🔗 Share this article

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

In the frame appeared the Earl of Inverness, standing closely beside a female youth, while an associate beamed conspiratorially in the background.

Absent that image, captured at a party in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the allegations of a adolescent who declared she was transported across the sea and compelled to have brief sexual encounters with a member of the monarchy?

An odd, indicative gesture by someone who had overtly asserted to have no heard of her, asserted he could not have had relations with her, and yet paid a substantial sum of his mother's resources to resolve a long-delayed legal case.

Years of Scandal

Against this backdrop, conversations of the royals acting firmly to cut Andrew off are inaccurate. This scandal has continued for the better part of 15 years since that image, and a further snapshot of Andrew walking amiably with a convicted sex offender emerged.

• Self-importance: How long did his brothers and sisters, maybe even his relatives, know that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have understood, if his aides and the law enforcement were doing their jobs, that he had some extremely unsavory companions given he publicly welcomed them to royal residences.
• Monetary Excess: If the family did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his overspending with state resources.

Trips were printed in official documents: helicopter travel from the palace to a golf course and back again in time for midday meal, exclusive air travel instead of scheduled services, all for the benefit of "Airmiles Andy".

World of Deference

Additionally the arrogance which expected subservience when he walked into a room or the supreme consciousness about his honorifics used on his letterheads in letters to his personal acquaintances.

He avoided accountability while his mother, who strangely pampered him, was still surviving. The sovereign did at least strip him of royal responsibilities and honorary colonelcies in the consequence of his disastrous and, it is now clear, deceptive public statement six years ago.

Current Situation

Just in the last fortnight that events accelerated, following the issuance of biographical works giving more grim information of his actions and that of his connections.

More information have again revealed Andrew's assumption that he could escape deceiving about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

The public (and the press) were far in advance of the monarchy. There was nobody of any consequence to speak up for him, a outcome of all those years of arrogance.

Royal Worries

The more intelligent monarchical figures realized that. The key objective is to pass on the crown, if not as heretofore at least intact and unblemished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the image of previous monarchs, proving they are valuable, accountable and responsive to their people.

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

The Fallout

Finally, the famously hesitant king was pressured more. There was no alternative. The institution had surrendered command of the account.

Presently the loss of designations and the persistent and permanent personal shame that will pain Andrew most severely.

• Demotion: Lowered to just a commoner
• Prior Instance: The first royal to lose his honorifics in contemporary era
• Naval Career: Especially hurtful given his duty in the Falklands war

He remains a royal advisor, in principle able to stand in for the sovereign, and he is still in the succession to the crown, but not any of these will ever occur.

What Lies Ahead

Will people he comes across still acknowledge him? Might they still forget themselves and call him Your Highness? Would they say Mr,

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

In that place, he will be furnished by the king with one of the grace and favour houses and given some sort of private allowance.

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

Pending Matters

This is not over. There are still files in the hands of US Congress to be made public.

• Parliamentary Interest: Might lawmakers request additional information
• Financial Investigation: Or scrutinize the improper use of taxpayer funds
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his conduct

Maybe for the present the institutional damage to the institution is restricted. The statement from the palace was plainly that the removal of designations was what the king, and notably other senior royals, sought.

Altered Approach

The cessation of pretence that Andrew was acting willingly. And, notably, the concise communication showed evidently that the royals were siding with the complainant's narrative of occurrences.

Additionally, for the initial instance they eventually showed consideration for the survivors: "The measures are deemed necessary, despite the fact that he maintains his innocence of the claims against him."

In the end it is entitlement, selfishness and inactivity that will undermine the crown. In his folly, self-indulgence and corruption, Andrew gives the impression never to have grasped that reality.