🔗 Share this article

It all began with a solitary photograph, perhaps the most significant ever snapped of a individual from the royal household.

Present was the Duke of York, arm-in-arm a female youth, while an associate grinned suggestively in the rear.

Lacking that snapshot, shot at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the assertions of a teenager who said she was trafficked across the sea and forced to have perfunctory relations with a member of the royal family?

A curious, telling move by someone who had openly stated to have never known about her, claimed he could never have had intimate contact with her, and yet handed over a substantial sum of family resources to resolve a protracted lawsuit.

A Long Period of Scandal

Considering this, conversations of the monarchy acting decisively to distance themselves from Andrew are misguided. This affair has continued for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and another photo of Andrew strolling amiably with a notorious individual emerged.

• Arrogance: How long did his family members, perhaps even his mother and father, understand 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 highly questionable friends given he unabashedly welcomed them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the monarchy did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

Journeys were documented in official documents: private aircraft transfers from the royal residence to a country club and back again in time for midday meal, private flights instead of commercial flights, all for the convenience of "the frequent flyer".

A Life of Privilege

Additionally the arrogance which required subservience when he appeared in a space or the profound consciousness about his honorifics used on his correspondence in communication to his personal acquaintances.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still surviving. The sovereign did at least remove him of official roles and ceremonial ranks in the consequence of his disastrous and, we now know, mendacious public statement six years ago.

Recent Developments

It was only in the last 14 days that events sped up, following the publication of books giving more disturbing particulars of his actions and that of his connections.

Additional revelations have again exposed Andrew's belief that he could avoid lying about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

The public (and the journalists) were far more perceptive of the royals. There was nobody of any importance to support him, a outcome of all those years of hubris.

Monarchical Concerns

The more intelligent royals recognized that. The primary concern is to pass on the institution, if not as previously at least whole and untarnished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to overcome the reputation of previous monarchs, demonstrating they are beneficial, responsible and reactive to their subjects.

He was placing all that in jeopardy in an time when submission and privacy is no longer adequate.

Consequences

Eventually, the notoriously uncertain monarch was pressured more. There was no other option. The royal household had surrendered command of the story.

Currently the stripping of designations and the continued and permanent public humiliation that will afflict Andrew the most.

• Demotion: Lowered to just a commoner
• Historical Precedent: The initial monarch to lose his honorifics in modern times
• Military Service: Notably stinging given his duty in the engagement

He remains a royal advisor, on paper able to substitute for the king, and he is still in the succession to the monarchy, but neither of these will ever occur.

Coming Developments

Can persons he meets still defer to him? Could they still forget themselves and call him Prince? Might they say Andrew,

Of course, he is not retiring to suburbia, but to the monarchy's large estate at a monarchical property.

At that location, he will be supplied by the king with one of the royal residences and given some type of financial support.

This is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a nominal lease for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit far, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Pending Matters

Matters remain unresolved. There are still files in the custody of US Congress to be disclosed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will legislators demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or scrutinize the misuse of state resources
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a criminal probe into his conduct

Maybe for the present the institutional damage to the monarchy is limited. The narrative from the royal household was plainly that the revocation of honorifics was what the king, and particularly other senior royals, sought.

Changed Stance

An end to illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, notably, the concise statement showed plainly that the monarchy were aligning with the victim's account of incidents.

Furthermore, for the first time they finally showed concern for the victims: "The measures are judged required, regardless of the reality that he persists in refuting the claims against him."

In the end it is presumption, selfishness and indolence that will kill the institution. In his foolishness, self-gratification and venality, Andrew appears never to have understood that truth.