🔗 Share this article

It all began with a solitary photograph, possibly the most significant ever captured of a royal family member.

There stood the Duke of York, arm-in-arm a female youth, while a companion smiled suggestively in the backdrop.

Lacking that image, taken at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the assertions of a young woman who declared she was transported across the sea and compelled to have cursory intimate contact with a individual of the royal bloodline?

An odd, telling move by someone who had publicly asserted to have no been aware of her, asserted he could no have had relations with her, and yet handed over a large amount of monarchical funds to resolve a protracted lawsuit.

Over a Decade of Controversy

In this context, discussions of the royal family acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This scandal has endured for the largest portion of 15 years since that photograph, and an additional snapshot of Andrew strolling pleasantly with a notorious individual surfaced.

• Self-importance: How long did his brothers and sisters, possibly even his parents, realize that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Problematic Connections: They must have realized, if his aides and the law enforcement were fulfilling their roles, that he had some extremely unsavory companions given he unabashedly invited them to royal residences.
• Financial Extravagance: If the monarchy did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with public money.

Journeys were listed in public records: helicopter transfers from the royal residence to a golf course and back again in time for midday meal, exclusive air travel instead of regular transport, all for the convenience of "Airmiles Andy".

World of Deference

Additionally the presumption which required respect when he entered a room or the supreme awareness about his royal titles used on his letterheads in communication to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his mother, who unaccountably indulged him, was still surviving. The monarch did at least remove him of royal responsibilities and honorary colonelcies in the aftermath of his ill-fated and, as revealed, mendacious public statement six years ago.

Recent Developments

Just in the last 14 days that events progressed rapidly, following the issuance of biographical works giving more troubling details of his actions and that of his companions.

Further disclosures have again revealed Andrew's belief that he could get away with lying about his relationship with a notorious figure.

The public (and the press) were far in advance of the monarchy. There was no one of any consequence to support him, a outcome of all those years of presumption.

Royal Worries

The more astute monarchical figures understood that. The primary concern is to hand down the crown, if not as heretofore at least whole and untarnished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to reverse the legacy of earlier rulers, proving they are useful, responsible and attentive to their people.

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

The Fallout

Eventually, the well-known hesitant sovereign was prodded more. There was no alternative. The palace had lost control of the account.

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

• Reduction: Reduced to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Prior Instance: The primary member to surrender his honorifics in modern times
• Armed Forces: Particularly hurtful given his service in the Falklands war

He remains a constitutional officer, in principle able to act for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but not any of these will actually happen.

Coming Developments

Will people he encounters still show respect to him? Could they still make mistakes and call him Sir? Would they say Andrew,

Of course, he is not moving to suburbia, but to the royal family's extensive estate at a monarchical property.

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

It is not his previous residence, 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 sufficiently removed.

Unresolved Issues

This is not over. There are still files in the custody of US Congress to be revealed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Could lawmakers request additional information
• Financial Investigation: Or investigate the waste of public money
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a police investigation into his actions

Perhaps for the present the harm to the monarchy to the institution is limited. The statement from the royal household was clearly that the removal of designations was what the sovereign, and notably other senior royals, desired.

A Shift in Position

The cessation of illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, notably, the short communication showed clearly that the royals were supporting the complainant's narrative of incidents.

Furthermore, for the first time they eventually showed concern for the victims: "These actions are judged required, notwithstanding the truth that he continues to deny the claims against him."

Finally it is arrogance, self-interest and indolence that will destroy the institution. In his folly, personal excess and corruption, Andrew seems never to have understood that truth.