Foolishness and Monarchical Hubris Damaged Andrew, and It Might Persist Yet

The saga started with a isolated photograph, possibly the most impactful ever snapped of a individual from the royal household.

In the frame appeared the Baron Killyleagh, with his arm around a teenage girl, while an associate beamed conspiratorially in the background.

Without that photograph, taken at a party in 2001, who would have believed the allegations of a teenager who stated she was transported across the ocean and forced to have cursory sexual encounters with a member of the royal family?

An odd, revealing action by someone who had publicly asserted to have not heard of her, said he could not have had relations with her, and yet handed over millions of his mother's resources to avert a long-delayed court action.

Over a Decade of Controversy

Considering this, talk of the monarchy acting decisively to cut Andrew off are inaccurate. This affair has endured for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and a further photo of Andrew walking congenially with a disgraced financier came to light.

• Arrogance: How long did his brothers and sisters, perhaps even his mother and father, realize that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Problematic Connections: They must have known, if his employees and the police were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable associates given he openly hosted them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the household did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with public money.

Trips were documented in public records: helicopter flights from the palace to a sporting venue 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 entitlement which demanded respect when he walked into a area or the supreme obsession about his honorifics used on his correspondence in messages to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his parent, who strangely pampered him, was still surviving. The monarch did at least revoke him of public duties and ceremonial ranks in the consequence of his catastrophic and, it is now clear, mendacious public statement six years ago.

Current Situation

Just in the last 14 days that events progressed rapidly, following the release of accounts giving more grim information of his actions and that of his connections.

Further disclosures have again revealed Andrew's assumption that he could get away with being untruthful about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

The public (and the media) were far ahead of the royal family. There was no one of any importance to support him, a outcome of all those years of hubris.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent monarchical figures understood that. The one imperative is to pass on the monarchy, if not as heretofore at least intact and unstained.

Over time the last 190 years trying to overcome the legacy of earlier rulers, proving they are valuable, accountable and attentive to their subjects.

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

Aftermath

Finally, the well-known hesitant king was prodded additional. There was little choice. The institution had lost control of the account.

Currently the loss of titles and the persistent and life-long personal shame that will afflict Andrew most deeply.

• Downgrading: Demoted to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Historical Precedent: The primary royal to surrender his designations in contemporary era
• Armed Forces: Notably painful given his service in the engagement

He continues to be a royal advisor, in principle able to stand in for the sovereign, and he is still in the succession to the crown, but not any of these will ever happen.

Future Prospects

Will people he encounters still show respect to him? Could they still slip up and call him Your Highness? Might they say Sir,

Naturally, he is not retiring to a common area, but to the royal family's vast estate at Sandringham.

At that location, he will be supplied by the king with one of the royal residences and given some sort of financial support.

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

Unresolved Issues

This is not over. There are still files in the possession of US Congress to be made public.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Might legislators request additional information
• Monetary Probe: Or examine the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a police investigation into his behavior

Possibly for the present the harm to the monarchy to the monarchy is limited. The statement from the institution was evidently that the stripping of honorifics was what the monarch, and particularly other senior family members, desired.

Changed Stance

No more deception that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, remarkably, the brief communication showed plainly that the institution were supporting the victim's narrative of occurrences.

Furthermore, for the initial instance they ultimately showed regard for the victims: "These actions are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the reality that he continues to deny the allegations against him."

Ultimately it is arrogance, self-interest and laziness that will destroy the monarchy. In his stupidity, personal excess and venality, Andrew seems never to have learned that lesson.