🔗 Share this article

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

In the frame appeared the Baron Killyleagh, with his arm around a young woman, while another individual smiled knowingly in the background.

Absent that photograph, captured at a social event in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a young woman who stated she was transported across the ocean and forced to have cursory sexual encounters with a member of the royal family?

An odd, telling move by someone who had openly stated to have not known about her, said he could not have had intimate contact with her, and yet handed over a large amount of his mother's funds to avert a long-delayed lawsuit.

Years of Controversy

In this context, conversations of the monarchy acting decisively to sever ties with Andrew are wide of the mark. This scandal has persisted for the better part of 15 years since that image, and another image of Andrew strolling amiably with a disgraced financier surfaced.

• Self-importance: To what extent did his siblings, possibly even his mother and father, know that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have realized, if his aides and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable associates given he publicly invited them to estates.
• Financial Extravagance: If the monarchy did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with public money.

Travel were documented in royal annual reports: chopper transfers from the estate to a country club and back again in time for midday meal, private flights instead of scheduled services, all for the benefit of "the travel enthusiast".

World of Deference

Additionally the entitlement which expected deference when he walked into a area or the extreme obsession about his royal titles used on his letterheads in messages to his personal acquaintances.

He managed to escape consequences while his mother, who strangely indulged him, was still living. The monarch did at least strip him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the consequence of his catastrophic and, as revealed, mendacious public statement six years ago.

Latest Events

Just in the last fortnight that events accelerated, following the publication of books giving more disturbing details of his conduct and that of his companions.

More information have again exposed Andrew's assumption that he could escape lying about his interaction with a disgraced individual.

Society (and the journalists) were far in advance of the royal family. There was not a single person of any importance to defend him, a result of all those years of presumption.

Monarchical Concerns

The more intelligent royals realized that. The one imperative is to pass on the crown, if not as before at least complete and unstained.

Over time the last 190 years trying to reverse the image of earlier rulers, proving they are beneficial, responsible and attentive to their citizens.

Andrew was putting all that in peril in an era when submission and discretion is no longer sufficient.

Aftermath

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

Presently the stripping of designations and the continued and lifetime social disgrace that will pain Andrew the most.

• Demotion: Demoted to just a commoner
• Past Example: The primary member to surrender his honorifics in contemporary era
• Naval Career: Notably painful given his role in the conflict

He remains a royal advisor, in principle able to substitute for the sovereign, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but not any of these will ever come to pass.

What Lies Ahead

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

Of course, he is not withdrawing to suburbia, but to the monarchy's vast grounds at a monarchical property.

In that place, he will be provided by the sovereign with one of the royal residences and given some sort of financial support.

This is not his previous residence, where he paid a token payment for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit remote, but even so it may not be far enough.

Pending Matters

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

• Political Pressure: Might parliament seek further action
• Financial Investigation: Or examine the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a criminal probe into his actions

Maybe for the moment the institutional damage to the crown is contained. The narrative from the palace was plainly that the revocation of titles was what the monarch, and notably other senior monarchical figures, sought.

Altered Approach

An end to deception that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, significantly, the short communication showed clearly that the royals were aligning with the accuser's narrative of occurrences.

Even more, for the initial instance they eventually showed regard for the affected individuals: "These actions are judged required, regardless of the fact that he persists in refuting the claims against him."

Ultimately it is entitlement, self-seeking and laziness that will undermine the monarchy. In his foolishness, self-gratification and greed, Andrew gives the impression never to have understood that lesson.