Folly and Regal Arrogance Ruined Andrew, and It May Not Be Over Yet

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

There stood the Earl of Inverness, standing closely beside a teenage girl, while a companion beamed conspiratorially in the backdrop.

Without that image, captured at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the assertions of a adolescent who stated she was transported across the sea and obliged to have perfunctory intimate contact with a prince of the royal bloodline?

A strange, indicative gesture by someone who had publicly stated to have never heard of her, claimed he could never have had intimate contact with her, and yet handed over a substantial sum of family funds to resolve a long-delayed lawsuit.

A Long Period of Disgrace

Against this backdrop, conversations of the royals acting swiftly to sever ties with Andrew are wide of the mark. This affair has continued for the better part of 15 years since that photograph, and a further image of Andrew strolling amiably with a notorious individual came to light.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his brothers and sisters, possibly even his parents, know that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have known, if his staff and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory associates given he openly invited them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the monarchy did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with public money.

Travel were printed in public records: private aircraft travel from the palace to a sporting venue and back again in time for midday meal, chartered planes instead of commercial flights, all for the comfort of "the travel enthusiast".

A Life of Privilege

Then there was the presumption which expected deference when he walked into a space or the profound obsession about his honorifics used on his official documents in communication to his associates.

He managed to escape consequences while his parent, who inexplicably indulged him, was still surviving. The sovereign did at least remove him of official roles and military positions in the wake of his catastrophic and, as revealed, untruthful public statement six years ago.

Recent Developments

Merely in the last fortnight that events accelerated, following the publication of accounts giving more grim particulars of his conduct and that of his companions.

Additional revelations have again highlighted Andrew's assumption that he could escape being untruthful about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

Society (and the press) were far in advance of the royal family. There was not a single person of any consequence to support him, a result of all those years of presumption.

Royal Worries

The more intelligent family members recognized that. The key objective is to hand down the crown, if not as previously at least whole and unstained.

Over time the last 190 years trying to reverse the reputation of earlier rulers, demonstrating they are useful, accountable and attentive to their subjects.

Andrew was putting all that in peril in an time when submission and secrecy is no longer enough.

The Fallout

Ultimately, the famously indecisive monarch was prodded additional. There was no other option. The royal household had lost control of the story.

Now it is the loss of honorifics and the ongoing and lifetime social disgrace that will afflict Andrew most severely.

• Demotion: Demoted to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Past Example: The first monarch to lose his honorifics in contemporary era
• Armed Forces: Especially painful given his service in the Falklands war

He is still a counsellor of state, theoretically able to act for the monarch, and he is still eighth in line to the crown, but not any of these will actually come to pass.

Future Prospects

Can persons he comes across still acknowledge him? Could they still slip up and call him Prince? Would they say Andrew,

Naturally, he is not moving to suburbia, but to the royal family's large estate at Sandringham.

There, he will be provided by the sovereign with one of the royal residences and given some sort of personal stipend.

This is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a minimal payment for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit far, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Pending Matters

This is not over. There are still files in the custody of overseas authorities to be disclosed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Could lawmakers request additional information
• Financial Investigation: Or investigate the waste of taxpayer funds
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a criminal probe into his conduct

Maybe for the present the harm to the monarchy to the institution is restricted. The narrative from the institution was plainly that the stripping of designations was what the monarch, and particularly other senior monarchical figures, sought.

Altered Approach

The cessation of deception that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, significantly, the short communication showed evidently that the institution were aligning with the complainant's narrative of events.

Furthermore, for the premiere occasion they ultimately showed consideration for the survivors: "These actions are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the truth that he persists in refuting the claims against him."

Ultimately it is entitlement, self-seeking and laziness that will destroy the crown. In his stupidity, self-indulgence and venality, Andrew seems never to have learned that truth.