Stupidity and Regal Arrogance Sunk Andrew, and It Might Persist Yet

The saga started with a single photograph, perhaps the most impactful ever captured of a member of the monarchy.

In the frame appeared the Baron Killyleagh, arm-in-arm a female youth, while an associate smiled suggestively in the background.

Lacking that photograph, taken at a social event in 2001, few would have credited the assertions of a teenager who declared she was transported across the ocean and compelled to have cursory intimate contact with a member of the royal bloodline?

An odd, telling move by someone who had openly claimed to have no been aware of her, claimed he could no have had intimate contact with her, and yet paid a substantial sum of monarchical resources to resolve a long-delayed legal case.

A Long Period of Disgrace

In this context, conversations of the monarchy acting decisively to cut Andrew off are inaccurate. This scandal has persisted for the majority of 15 years since that photograph, and another image of Andrew ambling congenially with a disgraced financier came to light.

• Self-importance: To what extent did his brothers and sisters, perhaps even his mother and father, realize that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Questionable Associations: They must have understood, if his staff and the authorities were doing their jobs, that he had some deeply disreputable friends given he openly welcomed them to estates.
• Financial Extravagance: If the family did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with taxpayer funds.

Trips were printed in public records: helicopter travel 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 comfort of "the travel enthusiast".

A Life of Privilege

Furthermore the entitlement which required deference when he appeared in a space or the extreme awareness about his honorifics used on his correspondence in communication to his associates.

He avoided accountability while his mother, who inexplicably indulged him, was still surviving. The monarch did at least strip him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the consequence of his catastrophic and, it is now clear, untruthful television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

It was only in the last fortnight that events progressed rapidly, following the publication of biographical works giving more troubling information of his behavior and that of his connections.

Additional revelations have again highlighted Andrew's belief that he could avoid deceiving about his relationship with a notorious figure.

Society (and the journalists) were far ahead of the royals. There was nobody of any importance to support him, a consequence of all those years of hubris.

Monarchical Concerns

The more astute royals understood that. The key objective is to transfer the monarchy, if not as previously at least complete and unblemished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to reverse the image of past sovereigns, showing they are useful, dutiful and responsive to their people.

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

The Fallout

Finally, the notoriously hesitant monarch was prodded further. There was no alternative. The royal household had relinquished authority of the account.

Currently the stripping of honorifics and the continued and life-long social disgrace that will afflict Andrew most deeply.

• Downgrading: Reduced to just a commoner
• Historical Precedent: The first royal to forfeit his titles in contemporary era
• Military Service: Notably hurtful given his service in the conflict

He remains a royal advisor, theoretically able to substitute for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but not any of these will truly occur.

Coming Developments

Do individuals he encounters still show respect to him? Will they still slip up and call him Prince? Will they even say Mr,

Of course, he is not moving to a common area, but to the sovereign's vast estate at a royal residence.

There, he will be supplied by the king with one of the royal residences and given some form of financial support.

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

Outstanding Concerns

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

• Governmental Scrutiny: Could lawmakers seek further action
• Financial Investigation: Or examine the improper use of state resources
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his behavior

Maybe for the time being the institutional damage to the institution is contained. The statement from the palace was evidently that the revocation of honorifics was what the king, and particularly other senior monarchical figures, desired.

A Shift in Position

No more illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, significantly, the brief statement showed clearly that the monarchy were siding with the victim's version of events.

Additionally, for the initial instance they finally showed consideration for the affected individuals: "The measures are judged required, despite the truth that he continues to deny the allegations against him."

Ultimately it is arrogance, self-interest and inactivity that will destroy the monarchy. In his stupidity, self-gratification and greed, Andrew gives the impression never to have learned that truth.