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

In the frame appeared the Baron Killyleagh, standing closely beside a teenage girl, while an associate beamed conspiratorially in the background.

Lacking that photograph, taken at a party in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a young woman who declared she was trafficked across the ocean and forced to have brief relations with a prince of the royal family?

An odd, revealing action by someone who had publicly claimed to have no heard of her, said he could never have had sex with her, and yet paid a large amount of his mother's resources to avert a long-delayed court action.

Over a Decade of Controversy

Against this backdrop, talk of the royal family acting firmly to cut Andrew off are inaccurate. This scandal has endured for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and another snapshot of Andrew walking amiably with a convicted sex offender came to light.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his siblings, perhaps even his relatives, realize that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his employees and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some deeply disreputable companions given he publicly invited them to palaces.
• Monetary Excess: If the household did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with taxpayer funds.

Trips were documented in royal annual reports: helicopter flights from the estate to a country club and back again in time for dining, private flights instead of commercial flights, all for the comfort of "the frequent flyer".

World of Deference

Then there was the arrogance which demanded deference when he appeared in a room or the profound consciousness about his designations used on his correspondence in letters to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his mother, who inexplicably pampered him, was still surviving. The monarch did at least remove him of public duties and ceremonial ranks in the consequence of his disastrous and, we now know, mendacious media appearance six years ago.

Recent Developments

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

Additional revelations have again exposed Andrew's assumption that he could get away with deceiving about his interaction with a disgraced individual.

The public (and the press) were far in advance of the royals. There was not a single person of any consequence to defend him, a result of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

The wiser monarchical figures understood that. The one imperative is to transfer the crown, if not as before at least whole and unstained.

For generations the last 190 years trying to undo the reputation of previous monarchs, proving they are valuable, dutiful and responsive to their subjects.

His actions endangered all that in danger in an age when deference and privacy is no longer enough.

Aftermath

Finally, the famously hesitant monarch was prodded more. There was little choice. The institution had surrendered command of the account.

Currently the stripping of designations and the persistent and lifetime public humiliation that will pain Andrew most deeply.

• Reduction: Demoted to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The primary monarch to forfeit his honorifics in contemporary era
• Armed Forces: Notably hurtful given his role in the engagement

He remains a royal advisor, in principle able to stand in for the monarch, and he is still eighth in line to the throne, but none of these will ever come to pass.

What Lies Ahead

Can persons he comes across still show respect to him? Could they still forget themselves and call him Sir? Might they say Mr,

Naturally, he is not moving to an ordinary town, but to the sovereign's large estate at a monarchical property.

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

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

Outstanding Concerns

The situation continues. There are still records in the hands of US Congress to be revealed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Could legislators request additional information
• Financial Investigation: Or examine the improper use of public money
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a criminal probe into his conduct

Maybe for the moment the harm to the monarchy to the institution is limited. The message from the institution was plainly that the revocation of designations was what the king, and notably other senior monarchical figures, desired.

Changed Stance

No more illusion that Andrew was acting willingly. And, significantly, the concise statement showed evidently that the institution were aligning with the complainant's version of occurrences.

Additionally, for the initial instance they ultimately showed regard for the affected individuals: "The measures are considered essential, despite the reality that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

Ultimately it is presumption, selfishness and laziness that will destroy the monarchy. In his foolishness, self-indulgence and venality, Andrew seems never to have grasped that lesson.