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It all began with a isolated photograph, perhaps the most impactful ever captured of a individual from the royal household.

There stood the Baron Killyleagh, arm-in-arm a teenage girl, while a companion grinned suggestively in the backdrop.

Without that snapshot, captured at a gathering in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the allegations of a teenager who stated she was moved across the sea and compelled to have perfunctory intimate contact with a individual of the royal bloodline?

A curious, telling action by someone who had openly claimed to have not been aware of her, said he could never have had sex with her, and yet provided a large amount of monarchical resources to resolve a protracted court action.

Over a Decade of Disgrace

Considering this, talk of the royals acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This scandal has endured for the better part of 15 years since that photograph, and an additional photo of Andrew ambling pleasantly with a notorious individual surfaced.

• Hubris: How long did his brothers and sisters, maybe even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Problematic Connections: They must have known, if his employees and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable companions given he unabashedly invited them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the monarchy did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his overspending with taxpayer funds.

Journeys were listed in public records: private aircraft transfers from the estate to a golf course and back again in time for lunch, chartered planes instead of commercial flights, all for the comfort of "Airmiles Andy".

World of Deference

Additionally the arrogance which demanded subservience when he entered a area or the supreme awareness about his royal titles used on his correspondence in letters to his personal acquaintances.

He avoided accountability while his mother, who strangely pampered him, was still living. The sovereign did at least revoke him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the consequence of his catastrophic and, as revealed, untruthful television interview six years ago.

Current Situation

It was only in the last two weeks that events progressed rapidly, following the issuance of books giving more troubling information of his actions and that of his companions.

More information have again exposed Andrew's belief that he could escape lying about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

Society (and the media) were far ahead of the royals. There was no one of any significance to speak up for him, a result of all those years of presumption.

Monarchical Concerns

The wiser royals understood that. The primary concern is to transfer the institution, if not as previously at least whole and unstained.

Over time the last 190 years trying to overcome the reputation of earlier rulers, showing they are beneficial, accountable and responsive to their citizens.

Andrew was putting all that in jeopardy in an era when deference and secrecy is no longer enough.

The Fallout

Finally, the notoriously hesitant monarch was pushed additional. There was no alternative. The royal household had relinquished authority of the account.

Currently the loss of honorifics and the ongoing and permanent personal shame that will pain Andrew most deeply.

• Reduction: Lowered to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The first member to lose his titles in modern times
• Naval Career: Notably stinging given his duty in the engagement

He is still a constitutional officer, on paper able to stand in for the monarch, and he is still eighth in line to the crown, but not any of these will actually come to pass.

Future Prospects

Can persons he comes across still show respect to him? Could they still slip up and call him Sir? Might they say Andrew,

Of course, he is not moving to a common area, but to the monarchy's extensive property at Sandringham.

There, he will be provided by the sovereign with one of the royal residences and given some form of financial support.

It is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a minimal lease for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit far, but even so it may not be far enough.

Pending Matters

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

• Parliamentary Interest: Will legislators seek further action
• Monetary Probe: Or examine the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his conduct

Maybe for the present the harm to the monarchy to the crown is contained. The message from the royal household was plainly that the removal of honorifics was what the sovereign, and especially other senior family members, sought.

Altered Approach

No more illusion that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, remarkably, the brief announcement showed evidently that the monarchy were siding with the complainant's narrative of incidents.

Additionally, for the premiere occasion they finally showed regard for the survivors: "The censures are judged required, regardless of the truth that he continues to deny the claims against him."

In the end it is entitlement, self-seeking and laziness that will kill the crown. In his folly, personal excess and greed, Andrew seems never to have learned that lesson.