🔗 Share this article

This episode commenced with a single photograph, possibly the most consequential ever taken of a member of the monarchy.

Present was the Earl of Inverness, standing closely beside a teenage girl, while another individual grinned conspiratorially in the rear.

Without that image, shot at a social event in 2001, few would have credited the assertions of a young woman who declared she was trafficked across the ocean and forced to have cursory sexual encounters with a member of the monarchy?

A curious, telling gesture by someone who had openly claimed to have not known about her, claimed he could no have had intimate contact with her, and yet paid millions of family money to settle a protracted lawsuit.

Years of Scandal

Considering this, conversations of the royals acting decisively to cut Andrew off are misguided. This affair has persisted for the better part of 15 years since that photograph, and an additional image of Andrew strolling congenially with a convicted sex offender surfaced.

• Self-importance: To what extent did his brothers and sisters, maybe even his mother and father, realize that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have known, if his aides and the law enforcement were doing their jobs, that he had some extremely unsavory friends given he openly hosted them to estates.
• Financial Extravagance: If the family did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his extravagance with state resources.

Journeys were documented in official documents: chopper travel from the estate to a sporting venue and back again in time for lunch, private flights instead of regular transport, all for the benefit of "the frequent flyer".

A Life of Privilege

Additionally the presumption which expected deference when he walked into a space or the extreme consciousness about his honorifics used on his correspondence in messages to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his mother, who inexplicably indulged him, was still surviving. The Queen did at least strip him of official roles and ceremonial ranks in the wake of his catastrophic and, we now know, untruthful television interview six years ago.

Recent Developments

It was only in the last fortnight that events sped up, following the issuance of books giving more grim information of his conduct and that of his companions.

Additional revelations have again revealed Andrew's belief that he could avoid deceiving about his interaction with a convicted criminal.

The public (and the journalists) were far in advance of the royal family. There was no one of any importance to support him, a outcome of all those years of presumption.

Royal Worries

The more astute family members realized that. The key objective is to pass on the institution, if not as before at least complete and unstained.

Over time the last 190 years trying to reverse the legacy of earlier rulers, proving they are useful, dutiful and reactive to their people.

He was placing all that in peril in an era when respect and privacy is no longer sufficient.

Consequences

Finally, the notoriously uncertain sovereign was pressured additional. There was no other option. The palace had surrendered command of the narrative.

Presently the removal of honorifics and the continued and permanent personal shame that will afflict Andrew the most.

• Reduction: Demoted to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Historical Precedent: The first monarch to lose his honorifics in recent history
• Naval Career: Particularly hurtful given his duty in the Falklands war

He remains a royal advisor, theoretically able to act for the king, and he is still in the succession to the crown, but none of these will ever occur.

Future Prospects

Can persons he comes across still show respect to him? Might they still forget themselves and call him Your Highness? Would they say Mr,

Naturally, he is not moving to suburbia, but to the sovereign's extensive grounds at Sandringham.

At that location, he will be supplied by the monarch with one of the grace and favour houses and given some type of private allowance.

It is not his former home, where he paid a token lease for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit far, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Pending Matters

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

• Parliamentary Interest: Could parliament seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or examine the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a police investigation into his conduct

Maybe for the moment the institutional damage to the crown is limited. The statement from the institution was plainly that the removal of honorifics was what the king, and especially other senior royals, wanted.

Altered Approach

The cessation of illusion that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, significantly, the short statement showed clearly that the institution were supporting the complainant's account of incidents.

Additionally, for the premiere occasion they finally showed consideration for the affected individuals: "These actions are considered essential, regardless of the truth that he maintains his innocence of the accusations against him."

Finally it is entitlement, self-interest and inactivity that will kill the monarchy. In his stupidity, self-indulgence and venality, Andrew gives the impression never to have learned that reality.