🔗 Share this article

This episode commenced with a single photograph, perhaps the most impactful ever taken of a individual from the royal household.

In the frame appeared the Duke of York, standing closely beside a teenage girl, while an associate grinned knowingly in the backdrop.

Absent that snapshot, captured at a party in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a teenager who said she was trafficked across the Atlantic and forced to have perfunctory sexual encounters with a member of the royal family?

A curious, revealing gesture by someone who had publicly claimed to have no known about her, claimed he could not have had sex with her, and yet handed over a large amount of his mother's funds to settle a drawn-out court action.

Over a Decade of Scandal

In this context, talk of the royals acting firmly to cut Andrew off are wide of the mark. This controversy has persisted for the largest portion of 15 years since that photograph, and a further image of Andrew strolling congenially with a convicted sex offender emerged.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his brothers and sisters, possibly even his relatives, know that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have known, if his employees and the authorities were fulfilling their roles, that he had some extremely unsavory companions given he openly hosted them to palaces.
• Monetary Excess: If the family did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his overspending with public money.

Trips were documented in official documents: helicopter travel from the estate to a sporting venue and back again in time for dining, exclusive air travel instead of scheduled services, all for the convenience of "Airmiles Andy".

A Life of Privilege

Additionally the presumption which required respect when he appeared in a area or the extreme obsession about his royal titles used on his official documents in messages to his personal acquaintances.

He avoided accountability while his parent, who strangely spoiled him, was still living. The monarch did at least strip him of royal responsibilities and honorary colonelcies in the aftermath of his disastrous and, we now know, deceptive public statement six years ago.

Recent Developments

Just in the last two weeks that events accelerated, following the release of accounts giving more disturbing information of his behavior and that of his associates.

Further disclosures have again revealed Andrew's assumption that he could get away with lying about his interaction with a disgraced individual.

The public (and the journalists) were far in advance of the royal family. There was nobody of any importance to support him, a consequence of all those years of presumption.

Royal Worries

The wiser family members understood that. The key objective is to hand down the monarchy, if not as before at least complete and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the legacy of past sovereigns, showing they are beneficial, responsible and responsive to their citizens.

He was placing all that in jeopardy in an age when deference and discretion is no longer enough.

Consequences

Ultimately, the well-known indecisive king was prodded more. There was little choice. The royal household had relinquished authority of the account.

Presently the loss of honorifics and the persistent and life-long personal shame that will pain Andrew the most.

• Downgrading: Demoted to just a commoner
• Prior Instance: The initial member to lose his titles in modern times
• Armed Forces: Especially painful given his duty in the conflict

He is still a constitutional officer, on paper able to substitute for the sovereign, and he is still in the succession to the monarchy, but none of these will actually come to pass.

What Lies Ahead

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

Naturally, he is not withdrawing to suburbia, but to the sovereign's extensive grounds at a monarchical property.

There, he will be supplied by the sovereign with one of the estate properties and given some type of personal stipend.

This is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a minimal rent for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit remote, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Pending Matters

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

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will legislators request additional information
• Financial Investigation: Or investigate the improper use of taxpayer funds
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a police investigation into his behavior

Possibly for the present the institutional damage to the monarchy is contained. The message from the royal household was clearly that the stripping of titles was what the sovereign, and notably other senior royals, sought.

A Shift in Position

No more pretence that Andrew was acting willingly. And, notably, the concise announcement showed plainly that the institution were supporting the accuser's narrative of events.

Furthermore, for the first time they eventually showed concern for the victims: "The measures are judged required, regardless of the truth that he maintains his innocence of the claims against him."

Ultimately it is arrogance, self-seeking and indolence that will kill the monarchy. In his folly, self-gratification and corruption, Andrew seems never to have understood that lesson.