Stupidity and Regal Arrogance Damaged Andrew, and It Could Continue Yet

This episode commenced with a solitary photograph, possibly the most significant ever captured of a royal family member.

In the frame appeared the Duke of York, with his arm around a teenage girl, while a companion grinned knowingly in the backdrop.

Without that photograph, shot at a party in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a adolescent who declared she was trafficked across the Atlantic and forced to have perfunctory relations with a individual of the royal bloodline?

An odd, indicative gesture by someone who had overtly claimed to have never known about her, said he could not have had relations with her, and yet paid a large amount of monarchical resources to resolve a long-delayed court action.

Years of Controversy

In this context, talk of the royal family acting decisively to cut Andrew off are inaccurate. This affair has endured for the largest portion of 15 years since that picture, and another snapshot of Andrew strolling pleasantly with a convicted sex offender came to light.

• Arrogance: To what extent did his family members, possibly even his relatives, understand that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his employees and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory companions given he openly welcomed them to royal residences.
• Financial Extravagance: If the family did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

Trips were listed in official documents: private aircraft transfers from the royal residence to a sporting venue and back again in time for midday meal, private flights instead of scheduled services, all for the comfort of "the frequent flyer".

Existence of Entitlement

Furthermore the arrogance which expected subservience when he walked into a room or the profound awareness about his honorifics used on his letterheads in letters to his personal acquaintances.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who inexplicably spoiled him, was still surviving. The sovereign did at least strip him of public duties and ceremonial ranks in the wake of his disastrous and, as revealed, mendacious media appearance six years ago.

Current Situation

Merely in the last two weeks that events accelerated, following the release of biographical works giving more grim details of his conduct and that of his connections.

Additional revelations have again highlighted Andrew's belief that he could avoid being untruthful about his interaction with a disgraced individual.

Society (and the journalists) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was not a single person of any significance to defend him, a outcome of all those years of hubris.

Royal Worries

The more intelligent monarchical figures realized that. The one imperative is to transfer the monarchy, if not as previously at least whole and unblemished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to overcome the legacy of earlier rulers, showing they are beneficial, responsible and attentive to their subjects.

His actions endangered all that in jeopardy in an era when submission and discretion is no longer sufficient.

The Fallout

Eventually, the well-known hesitant king was prodded more. There was no other option. The institution had lost control of the story.

Now it is the stripping of honorifics and the persistent and life-long personal shame that will afflict Andrew the most.

• Demotion: Reduced to just a commoner
• Historical Precedent: The first member to lose his designations in recent history
• Armed Forces: Particularly painful given his service in the Falklands war

He remains a constitutional officer, theoretically able to act for the sovereign, and he is still eighth in line to the throne, but none of these will truly come to pass.

Coming Developments

Do individuals he encounters still acknowledge him? Might they still make mistakes and call him Your Highness? Will they even say Andrew,

Certainly, he is not withdrawing to an ordinary town, but to the sovereign's extensive grounds at Sandringham.

There, he will be provided by the sovereign with one of the estate properties and given some type of private allowance.

This is not his former home, where he paid a nominal payment for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit distant, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Unresolved Issues

This is not over. There are still records in the possession of US Congress to be made public.

• Political Pressure: Could lawmakers request additional information
• Fiscal Review: Or scrutinize the waste of state resources
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his behavior

Possibly for the time being the harm to the monarchy to the institution is limited. The narrative from the institution was plainly that the revocation of titles was what the monarch, and notably other senior family members, wanted.

Changed Stance

The cessation of illusion that Andrew was acting willingly. And, remarkably, the brief communication showed clearly that the institution were aligning with the accuser's account of events.

Even more, for the initial instance they eventually showed regard for the victims: "The measures are considered essential, notwithstanding the truth that he maintains his innocence of the claims against him."

Ultimately it is entitlement, self-interest and indolence that will destroy the crown. In his folly, personal excess and venality, Andrew gives the impression never to have grasped that truth.