🔗 Share this article

The saga started with a single photograph, possibly the most impactful ever snapped of a member of the monarchy.

There stood the Earl of Inverness, arm-in-arm a teenage girl, while another individual smiled knowingly in the rear.

Lacking that image, taken at a party in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the assertions of a adolescent who declared she was trafficked across the ocean and compelled to have cursory intimate contact with a individual of the royal bloodline?

An odd, revealing gesture by someone who had overtly stated to have no been aware of her, said he could not have had relations with her, and yet paid a large amount of his mother's money to avert a protracted lawsuit.

Over a Decade of Scandal

Against this backdrop, conversations of the royals acting decisively to sever ties with Andrew are wide of the mark. This controversy has continued for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and a further image of Andrew ambling amiably with a notorious individual surfaced.

• Arrogance: To what extent did his family members, possibly even his relatives, know that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Questionable Associations: They must have realized, if his employees and the police were doing their jobs, that he had some deeply disreputable friends given he unabashedly welcomed them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the household did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his extravagance with taxpayer funds.

Travel were documented in royal annual reports: chopper travel from the palace to a golf course and back again in time for lunch, private flights instead of regular transport, all for the convenience of "the frequent flyer".

A Life of Privilege

Furthermore the entitlement which demanded respect when he entered a space or the supreme obsession about his honorifics used on his letterheads in letters to his associates.

He managed to escape consequences while his parent, who strangely pampered him, was still living. The sovereign did at least revoke him of royal responsibilities and honorary colonelcies in the consequence of his catastrophic and, as revealed, untruthful television interview six years ago.

Current Situation

Merely in the last fortnight that events accelerated, following the publication of accounts giving more troubling particulars of his behavior and that of his companions.

Additional revelations have again highlighted Andrew's belief that he could escape deceiving about his contact with a convicted criminal.

Society (and the journalists) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was not a single person of any consequence to speak up for him, a result of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent monarchical figures realized that. The key objective is to pass on the institution, if not as previously at least whole and unstained.

Over time the last 190 years trying to overcome the image of earlier rulers, demonstrating they are useful, dutiful and attentive to their citizens.

His actions endangered all that in danger in an age when respect and discretion is no longer enough.

The Fallout

Ultimately, the famously uncertain sovereign was pressured more. There was no alternative. The royal household had lost control of the narrative.

Currently the loss of designations and the ongoing and permanent personal shame that will hurt Andrew most severely.

• Demotion: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Historical Precedent: The first monarch to lose his honorifics in contemporary era
• Military Service: Notably painful given his duty in the Falklands war

He remains a constitutional officer, theoretically able to substitute for the sovereign, and he is still eighth in line to the throne, but none of these will actually occur.

Future Prospects

Can persons he comes across still defer to him? Might they still slip up and call him Your Highness? Would they say Mr,

Naturally, he is not retiring to an ordinary town, but to the royal family's vast property at a monarchical property.

At that location, he will be provided by the monarch with one of the estate properties and given some type of personal stipend.

This is not his previous residence, where he paid a minimal lease for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit far, but even so it may not be far enough.

Outstanding Concerns

Matters remain unresolved. There are still documents in the hands of US Congress to be made public.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Could legislators seek further action
• Monetary Probe: Or examine the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his behavior

Possibly for the time being the harm to the monarchy to the crown is limited. The narrative from the institution was plainly that the removal of honorifics was what the king, and notably other senior family members, sought.

A Shift in Position

No more illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, notably, the brief statement showed evidently that the monarchy were aligning with the complainant's version of occurrences.

Even more, for the initial instance they eventually showed consideration for the victims: "These actions are deemed necessary, despite the reality that he continues to deny the claims against him."

Finally it is presumption, selfishness and laziness that will destroy the monarchy. In his foolishness, self-indulgence and greed, Andrew seems never to have understood that truth.