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The saga started with a solitary photograph, perhaps the most consequential ever snapped of a individual from the royal household.

There stood the Baron Killyleagh, with his arm around a young woman, while an associate grinned conspiratorially in the rear.

Without that image, taken at a party in 2001, who would have believed the allegations of a teenager who stated she was moved across the ocean and compelled to have cursory intimate contact with a individual of the monarchy?

A strange, revealing move by someone who had publicly claimed to have not known about her, said he could not have had relations with her, and yet provided a substantial sum of his mother's resources to resolve a long-delayed lawsuit.

A Long Period of Disgrace

Considering this, talk of the monarchy acting decisively to cut Andrew off are inaccurate. This scandal has continued for the majority of 15 years since that photograph, and a further photo of Andrew strolling amiably with a disgraced financier surfaced.

• Hubris: For what duration did his family members, maybe even his mother and father, realize that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Problematic Connections: They must have realized, if his employees and the authorities were fulfilling their roles, that he had some extremely unsavory associates given he openly hosted them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the household did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with taxpayer funds.

Travel were listed in public records: helicopter travel from the palace to a sporting venue and back again in time for midday meal, chartered planes instead of commercial flights, all for the benefit of "the travel enthusiast".

World of Deference

Furthermore the presumption which expected respect when he walked into a area or the profound consciousness about his designations used on his official documents in communication to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who strangely indulged him, was still surviving. The monarch did at least revoke him of public duties and ceremonial ranks in the aftermath of his ill-fated and, as revealed, deceptive television interview six years ago.

Current Situation

Merely in the last fortnight that events progressed rapidly, following the release of books giving more disturbing information of his behavior and that of his connections.

More information have again exposed Andrew's thinking that he could escape deceiving about his relationship with a convicted criminal.

People (and the media) were far more perceptive of the royals. There was no one of any significance to speak up for him, a result of all those years of arrogance.

Royal Worries

The more intelligent royals recognized that. The key objective is to transfer the monarchy, if not as previously at least complete and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the legacy of past sovereigns, showing they are valuable, responsible and attentive to their people.

Andrew was putting all that in peril in an time when respect and privacy is no longer adequate.

Aftermath

Finally, the notoriously uncertain monarch was pushed additional. There was no other option. The palace had relinquished authority of the story.

Now it is the removal of designations and the persistent and lifetime social disgrace that will pain Andrew most deeply.

• Reduction: Demoted to just a commoner
• Historical Precedent: The initial member to forfeit his designations in recent history
• Military Service: Particularly stinging given his service in the engagement

He remains a constitutional officer, on paper able to substitute for the monarch, and he is still in the succession to the throne, but neither of these will actually come to pass.

What Lies Ahead

Will people he comes across still acknowledge him? Might they still make mistakes and call him Prince? Might they say Andrew,

Certainly, he is not withdrawing to a common area, but to the royal family's vast estate at a royal residence.

There, he will be provided by the king with one of the royal residences and given some form of private allowance.

It is not his previous residence, where he paid a token rent 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 possession of American legislators to be revealed.

• Political Pressure: Will parliament seek further action
• Monetary Probe: Or examine the misuse of public money
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a police investigation into his actions

Possibly for the moment the harm to the monarchy to the crown is contained. The message from the institution was clearly that the removal of honorifics was what the sovereign, and especially other senior family members, desired.

Altered Approach

No more deception that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, remarkably, the short statement showed clearly that the royals were siding with the complainant's narrative of occurrences.

Even more, for the premiere occasion they eventually showed consideration for the affected individuals: "The censures are judged required, regardless of the reality that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

Finally it is arrogance, selfishness and indolence that will undermine the monarchy. In his stupidity, self-gratification and venality, Andrew seems never to have grasped that truth.