🔗 Share this article

It all began with a isolated photograph, possibly the most consequential ever captured of a royal family member.

Present was the Baron Killyleagh, with his arm around a teenage girl, while an associate smiled conspiratorially in the backdrop.

Lacking that photograph, captured at a party in 2001, few would have credited the assertions of a adolescent who said she was moved across the ocean and obliged to have brief intimate contact with a prince of the royal bloodline?

A curious, indicative action by someone who had publicly stated to have no been aware of her, said he could never have had relations with her, and yet provided a large amount of his mother's funds to resolve a long-delayed court action.

Over a Decade of Controversy

Against this backdrop, discussions of the royals acting firmly to sever ties with Andrew are wide of the mark. This affair has continued for the majority of 15 years since that image, and another snapshot of Andrew ambling pleasantly with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Arrogance: How long did his family members, maybe even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Questionable Associations: They must have understood, if his staff and the law enforcement were fulfilling their roles, that he had some deeply disreputable friends given he unabashedly invited them to palaces.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the monarchy did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

Trips were printed in public records: private aircraft transfers from the estate to a golf course and back again in time for midday meal, chartered planes instead of regular transport, all for the convenience of "the frequent flyer".

Existence of Entitlement

Furthermore the entitlement which required subservience when he walked into a area or the supreme consciousness about his honorifics used on his letterheads in messages to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who strangely spoiled him, was still alive. The sovereign did at least strip him of public duties and military positions in the consequence of his catastrophic and, as revealed, mendacious media appearance six years ago.

Current Situation

Just in the last two weeks that events progressed rapidly, following the publication of books giving more grim information of his conduct and that of his connections.

Additional revelations have again revealed Andrew's belief that he could escape being untruthful about his contact with a disgraced individual.

Society (and the press) were far more perceptive of the monarchy. There was nobody of any consequence to defend him, a consequence of all those years of arrogance.

Monarchical Concerns

The more astute royals recognized that. The key objective is to transfer the institution, if not as heretofore at least whole and untarnished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the reputation of earlier rulers, proving they are beneficial, dutiful and responsive to their subjects.

Andrew was putting all that in peril in an age when deference and discretion is no longer sufficient.

The Fallout

Eventually, the well-known uncertain monarch was prodded more. There was no alternative. The royal household had surrendered command of the story.

Presently the stripping of honorifics and the continued and permanent social disgrace that will hurt Andrew the most.

• Reduction: Reduced to just a commoner
• Prior Instance: The first member to lose his designations in contemporary era
• Military Service: Especially stinging given his role in the engagement

He continues to be a constitutional officer, on paper able to substitute for the monarch, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but none of these will truly come to pass.

Future Prospects

Will people he encounters still acknowledge him? Might they still forget themselves and call him Prince? Would they say Sir,

Naturally, he is not withdrawing to suburbia, but to the royal family's extensive property at Sandringham.

At that location, he will be furnished by the king with one of the royal residences and given some form of personal stipend.

This differs from his prior accommodation, where he paid a nominal payment for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit far, but even so it may not be far enough.

Outstanding Concerns

The situation continues. There are still files in the custody of American legislators to be revealed.

• Political Pressure: Will parliament request additional information
• Monetary Probe: Or scrutinize the improper use of taxpayer funds
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his conduct

Perhaps for the present the harm to the monarchy to the monarchy is contained. The statement from the institution was evidently that the removal of honorifics was what the monarch, and particularly other senior royals, sought.

A Shift in Position

No more illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, notably, the short communication showed evidently that the monarchy were aligning with the victim's account of events.

Furthermore, for the first time they ultimately showed consideration for the victims: "These actions are deemed necessary, despite the truth that he persists in refuting the claims against him."

Ultimately it is arrogance, selfishness and indolence that will undermine the monarchy. In his folly, self-gratification and venality, Andrew appears never to have learned that lesson.