and the ongoing and life-long social disgrace that will afflict Andrew most severely.

• Downgrading: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Historical Precedent: The primary monarch to forfeit his honorifics in recent history
• Military Service: Notably stinging given his service in the engagement

He is still a counsellor of state, on paper able to act for the sovereign, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but not any of these will actually come to pass.

Coming Developments

Do individuals he meets still acknowledge him? Might they still slip up and call him Sir? Will they even say Andrew,

Naturally, he is not withdrawing to a common area, but to the royal family's extensive grounds at a royal residence.

At that location, he will be supplied by the sovereign with one of the estate properties and given some form of private allowance.

It is not his former home, where he paid a minimal rent for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit far, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Outstanding Concerns

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

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will parliament seek further action
• Financial Investigation: Or scrutinize the waste of public money
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a criminal probe into his conduct

Possibly for the moment the harm to the monarchy to the monarchy is contained. The statement from the royal household was plainly that the removal of honorifics was what the king, and particularly other senior royals, wanted.

Altered Approach

An end to deception that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, significantly, the brief announcement showed plainly that the monarchy were siding with the accuser's narrative of incidents.

Even more, for the premiere occasion they finally showed consideration for the affected individuals: "The measures are judged required, regardless of the fact that he persists in refuting the accusations against him."

Ultimately it is arrogance, selfishness and indolence that will kill the crown. In his folly, personal excess and venality, Andrew seems never to have learned that lesson.