Stupidity and Regal Arrogance Damaged Andrew, and It Could Continue Yet

It all began with a isolated photograph, arguably the most significant ever snapped of a royal family member.

Present was the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a teenage girl, while an associate beamed conspiratorially in the rear.

Absent that image, shot at a party in 2001, who would have believed the assertions of a adolescent who said she was trafficked across the sea and obliged to have cursory sexual encounters with a member of the royal bloodline?

A strange, revealing gesture by someone who had overtly asserted to have not been aware of her, asserted he could never have had intimate contact with her, and yet handed over a substantial sum of monarchical funds to settle a drawn-out lawsuit.

Over a Decade of Disgrace

Against this backdrop, discussions of the royal family acting firmly to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This controversy has endured for the majority of 15 years since that photograph, and an additional image of Andrew ambling amiably with a notorious individual surfaced.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his siblings, perhaps even his parents, realize that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his aides and the authorities were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory friends given he openly invited them to estates.
• Financial Extravagance: If the family did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his overspending with public money.

Trips were printed in official documents: helicopter transfers from the palace to a golf course and back again in time for dining, exclusive air travel instead of regular transport, all for the comfort of "the travel enthusiast".

A Life of Privilege

Furthermore the entitlement which required subservience when he appeared in a area or the profound obsession about his designations used on his correspondence in communication to his associates.

He could get away with it while his parent, who unaccountably pampered him, was still alive. The sovereign did at least strip him of public duties and ceremonial ranks in the aftermath of his disastrous and, it is now clear, untruthful media appearance six years ago.

Current Situation

Merely in the last two weeks that events progressed rapidly, following the release of biographical works giving more troubling details of his conduct and that of his connections.

Additional revelations have again highlighted Andrew's assumption that he could escape lying about his relationship with a notorious figure.

People (and the media) were far in advance of the royal family. There was no one of any consequence to speak up for him, a outcome of all those years of arrogance.

Monarchical Concerns

The more intelligent monarchical figures recognized that. The key objective is to transfer the monarchy, if not as before at least intact and untarnished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to reverse the image of past sovereigns, proving they are valuable, responsible and attentive to their subjects.

Andrew was putting all that in jeopardy in an era when submission and privacy is no longer adequate.

The Fallout

Eventually, the famously indecisive sovereign was pressured additional. There was little choice. The palace had surrendered command of the account.

Presently the removal of honorifics and the persistent and life-long personal shame that will hurt Andrew most severely.

• Downgrading: Reduced to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Prior Instance: The initial member to lose his honorifics in contemporary era
• Armed Forces: Notably painful given his service in the engagement

He remains a royal advisor, on paper able to stand in for the monarch, and he is still in the succession to the throne, but neither of these will actually come to pass.

What Lies Ahead

Do individuals he comes across still defer to him? Will they still forget themselves and call him Your Highness? Will they even say Andrew,

Certainly, he is not withdrawing to suburbia, but to the sovereign's extensive property at Sandringham.

At that location, he will be provided by the monarch with one of the royal residences and given some type of financial support.

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

Pending Matters

The situation continues. There are still documents in the hands of overseas authorities to be made public.

• Parliamentary Interest: Might lawmakers demand more
• Fiscal Review: Or investigate the waste of taxpayer funds
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a criminal probe into his actions

Maybe for the time being the reputational impact to the crown is restricted. The message from the royal household was clearly that the revocation of honorifics was what the king, and notably other senior royals, wanted.

Altered Approach

The cessation of pretence that Andrew was acting willingly. And, significantly, the brief announcement showed evidently that the monarchy were supporting the accuser's account of events.

Even more, for the premiere occasion they eventually showed consideration for the victims: "The censures are judged required, regardless of the reality that he persists in refuting the claims against him."

Ultimately it is presumption, self-seeking and indolence that will destroy the crown. In his stupidity, self-gratification and corruption, Andrew seems never to have understood that lesson.