🔗 Share this article

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

There stood the Duke of York, with his arm around a teenage girl, while another individual beamed suggestively in the rear.

Lacking that photograph, shot at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the assertions of a teenager who stated she was transported across the Atlantic and compelled to have brief relations with a prince of the royal bloodline?

An odd, indicative move by someone who had publicly asserted to have no heard of her, claimed he could never have had sex with her, and yet provided a large amount of monarchical funds to avert a long-delayed legal case.

Years of Controversy

Against this backdrop, discussions of the royals acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are misguided. This affair has continued for the majority of 15 years since that image, and an additional photo of Andrew strolling amiably with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Hubris: For what duration did his siblings, perhaps even his relatives, know that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Problematic Connections: They must have realized, if his employees and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable associates given he publicly invited them to palaces.
• Monetary Excess: If the monarchy did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with state resources.

Travel were documented in royal annual reports: private aircraft flights 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 frequent flyer".

A Life of Privilege

Furthermore the presumption which required deference when he walked into a room or the extreme awareness about his honorifics used on his correspondence in letters to his friends.

He managed to escape consequences while his parent, who unaccountably pampered him, was still living. The sovereign did at least strip him of official roles and military positions in the wake of his disastrous and, it is now clear, deceptive television interview six years ago.

Current Situation

Merely in the last fortnight that events accelerated, following the issuance of biographical works giving more troubling details of his conduct and that of his companions.

Further disclosures have again exposed Andrew's assumption that he could escape deceiving about his interaction with a disgraced individual.

People (and the journalists) were far in advance of the monarchy. There was not a single person of any importance to speak up for him, a result of all those years of arrogance.

Monarchical Concerns

The wiser monarchical figures realized that. The key objective is to pass on the crown, if not as heretofore at least complete and unstained.

Over time the last 190 years trying to undo the image of previous monarchs, demonstrating they are beneficial, dutiful and attentive to their subjects.

Andrew was putting all that in jeopardy in an time when respect and discretion is no longer enough.

The Fallout

Eventually, the well-known hesitant monarch was pushed additional. There was no alternative. The palace had lost control of the account.

Now it is the stripping of titles and the persistent and lifetime social disgrace that will afflict Andrew most severely.

• Demotion: Lowered to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The initial monarch to lose his honorifics in contemporary era
• Military Service: Particularly hurtful given his duty in the conflict

He remains a constitutional officer, on paper able to stand in for the sovereign, and he is still in the lineage to the monarchy, but not any of these will truly come to pass.

Coming Developments

Do individuals he encounters still show respect to him? Will they still forget themselves and call him Your Highness? Will they even say Mr,

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

In that place, he will be supplied by the monarch with one of the royal residences and given some type of financial support.

This differs from his former home, where he paid a nominal lease for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit far, but even so it may not be far enough.

Outstanding Concerns

This is not over. There are still documents in the custody of overseas authorities to be revealed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Might lawmakers seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or examine the waste of state resources
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a criminal probe into his actions

Perhaps for the moment the institutional damage to the institution is restricted. The message from the royal household was clearly that the stripping of designations was what the monarch, and particularly other senior royals, wanted.

Altered Approach

An end to deception that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, notably, the concise communication showed clearly that the monarchy were supporting the accuser's account of events.

Even more, for the initial instance they eventually showed concern for the victims: "The measures are judged required, notwithstanding the reality that he continues to deny the claims against him."

Finally it is presumption, selfishness and laziness that will undermine the monarchy. In his folly, self-gratification and greed, Andrew appears never to have understood that lesson.