🔗 Share this article

The saga started with a isolated photograph, perhaps the most consequential ever captured of a royal family member.

Present was the Baron Killyleagh, arm-in-arm a young woman, while an associate grinned suggestively in the background.

Lacking that snapshot, captured at a party in 2001, who would have believed the claims of a young woman who said she was moved across the sea and obliged to have brief intimate contact with a prince of the royal family?

A curious, revealing action by someone who had overtly stated to have not been aware of her, asserted he could never have had sex with her, and yet provided a substantial sum of family resources to settle a long-delayed court action.

Years of Disgrace

Against this backdrop, discussions of the royals acting firmly to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This controversy has persisted for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and an additional photo of Andrew ambling congenially with a notorious individual surfaced.

• Self-importance: To what extent did his family members, perhaps even his relatives, realize that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Problematic Connections: They must have known, if his aides and the authorities were doing their jobs, that he had some highly questionable associates given he publicly invited them to palaces.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the household did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with state resources.

Trips were documented in official documents: private aircraft transfers from the palace to a golf course and back again in time for dining, private flights instead of commercial flights, all for the benefit of "the frequent flyer".

World of Deference

Then there was the presumption which required deference when he walked into a room or the extreme awareness about his honorifics used on his correspondence in letters to his friends.

He managed to escape consequences while his matriarch, who strangely pampered him, was still alive. The monarch did at least strip him of public duties and ceremonial ranks in the aftermath of his ill-fated and, we now know, mendacious media appearance six years ago.

Current Situation

Merely in the last 14 days that events sped up, following the release of accounts giving more disturbing particulars of his conduct and that of his connections.

More information have again revealed Andrew's belief that he could escape being untruthful about his interaction with a notorious figure.

Society (and the journalists) were far in advance of the royals. There was no one of any significance to support him, a consequence of all those years of hubris.

Royal Worries

The more intelligent monarchical figures understood that. The one imperative is to pass on the institution, if not as before at least whole and untarnished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the image of past sovereigns, showing they are valuable, accountable and attentive to their citizens.

Andrew was putting all that in danger in an time when respect and privacy is no longer enough.

Aftermath

Finally, the well-known uncertain king was prodded more. There was no other option. The palace had surrendered command of the account.

Presently the stripping of titles and the continued and permanent public humiliation that will afflict Andrew most deeply.

• Demotion: Lowered to just a private citizen
• Past Example: The initial member to surrender his titles in modern times
• Naval Career: Particularly painful given his duty in the conflict

He continues to be a constitutional officer, on paper able to substitute for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but not any of these will truly come to pass.

Future Prospects

Can persons he encounters still acknowledge him? Could they still make mistakes and call him Prince? Will they even say Mr,

Certainly, he is not retiring to suburbia, but to the sovereign's vast property at Sandringham.

In that place, he will be supplied by the monarch with one of the estate properties and given some sort of personal stipend.

This differs from his former home, where he paid a token rent for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit remote, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Unresolved Issues

Matters remain unresolved. There are still documents in the custody of American legislators to be made public.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Might parliament demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or scrutinize the waste of public money
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a police investigation into his behavior

Maybe for the time being the reputational impact to the monarchy is limited. The narrative from the palace was plainly that the removal of designations was what the monarch, and especially other senior family members, desired.

Changed Stance

The cessation of deception that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, notably, the brief statement showed clearly that the institution were aligning with the victim's version of occurrences.

Additionally, for the premiere occasion they ultimately showed regard for the victims: "The censures are judged required, regardless of the reality that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

In the end it is presumption, selfishness and inactivity that will destroy the crown. In his folly, self-indulgence and venality, Andrew appears never to have grasped that lesson.