🔗 Share this article

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

Present was the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a female youth, while another individual beamed knowingly in the rear.

Absent that photograph, taken at a gathering in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the allegations of a teenager who said she was transported across the Atlantic and forced to have brief intimate contact with a individual of the royal family?

An odd, revealing gesture by someone who had openly stated to have not heard of her, asserted he could not have had relations with her, and yet provided a large amount of family funds to resolve a long-delayed legal case.

A Long Period of Scandal

Against this backdrop, discussions of the royals acting firmly to distance themselves from Andrew are misguided. This scandal has endured for the largest portion of 15 years since that picture, and a further image of Andrew strolling amiably with a notorious individual came to light.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his brothers and sisters, perhaps even his parents, understand that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Problematic Connections: They must have realized, if his staff and the law enforcement were fulfilling their roles, that he had some extremely unsavory friends given he openly hosted them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the monarchy did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with public money.

Trips were listed in public records: private aircraft transfers from the palace to a sporting venue and back again in time for lunch, private flights instead of regular transport, all for the benefit of "the travel enthusiast".

A Life of Privilege

Additionally the entitlement which demanded subservience when he walked into a room or the supreme consciousness about his designations used on his official documents in communication to his personal acquaintances.

He avoided accountability while his mother, who inexplicably spoiled him, was still living. The Queen did at least remove him of official roles and ceremonial ranks in the aftermath of his ill-fated and, as revealed, mendacious public statement six years ago.

Recent Developments

Merely in the last two weeks that events sped up, following the release of accounts giving more disturbing particulars of his behavior and that of his associates.

Further disclosures have again exposed Andrew's thinking that he could escape lying about his interaction with a convicted criminal.

The public (and the media) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was nobody of any importance to support him, a outcome of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent royals realized that. The one imperative is to pass on the monarchy, if not as before at least complete and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the reputation of earlier rulers, showing they are beneficial, responsible and attentive to their subjects.

He was placing all that in jeopardy in an era when deference and discretion is no longer sufficient.

Aftermath

Finally, the well-known hesitant king was pressured additional. There was no alternative. The royal household had relinquished authority of the narrative.

Presently the loss of designations and the continued and lifetime personal shame that will afflict Andrew most severely.

• Downgrading: Demoted to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Prior Instance: The initial member to forfeit his titles in modern times
• Naval Career: Especially stinging given his service in the conflict

He is still a constitutional officer, theoretically able to act for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the monarchy, but not any of these will actually occur.

Coming Developments

Do individuals he meets still acknowledge him? Could they still forget themselves and call him Sir? Will they even say Andrew,

Naturally, he is not retiring to an ordinary town, but to the monarchy's extensive estate at Sandringham.

There, he will be provided by the monarch with one of the grace and favour houses and given some form of private allowance.

This is not his previous residence, where he paid a minimal payment for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit distant, but even so it may not be far enough.

Pending Matters

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

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will legislators demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or investigate the waste of public money
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his behavior

Perhaps for the moment the institutional damage to the institution is limited. The statement from the institution was plainly that the removal of honorifics was what the monarch, and particularly other senior monarchical figures, wanted.

Altered Approach

The cessation of deception that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, remarkably, the brief communication showed evidently that the royals were aligning with the victim's account of occurrences.

Additionally, for the initial instance they ultimately showed regard for the affected individuals: "The censures are deemed necessary, despite the truth that he persists in refuting the accusations against him."

In the end it is presumption, selfishness and indolence that will undermine the monarchy. In his stupidity, self-indulgence and venality, Andrew seems never to have understood that truth.