Foolishness and Monarchical Hubris Sunk Andrew, and It Might Persist Yet

The saga started with a solitary photograph, perhaps the most significant ever taken of a individual from the royal household.

In the frame appeared the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a teenage girl, while a companion smiled suggestively in the rear.

Absent that photograph, shot at a party in 2001, few would have credited the allegations of a teenager who declared she was transported across the ocean and compelled to have perfunctory sexual encounters with a prince of the royal bloodline?

An odd, indicative move by someone who had publicly asserted to have not known about her, claimed he could never have had intimate contact with her, and yet provided millions of his mother's funds to avert a long-delayed legal case.

Over a Decade of Controversy

In this context, talk of the royals acting firmly to distance themselves from Andrew are misguided. This affair has persisted for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and another image of Andrew ambling congenially with a convicted sex offender surfaced.

• Arrogance: How long did his brothers and sisters, perhaps even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his aides and the authorities were doing their jobs, that he had some extremely unsavory associates given he unabashedly hosted them to royal residences.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the monarchy did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with taxpayer funds.

Travel were listed in official documents: helicopter flights from the estate to a country club and back again in time for midday meal, chartered planes instead of commercial flights, all for the convenience of "Airmiles Andy".

Existence of Entitlement

Furthermore the presumption which demanded deference when he walked into a space or the profound obsession about his royal titles used on his official documents in letters to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who inexplicably indulged him, was still living. The monarch did at least revoke him of public duties and military positions in the consequence of his ill-fated and, we now know, deceptive public statement six years ago.

Current Situation

Merely in the last 14 days that events progressed rapidly, following the publication of biographical works giving more troubling details of his conduct and that of his associates.

Further disclosures have again highlighted Andrew's thinking that he could escape being untruthful about his contact with a notorious figure.

Society (and the journalists) were far in advance of the royal family. There was nobody of any significance to defend him, a result of all those years of presumption.

Monarchical Concerns

The more astute family members realized that. The key objective is to transfer the institution, if not as heretofore at least whole and unblemished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to overcome the reputation of past sovereigns, showing they are beneficial, responsible and responsive to their subjects.

His actions endangered all that in danger in an era when submission and privacy is no longer adequate.

The Fallout

Ultimately, the notoriously hesitant sovereign was prodded more. There was no alternative. The institution had surrendered command of the story.

Currently the loss of designations and the ongoing and life-long public humiliation that will hurt Andrew the most.

• Demotion: Reduced to just a commoner
• Past Example: The initial monarch to surrender his designations in contemporary era
• Naval Career: Especially hurtful given his role in the conflict

He remains a counsellor of state, theoretically able to act for the sovereign, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but not any of these will ever come to pass.

Future Prospects

Do individuals he encounters still defer to him? Could they still forget themselves and call him Prince? Will they even say Sir,

Certainly, he is not withdrawing to suburbia, but to the royal family's extensive estate at a monarchical property.

In that place, he will be supplied by the king with one of the grace and favour houses and given some type of financial support.

This is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a minimal rent for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit remote, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Unresolved Issues

The situation continues. There are still documents in the custody of overseas authorities to be revealed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will parliament request additional information
• Fiscal Review: Or scrutinize the improper use of public money
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a police investigation into his actions

Maybe for the present the harm to the monarchy to the crown is contained. The statement from the royal household was clearly that the removal of designations was what the king, and notably other senior royals, desired.

Altered Approach

An end to illusion that Andrew was acting willingly. And, remarkably, the short announcement showed evidently that the royals were supporting the victim's narrative of events.

Even more, for the premiere occasion they finally showed regard for the victims: "The measures are deemed necessary, regardless of the fact that he persists in refuting the claims against him."

In the end it is arrogance, self-interest and inactivity that will kill the institution. In his foolishness, self-indulgence and greed, Andrew seems never to have learned that truth.