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

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

In the frame appeared the Baron Killyleagh, standing closely beside a female youth, while another individual grinned suggestively in the background.

Absent that image, taken at a social event in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the assertions of a young woman who stated she was moved across the Atlantic and obliged to have cursory relations with a individual of the royal family?

A curious, telling move by someone who had overtly claimed to have not been aware of her, claimed he could no have had sex with her, and yet provided millions of family funds to avert a long-delayed legal case.

A Long Period of Controversy

Against this backdrop, conversations of the royal family acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This scandal has persisted for the largest portion of 15 years since that image, and an additional photo of Andrew ambling pleasantly with a notorious individual came to light.

• Hubris: For what duration did his brothers and sisters, perhaps even his mother and father, realize that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his staff and the authorities were doing their jobs, that he had some highly questionable associates given he unabashedly invited them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the household did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his extravagance with state resources.

Travel were documented in royal annual reports: private aircraft transfers from the royal residence to a country club and back again in time for lunch, chartered planes instead of commercial flights, all for the benefit of "the travel enthusiast".

Existence of Entitlement

Then there was the entitlement which required respect when he walked into a space or the profound consciousness about his designations used on his letterheads in letters to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his mother, who strangely pampered him, was still living. The monarch did at least remove him of official roles and ceremonial ranks in the wake of his disastrous and, it is now clear, deceptive public statement six years ago.

Latest Events

Just in the last two weeks that events progressed rapidly, following the publication of biographical works giving more disturbing particulars of his actions and that of his associates.

More information have again highlighted Andrew's belief that he could avoid lying about his relationship with a convicted criminal.

Society (and the press) were far ahead of the monarchy. There was nobody of any consequence to speak up for him, a consequence of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

The more astute family members recognized that. The primary concern is to transfer the institution, if not as before at least whole and unblemished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the reputation of previous monarchs, proving they are useful, dutiful and reactive to their citizens.

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

Consequences

Finally, the notoriously uncertain king was pushed more. There was no other option. The institution had lost control of the account.

Now it is the removal of titles and the persistent and permanent public humiliation that will pain Andrew most deeply.

• Downgrading: Demoted to just a commoner
• Prior Instance: The initial royal to surrender his titles in recent history
• Armed Forces: Especially stinging given his role in the engagement

He remains a constitutional officer, in principle able to substitute for the king, and he is still eighth in line to the throne, but not any of these will ever occur.

Future Prospects

Can persons he meets still acknowledge him? Will they still slip up and call him Sir? Will they even say Sir,

Of course, he is not retiring to an ordinary town, but to the royal family's large property at Sandringham.

At that location, he will be supplied by the monarch with one of the royal residences and given some sort of personal stipend.

It is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a minimal payment for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit distant, but even so it may not be far enough.

Outstanding Concerns

The situation continues. There are still files in the hands of overseas authorities to be revealed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will lawmakers request additional information
• Financial Investigation: Or scrutinize the improper use of state resources
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his conduct

Possibly for the present the harm to the monarchy to the institution is restricted. The narrative 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 deception that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, notably, the short communication showed clearly that the institution were siding with the victim's account of occurrences.

Additionally, for the first time they eventually showed consideration for the survivors: "The censures are deemed necessary, despite the truth that he continues to deny the allegations against him."

Finally it is entitlement, self-interest and indolence that will kill the monarchy. In his folly, self-indulgence and venality, Andrew gives the impression never to have learned that truth.