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This episode commenced with a solitary photograph, possibly the most impactful ever snapped of a royal family member.

In the frame appeared the Duke of York, standing closely beside a young woman, while a companion grinned knowingly in the background.

Absent that snapshot, taken at a gathering in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the assertions of a young woman who stated she was trafficked across the Atlantic and forced to have brief sexual encounters with a prince of the royal bloodline?

A curious, revealing gesture by someone who had publicly claimed to have never known about her, said he could not have had relations with her, and yet handed over a substantial sum of family resources to resolve a drawn-out court action.

Years of Controversy

In this context, talk of the royal family acting firmly to sever ties with Andrew are misguided. This affair has persisted for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and an additional photo of Andrew ambling pleasantly with a convicted sex offender came to light.

• Hubris: For what duration did his family members, maybe even his mother and father, realize that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have understood, if his staff and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory companions given he unabashedly hosted them to royal residences.
• Financial Extravagance: If the household did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with public money.

Travel were printed in royal annual reports: helicopter travel from the estate to a golf course and back again in time for dining, private flights instead of regular transport, all for the convenience of "the travel enthusiast".

A Life of Privilege

Furthermore the entitlement which required subservience when he appeared in a room or the supreme awareness about his designations used on his correspondence in letters to his friends.

He could get away with it while his parent, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still surviving. The Queen did at least remove him of official roles and ceremonial ranks in the aftermath of his catastrophic and, it is now clear, untruthful television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

Just in the last two weeks that events accelerated, following the release of books giving more disturbing details of his conduct and that of his connections.

Further disclosures have again exposed Andrew's assumption that he could escape being untruthful about his relationship with a convicted criminal.

People (and the media) were far in advance of the royal family. There was nobody of any importance to support him, a outcome of all those years of arrogance.

Monarchical Concerns

The wiser royals realized that. The primary concern is to pass on the crown, if not as heretofore at least intact and unblemished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to overcome the image of past sovereigns, proving they are valuable, accountable and attentive to their people.

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

Aftermath

Finally, the well-known indecisive king was pressured more. There was no alternative. The institution had lost control of the story.

Now it is the loss of designations and the ongoing and lifetime personal shame that will afflict Andrew most severely.

• Downgrading: Demoted to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The initial member to forfeit his designations in recent history
• Armed Forces: Particularly painful given his service in the engagement

He continues to be a royal advisor, on paper able to act for the monarch, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but not any of these will actually come to pass.

What Lies Ahead

Can persons he meets still show respect to him? Might they still make mistakes and call him Sir? Would they say Andrew,

Certainly, he is not retiring to a common area, but to the sovereign's large grounds at a monarchical property.

At that location, he will be provided by the sovereign with one of the estate properties and given some sort of financial support.

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

Unresolved Issues

This is not over. There are still records in the hands of overseas authorities to be disclosed.

• Political Pressure: Could lawmakers demand more
• Monetary Probe: Or scrutinize the waste of state resources
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a criminal probe into his behavior

Perhaps for the present the institutional damage to the crown is limited. The message from the royal household was clearly that the removal of honorifics was what the monarch, and notably other senior family members, sought.

A Shift in Position

No more illusion that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, significantly, the concise statement showed evidently that the royals were supporting the victim's account of occurrences.

Additionally, for the first time they finally showed regard for the affected individuals: "The censures are considered essential, regardless of the reality that he continues to deny the claims against him."

Ultimately it is entitlement, self-interest and inactivity that will destroy the institution. In his stupidity, self-indulgence and venality, Andrew gives the impression never to have understood that lesson.