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The saga started with a solitary photograph, possibly the most significant ever taken of a member of the monarchy.

Present was the Baron Killyleagh, arm-in-arm a young woman, while an associate grinned suggestively in the background.

Lacking that snapshot, captured at a party in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a adolescent who stated she was moved across the ocean and compelled to have brief sexual encounters with a prince of the royal bloodline?

A curious, indicative action by someone who had publicly asserted to have no heard of her, claimed he could never have had intimate contact with her, and yet paid millions of monarchical funds to avert a protracted court action.

Years of Controversy

Considering this, discussions of the royals acting firmly to sever ties with Andrew are wide of the mark. This affair has continued for the largest portion of 15 years since that photograph, and another photo of Andrew walking congenially with a convicted sex offender came to light.

• Hubris: To what extent did his brothers and sisters, perhaps even his relatives, realize that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have understood, if his aides and the authorities were fulfilling their roles, that he had some highly questionable companions given he unabashedly hosted them to royal residences.
• Financial Extravagance: If the monarchy did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

Journeys were documented in royal annual reports: helicopter travel from the palace to a country club and back again in time for lunch, private flights instead of regular transport, all for the comfort of "Airmiles Andy".

Existence of Entitlement

Additionally the presumption which demanded deference when he entered a space or the supreme obsession about his designations used on his letterheads in communication to his associates.

He avoided accountability while his mother, who strangely pampered him, was still living. The Queen did at least strip him of public duties and military positions in the aftermath of his catastrophic and, we now know, deceptive media appearance six years ago.

Current Situation

Just in the last fortnight that events progressed rapidly, following the issuance of accounts giving more troubling information of his conduct and that of his associates.

More information have again revealed Andrew's assumption that he could avoid deceiving about his interaction with a notorious figure.

The public (and the journalists) were far more perceptive of the royals. There was not a single person of any importance to defend him, a consequence of all those years of arrogance.

Monarchical Concerns

The more intelligent monarchical figures understood that. The key objective is to pass on the monarchy, if not as heretofore at least whole and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the image of earlier rulers, showing they are useful, responsible and reactive to their people.

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

Aftermath

Finally, the famously hesitant sovereign was pressured more. There was little choice. The institution had relinquished authority of the story.

Presently the loss of titles and the persistent and lifetime personal shame that will pain Andrew most deeply.

• Downgrading: Reduced to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Prior Instance: The first royal to forfeit his honorifics in contemporary era
• Naval Career: Especially stinging given his role in the conflict

He is still a royal advisor, in principle able to substitute for the sovereign, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but none of these will actually come to pass.

Future Prospects

Will people he comes across still defer to him? Will they still forget themselves and call him Sir? Will they even say Andrew,

Certainly, he is not retiring to a common area, but to the sovereign's extensive property at a monarchical property.

At that location, he will be provided by the king with one of the grace and favour houses and given some sort of personal stipend.

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

Outstanding Concerns

This is not over. There are still records in the possession of American legislators to be disclosed.

• Political Pressure: Will legislators demand more
• Fiscal Review: Or examine the waste of state resources
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a criminal probe into his behavior

Perhaps for the present the institutional damage to the monarchy is contained. The message from the palace was evidently that the revocation of designations was what the monarch, and particularly other senior monarchical figures, sought.

Changed Stance

No more deception that Andrew was acting willingly. And, significantly, the short announcement showed evidently that the institution were siding with the complainant's account of events.

Even more, for the first time they ultimately showed consideration for the affected individuals: "The measures are deemed necessary, regardless of the reality that he persists in refuting the allegations against him."

In the end it is arrogance, selfishness and indolence that will destroy the crown. In his stupidity, self-indulgence and greed, Andrew seems never to have understood that truth.