🔗 Share this article

The saga started with a single photograph, possibly the most consequential ever taken of a royal family member.

There stood the Baron Killyleagh, standing closely beside a teenage girl, while a companion smiled suggestively in the background.

Absent that snapshot, captured at a party in 2001, few would have credited the claims of a young woman who stated she was trafficked across the ocean and forced to have brief intimate contact with a prince of the monarchy?

A curious, revealing action by someone who had openly asserted to have not heard of her, said he could never have had intimate contact with her, and yet paid millions of family funds to settle a protracted legal case.

Over a Decade of Disgrace

Considering this, discussions of the monarchy acting decisively to cut Andrew off are inaccurate. This controversy has endured for the largest portion of 15 years since that picture, and another snapshot of Andrew walking congenially with a notorious individual surfaced.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his family members, possibly even his relatives, know that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Problematic Connections: They must have understood, if his employees and the police were doing their jobs, that he had some extremely unsavory companions given he unabashedly invited them to royal residences.
• Financial Extravagance: If the household did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

Trips were documented in royal annual reports: chopper 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 convenience of "the travel enthusiast".

World of Deference

Additionally the presumption which required respect when he walked into a area or the extreme consciousness about his honorifics used on his official documents in letters to his personal acquaintances.

He managed to escape consequences while his mother, who unaccountably pampered him, was still alive. The Queen did at least remove him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the aftermath of his ill-fated and, we now know, untruthful media appearance six years ago.

Recent Developments

It was only in the last fortnight that events sped up, following the publication of accounts giving more grim particulars of his actions and that of his associates.

Further disclosures have again highlighted Andrew's belief that he could get away with deceiving about his relationship with a notorious figure.

The public (and the media) were far ahead of the royal family. There was no one of any significance to defend him, a consequence of all those years of presumption.

Royal Worries

The more intelligent family members understood that. The one imperative is to transfer the crown, if not as previously at least intact and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the reputation of past sovereigns, demonstrating they are valuable, responsible and attentive to their subjects.

He was placing all that in peril in an time when deference and secrecy is no longer adequate.

Aftermath

Ultimately, the famously uncertain king was pressured further. There was little choice. The institution had lost control of the account.

Presently the removal of honorifics and the persistent and life-long public humiliation that will pain Andrew most severely.

• Demotion: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Historical Precedent: The initial royal to forfeit his titles in recent history
• Armed Forces: Especially hurtful given his role in the conflict

He continues to be a counsellor of state, on paper able to act for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the monarchy, but none of these will truly happen.

Coming Developments

Do individuals he encounters still show respect to him? Could they still make mistakes and call him Prince? Would they say Andrew,

Certainly, he is not moving to suburbia, but to the royal family's large estate at Sandringham.

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

This differs from his former home, where he paid a minimal payment for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit far, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Unresolved Issues

Matters remain unresolved. There are still documents in the possession of overseas authorities to be made public.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Could lawmakers request additional information
• Monetary Probe: Or scrutinize the waste of state resources
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a police investigation into his actions

Maybe for the present the institutional damage to the crown is restricted. The statement from the royal household was plainly that the revocation of designations was what the king, and especially other senior monarchical figures, desired.

Changed Stance

The cessation of deception that Andrew was acting willingly. And, remarkably, the short announcement showed evidently that the institution were siding with the complainant's narrative of incidents.

Even more, for the first time they finally showed concern for the survivors: "The censures are considered essential, despite the truth that he maintains his innocence of the claims against him."

Finally it is presumption, self-seeking and laziness that will undermine the institution. In his folly, self-gratification and greed, Andrew gives the impression never to have understood that reality.