🔗 Share this article

It all began with a single photograph, perhaps the most significant ever taken of a individual from the royal household.

Present was the Duke of York, arm-in-arm a young woman, while an associate beamed suggestively in the backdrop.

Without that photograph, taken at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the allegations of a adolescent who stated she was trafficked across the sea and compelled to have cursory intimate contact with a individual of the royal family?

A strange, revealing gesture by someone who had overtly claimed to have not heard of her, said he could never have had sex with her, and yet provided a substantial sum of his mother's funds to settle a drawn-out court action.

A Long Period of Disgrace

Considering this, discussions of the royal family acting firmly to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This controversy has persisted for the majority of 15 years since that photograph, and an additional photo of Andrew strolling amiably with a notorious individual came to light.

• Arrogance: How long did his siblings, possibly even his mother and father, know that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Questionable Associations: They must have understood, if his staff and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory associates given he unabashedly hosted them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the monarchy did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with state resources.

Trips were printed in official documents: helicopter transfers from the estate to a sporting venue and back again in time for lunch, exclusive air travel instead of regular transport, all for the convenience of "the travel enthusiast".

World of Deference

Then there was the arrogance which expected deference when he walked into a area or the extreme obsession about his designations used on his official documents in messages to his associates.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who inexplicably spoiled him, was still living. The sovereign did at least remove him of official roles and ceremonial ranks in the wake of his ill-fated and, it is now clear, mendacious television interview six years ago.

Current Situation

It was only in the last fortnight that events accelerated, following the publication of biographical works giving more troubling particulars of his behavior and that of his connections.

Additional revelations have again exposed Andrew's thinking that he could escape deceiving about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

People (and the press) were far in advance of the monarchy. There was no one of any importance to defend him, a outcome of all those years of arrogance.

Monarchical Concerns

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

They have spent the last 190 years trying to reverse the legacy of past sovereigns, proving they are valuable, dutiful and reactive to their citizens.

He was placing all that in jeopardy in an time when respect and privacy is no longer adequate.

Consequences

Ultimately, the notoriously uncertain monarch was pushed more. There was no other option. The palace had surrendered command of the account.

Now it is the removal of designations and the continued and life-long public humiliation that will afflict Andrew the most.

• Downgrading: Demoted to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Prior Instance: The first royal to surrender his honorifics in modern times
• Naval Career: Especially stinging given his role in the Falklands war

He is still a royal advisor, in principle able to act for the monarch, and he is still in the lineage to the monarchy, but neither of these will actually occur.

What Lies Ahead

Do individuals he meets still acknowledge him? Could they still slip up and call him Prince? Would they say Sir,

Certainly, he is not withdrawing to a common area, but to the monarchy's large estate at a monarchical property.

There, he will be furnished by the king with one of the estate properties and given some form of financial support.

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

Outstanding Concerns

The situation continues. There are still documents in the hands of American legislators to be disclosed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will lawmakers seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or scrutinize the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a criminal probe into his conduct

Possibly for the time being the institutional damage to the crown is restricted. The message from the institution was clearly that the revocation of designations was what the monarch, and particularly other senior family members, sought.

A Shift in Position

No more pretence that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, remarkably, the short communication showed plainly that the institution were siding with the complainant's narrative of events.

Even more, for the initial instance they ultimately showed consideration for the survivors: "These actions are judged required, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the claims against him."

Finally it is presumption, self-interest and inactivity that will kill the institution. In his folly, self-indulgence and corruption, Andrew appears never to have learned that lesson.