🔗 Share this article

This episode commenced with a isolated photograph, arguably the most significant ever captured of a member of the monarchy.

There stood the Earl of Inverness, arm-in-arm a young woman, while another individual smiled knowingly in the rear.

Without that snapshot, captured at a party in 2001, few would have credited the assertions of a teenager who stated she was transported across the ocean and forced to have cursory intimate contact with a individual of the royal family?

A strange, revealing gesture by someone who had publicly asserted to have not known about her, said he could not have had intimate contact with her, and yet paid a large amount of his mother's resources to avert a protracted court action.

Years of Disgrace

Against this backdrop, discussions of the monarchy acting swiftly to sever ties with Andrew are misguided. This scandal has continued for the majority of 15 years since that photograph, and another image of Andrew strolling congenially with a disgraced financier surfaced.

• Arrogance: How long did his siblings, perhaps even his parents, understand that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have known, if his employees and the authorities were doing their jobs, that he had some highly questionable associates given he unabashedly hosted them to palaces.
• Monetary Excess: If the household did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

Journeys were documented in royal annual reports: helicopter flights from the palace to a sporting venue and back again in time for lunch, chartered planes instead of commercial flights, all for the convenience of "Airmiles Andy".

A Life of Privilege

Furthermore the presumption which expected subservience when he entered a space or the profound consciousness about his designations used on his correspondence in letters to his associates.

He managed to escape consequences while his mother, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still living. The Queen did at least revoke him of official roles and ceremonial ranks in the wake of his catastrophic and, as revealed, mendacious media appearance six years ago.

Recent Developments

Merely in the last fortnight that events progressed rapidly, following the release of accounts giving more grim details of his behavior and that of his connections.

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

Society (and the journalists) were far ahead of the royal family. There was no one of any consequence to defend him, a outcome of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

The wiser royals recognized that. The primary concern is to transfer the institution, if not as heretofore at least whole and unblemished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to reverse the image of previous monarchs, proving they are useful, accountable and responsive to their citizens.

Andrew was putting all that in jeopardy in an age when respect and privacy is no longer sufficient.

Aftermath

Ultimately, the notoriously uncertain monarch was prodded more. There was little choice. The palace had lost control of the narrative.

Presently the stripping of honorifics and the continued and life-long personal shame that will hurt Andrew the most.

• Demotion: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The initial royal to surrender his titles in recent history
• Armed Forces: Particularly hurtful given his duty in the conflict

He is still a royal advisor, on paper able to stand in for the monarch, and he is still eighth in line to the crown, but none of these will truly occur.

Coming Developments

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

Of course, he is not retiring to an ordinary town, but to the monarchy's large property at a monarchical property.

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

It is not his former home, where he paid a nominal lease for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit remote, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Pending Matters

The situation continues. There are still records in the possession of American legislators to be made public.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will legislators request additional information
• Monetary Probe: Or investigate the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a police investigation into his conduct

Possibly for the time being the institutional damage to the crown is contained. The message from the royal household was clearly that the revocation of titles was what the king, and notably other senior royals, desired.

A Shift in Position

No more illusion that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, remarkably, the brief announcement showed evidently that the institution were aligning with the victim's version of incidents.

Furthermore, for the first time they finally showed concern for the victims: "The measures are considered essential, regardless of the truth that he continues to deny the claims against him."

In the end it is arrogance, self-interest and inactivity that will undermine the monarchy. In his foolishness, personal excess and corruption, Andrew seems never to have learned that truth.