🔗 Share this article

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

In the frame appeared the Baron Killyleagh, arm-in-arm a female youth, while a companion grinned conspiratorially in the background.

Absent that image, taken at a party in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a teenager who stated she was trafficked across the ocean and forced to have cursory sexual encounters with a member of the royal bloodline?

An odd, revealing action by someone who had openly claimed to have never known about her, claimed he could never have had sex with her, and yet handed over a substantial sum of monarchical money to resolve a drawn-out court action.

Over a Decade of Controversy

In this context, conversations of the royal family acting firmly to cut Andrew off are wide of the mark. This affair has endured for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and another photo of Andrew ambling congenially with a notorious individual emerged.

• Self-importance: To what extent did his siblings, perhaps even his relatives, know that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have understood, if his aides and the law enforcement were fulfilling their roles, that he had some deeply disreputable companions given he publicly welcomed them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the household did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

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

A Life of Privilege

Additionally the arrogance which required deference when he appeared in a room or the supreme awareness about his royal titles used on his letterheads in letters to his associates.

He avoided accountability while his parent, who inexplicably spoiled him, was still alive. The monarch did at least strip him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the wake of his ill-fated and, we now know, untruthful media appearance six years ago.

Recent Developments

It was only in the last two weeks that events progressed rapidly, following the release of accounts giving more disturbing details of his behavior and that of his associates.

Further disclosures have again highlighted Andrew's assumption that he could avoid deceiving about his interaction with a notorious figure.

Society (and the journalists) were far more perceptive of the royals. There was not a single person of any significance to speak up for him, a consequence of all those years of hubris.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent monarchical figures understood that. The one imperative is to transfer the monarchy, if not as previously at least complete and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the image of previous monarchs, demonstrating they are useful, accountable and attentive to their people.

His actions endangered all that in peril in an age when submission and secrecy is no longer sufficient.

Consequences

Finally, the notoriously indecisive king was prodded further. There was no alternative. The royal household had surrendered command of the account.

Presently the stripping of honorifics and the continued and lifetime personal shame that will hurt Andrew the most.

• Downgrading: Reduced to just a commoner
• Past Example: The primary royal to surrender his titles in contemporary era
• Military Service: Notably painful given his service in the Falklands war

He is still a counsellor of state, on paper able to act for the sovereign, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but none of these will truly occur.

Future Prospects

Do individuals he comes across still acknowledge him? Could they still forget themselves and call him Sir? Would they say Mr,

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

There, he will be furnished by the sovereign with one of the grace and favour houses and given some type of financial support.

It is not his previous residence, where he paid a token rent for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit remote, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Pending Matters

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

• Political Pressure: Could lawmakers request additional information
• Monetary Probe: Or examine the waste of public money
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a police investigation into his actions

Perhaps for the moment the reputational impact to the crown is limited. The message from the palace was plainly that the revocation of designations was what the sovereign, and especially other senior royals, desired.

Altered Approach

No more illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, remarkably, the brief communication showed clearly that the institution were siding with the complainant's version of incidents.

Even more, for the premiere occasion they ultimately showed regard for the victims: "The measures are considered essential, regardless of the reality that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

Finally it is presumption, selfishness and inactivity that will destroy the monarchy. In his foolishness, self-gratification and corruption, Andrew gives the impression never to have grasped that reality.