🔗 Share this article

It all began with a single photograph, arguably the most consequential ever captured of a royal family member.

Present was the Duke of York, arm-in-arm a young woman, while another individual smiled conspiratorially in the backdrop.

Without that photograph, taken at a party in 2001, who would have believed the claims of a adolescent who declared she was trafficked across the sea and forced to have perfunctory intimate contact with a individual of the royal bloodline?

An odd, indicative move by someone who had openly stated to have never been aware of her, claimed he could not have had relations with her, and yet provided millions of family resources to settle a long-delayed court action.

A Long Period of Scandal

Considering this, discussions of the monarchy acting firmly to cut Andrew off are misguided. This scandal has continued for the majority of 15 years since that photograph, and another image of Andrew strolling congenially with a convicted sex offender came to light.

• Arrogance: To what extent did his family members, maybe even his relatives, realize that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have realized, if his staff and the law enforcement were doing their jobs, that he had some extremely unsavory associates given he openly welcomed them to estates.
• Financial Extravagance: If the monarchy did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with taxpayer funds.

Journeys were printed in official documents: chopper travel from the estate to a sporting venue and back again in time for lunch, private flights instead of commercial flights, all for the convenience of "the travel enthusiast".

Existence of Entitlement

Furthermore the arrogance which required subservience when he entered a space or the supreme awareness about his honorifics used on his official documents in letters to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his mother, who strangely pampered him, was still surviving. The sovereign did at least remove him of official roles and honorary colonelcies in the wake of his disastrous and, as revealed, deceptive television interview six years ago.

Recent Developments

It was only in the last fortnight that events accelerated, following the publication of accounts giving more troubling details of his actions and that of his connections.

Additional revelations have again exposed Andrew's thinking that he could escape being untruthful about his contact with a convicted criminal.

Society (and the journalists) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was nobody of any consequence to defend him, a result of all those years of arrogance.

Monarchical Concerns

The wiser monarchical figures realized that. The primary concern is to pass on the institution, if not as before at least whole and untarnished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the reputation of previous monarchs, showing they are beneficial, responsible and responsive to their people.

Andrew was putting all that in peril in an era when respect and discretion is no longer adequate.

Aftermath

Eventually, the famously hesitant king was pressured further. There was no other option. The palace had lost control of the narrative.

Currently the removal of honorifics and the continued and lifetime personal shame that will pain Andrew the most.

• Downgrading: Lowered to just a private citizen
• Past Example: The first monarch to forfeit his titles in recent history
• Naval Career: Notably painful given his role in the Falklands war

He continues to be a royal advisor, in principle able to stand in for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but not any of these will ever come to pass.

Coming Developments

Do individuals he encounters still defer to him? Could they still make mistakes and call him Your Highness? Would they say Sir,

Certainly, he is not retiring to a common area, but to the sovereign's large property at a royal residence.

At that location, he will be supplied by the sovereign with one of the royal residences and given some sort of private allowance.

This differs from his former home, where he paid a minimal payment for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit distant, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Pending Matters

The situation continues. There are still documents in the hands of US Congress to be made public.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will parliament seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or examine the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his behavior

Maybe for the time being the reputational impact to the institution is restricted. The statement from the royal household was plainly that the stripping of designations was what the king, and notably other senior royals, wanted.

Changed Stance

The cessation of illusion that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, remarkably, the brief communication showed evidently that the monarchy were siding with the complainant's narrative of occurrences.

Furthermore, for the initial instance they finally showed regard for the affected individuals: "The censures are considered essential, notwithstanding the fact that he maintains his innocence of the claims against him."

In the end it is presumption, selfishness and inactivity that will kill the institution. In his folly, self-indulgence and corruption, Andrew appears never to have understood that reality.