Foolishness and Royal Self-Entitlement Damaged Andrew, and It Could Continue Yet

The saga started with a single photograph, perhaps the most significant ever taken of a royal family member.

In the frame appeared the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a female youth, while an associate beamed conspiratorially in the background.

Absent that image, shot at a gathering in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the allegations of a young woman who declared she was transported across the Atlantic and forced to have brief sexual encounters with a prince of the royal family?

A strange, revealing move by someone who had openly stated to have never known about her, claimed he could never have had relations with her, and yet paid a large amount of his mother's funds to settle a protracted legal case.

Years of Controversy

Against this backdrop, talk of the monarchy acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This controversy has continued for the largest portion of 15 years since that photograph, and an additional image of Andrew walking pleasantly with a disgraced financier came to light.

• Arrogance: To what extent did his family members, maybe even his relatives, realize that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Problematic Connections: They must have known, if his employees and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory associates given he openly welcomed them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the monarchy did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with state resources.

Travel were printed in royal annual reports: chopper flights from the estate to a country club and back again in time for midday meal, exclusive air travel instead of regular transport, all for the convenience of "the frequent flyer".

A Life of Privilege

Furthermore the entitlement which expected deference when he appeared in a space or the extreme obsession about his royal titles used on his letterheads in messages to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his parent, who strangely pampered him, was still alive. The monarch did at least revoke him of public duties and ceremonial ranks in the wake of his disastrous and, as revealed, untruthful media appearance six years ago.

Recent Developments

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

More information have again exposed Andrew's thinking that he could escape lying about his contact with a notorious figure.

Society (and the journalists) were far more perceptive of the monarchy. There was nobody of any importance to support him, a outcome of all those years of presumption.

Royal Worries

The more astute monarchical figures understood that. The one imperative is to transfer the monarchy, if not as before at least complete and unblemished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to undo the reputation of previous monarchs, proving they are useful, accountable and reactive to their subjects.

His actions endangered all that in peril in an time when respect and discretion is no longer adequate.

The Fallout

Finally, the notoriously indecisive sovereign was pressured additional. There was no other option. The palace had surrendered command of the account.

Presently the removal of designations and the ongoing and permanent public humiliation that will hurt Andrew the most.

• Reduction: Lowered to just a private citizen
• Past Example: The primary monarch to forfeit his honorifics in modern times
• Naval Career: Especially painful given his service in the conflict

He continues to be a royal advisor, on paper able to act for the monarch, and he is still eighth in line to the monarchy, but not any of these will actually happen.

Coming Developments

Can persons he comes across still show respect to him? Might they still slip up and call him Your Highness? Would they say Mr,

Of course, he is not moving to a common area, but to the sovereign's vast property at a royal residence.

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

This is not his previous residence, where he paid a nominal lease for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit remote, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Pending Matters

Matters remain unresolved. There are still documents in the hands of overseas authorities to be revealed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will lawmakers demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or investigate the waste of public money
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his conduct

Perhaps for the time being the reputational impact to the monarchy is restricted. The narrative from the palace was plainly that the stripping of titles was what the sovereign, and notably other senior monarchical figures, wanted.

A Shift in Position

The cessation of illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, significantly, the short statement showed evidently that the royals were supporting the accuser's version of events.

Even more, for the premiere occasion they eventually showed consideration for the survivors: "These actions are deemed necessary, regardless of the reality that he persists in refuting the allegations against him."

Finally it is presumption, self-seeking and laziness that will kill the crown. In his folly, self-gratification and corruption, Andrew seems never to have learned that truth.