🔗 Share this article

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

In the frame appeared the Earl of Inverness, arm-in-arm a teenage girl, while another individual grinned conspiratorially in the rear.

Lacking that image, captured at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the assertions of a young woman who stated she was moved across the sea and forced to have brief sexual encounters with a prince of the royal family?

A curious, indicative move by someone who had publicly stated to have not known about her, said he could never have had relations with her, and yet handed over a substantial sum of monarchical funds to resolve a drawn-out lawsuit.

Over a Decade of Disgrace

In this context, conversations of the royals acting firmly to sever ties with Andrew are inaccurate. This controversy has continued for the better part of 15 years since that image, and an additional image of Andrew walking congenially with a disgraced financier surfaced.

• Hubris: To what extent did his siblings, maybe even his relatives, understand that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Problematic Connections: They must have realized, if his employees and the police were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory friends given he unabashedly welcomed them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the family did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with taxpayer funds.

Travel were documented in public records: private aircraft flights from the royal residence to a golf course and back again in time for dining, exclusive air travel instead of scheduled services, all for the convenience of "the frequent flyer".

Existence of Entitlement

Then there was the entitlement which demanded respect when he entered a room or the extreme consciousness about his honorifics used on his correspondence in messages to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his parent, who strangely indulged him, was still surviving. The monarch did at least strip him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the wake of his catastrophic and, we now know, mendacious media appearance six years ago.

Recent Developments

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

More information have again revealed Andrew's thinking that he could get away with deceiving about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

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

Institutional Fears

The more astute royals recognized that. The primary concern is to hand down the crown, if not as heretofore at least complete and untarnished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to undo the reputation of previous monarchs, showing they are valuable, dutiful and reactive to their citizens.

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

Consequences

Finally, the famously uncertain sovereign was pushed more. There was no alternative. The institution had surrendered command of the account.

Presently the stripping of honorifics and the persistent and permanent public humiliation that will afflict Andrew the most.

• Demotion: Lowered to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The first member to lose his honorifics in contemporary era
• Military Service: Particularly stinging given his duty in the Falklands war

He is still a royal advisor, theoretically able to substitute for the king, and he is still eighth in line to the throne, but not any of these will ever come to pass.

Coming Developments

Will people he comes across still show respect to him? Will they still forget themselves and call him Sir? Might they say Sir,

Certainly, he is not withdrawing to an ordinary town, but to the sovereign's vast grounds at a monarchical property.

At that location, he will be provided by the sovereign with one of the estate properties and given some type of private allowance.

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

Unresolved Issues

This is not over. There are still records in the custody of overseas authorities to be made public.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will legislators seek further action
• Monetary Probe: Or investigate the improper use of public money
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a police investigation into his behavior

Maybe for the present the reputational impact to the crown is contained. The statement from the institution was evidently that the revocation of designations was what the sovereign, and notably other senior monarchical figures, sought.

Changed Stance

No more deception that Andrew was acting willingly. And, remarkably, the short communication showed plainly that the royals were supporting the victim's version of events.

Furthermore, for the first time they finally showed consideration for the victims: "These actions are deemed necessary, regardless of the fact that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

Finally it is presumption, self-interest and inactivity that will destroy the institution. In his stupidity, self-indulgence and corruption, Andrew seems never to have grasped that lesson.