🔗 Share this article

This episode commenced with a solitary photograph, perhaps the most significant ever captured of a individual from the royal household.

Present was the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a female youth, while another individual beamed conspiratorially in the rear.

Absent that photograph, taken at a gathering in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a young woman who stated she was transported across the ocean and obliged to have perfunctory intimate contact with a individual of the monarchy?

A strange, indicative action by someone who had publicly stated to have never heard of her, asserted he could no have had sex with her, and yet handed over a large amount of his mother's funds to avert a drawn-out lawsuit.

Over a Decade of Scandal

Against this backdrop, talk of the monarchy acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This scandal has continued for the majority of 15 years since that image, and a further photo of Andrew strolling pleasantly with a notorious individual emerged.

• Self-importance: How long did his siblings, perhaps even his relatives, know that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Problematic Connections: They must have understood, if his staff and the authorities were doing their jobs, that he had some deeply disreputable associates given he openly invited them to estates.
• Financial Extravagance: If the household did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with taxpayer funds.

Trips were printed in official documents: helicopter travel from the estate to a sporting venue and back again in time for lunch, exclusive air travel instead of scheduled services, all for the benefit of "Airmiles Andy".

World of Deference

Additionally the entitlement which required deference when he walked into a area or the supreme awareness about his designations used on his correspondence in letters to his personal acquaintances.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who inexplicably pampered him, was still alive. The monarch did at least strip him of public duties and ceremonial ranks in the consequence of his catastrophic and, we now know, deceptive television interview six years ago.

Current Situation

Just in the last 14 days that events sped up, following the publication of books giving more grim details of his actions and that of his associates.

Further disclosures have again revealed Andrew's assumption that he could avoid lying about his interaction with a disgraced individual.

The public (and the press) were far ahead of the monarchy. There was not a single person of any consequence to speak up for him, a result of all those years of arrogance.

Royal Worries

The wiser family members understood that. The one imperative is to pass on the crown, if not as before at least whole and unblemished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the image of previous monarchs, proving they are beneficial, accountable and responsive to their citizens.

Andrew was putting all that in peril in an age when deference and discretion is no longer sufficient.

Aftermath

Finally, the well-known hesitant king was pressured additional. There was no other option. The royal household had surrendered command of the narrative.

Currently the loss of designations and the continued and life-long personal shame that will pain Andrew most severely.

• Downgrading: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The primary member to surrender his designations in modern times
• Military Service: Notably stinging given his role in the Falklands war

He remains a royal advisor, theoretically able to substitute for the monarch, and he is still in the lineage to the monarchy, but none of these will truly occur.

What Lies Ahead

Do individuals he encounters still show respect to him? Might they still forget themselves and call him Your Highness? Would they say Mr,

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

In that place, he will be furnished by the king with one of the royal residences and given some sort of financial support.

It is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a nominal payment for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit remote, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Pending Matters

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

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will parliament request additional information
• Monetary Probe: Or examine the improper use of taxpayer funds
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a police investigation into his actions

Possibly for the time being the reputational impact to the crown is limited. The message from the royal household was clearly that the stripping of designations was what the sovereign, and particularly other senior royals, sought.

Altered Approach

The cessation of deception that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, remarkably, the short communication showed evidently that the monarchy were siding with the victim's account of events.

Even more, for the first time they finally showed consideration for the victims: "The measures are considered essential, notwithstanding the truth that he persists in refuting the accusations against him."

Finally it is entitlement, selfishness and indolence that will undermine the institution. In his folly, personal excess and corruption, Andrew appears never to have grasped that reality.