Foolishness and Regal Arrogance Ruined Andrew, and It Could Continue Yet

The saga started with a isolated photograph, arguably the most impactful ever snapped of a member of the monarchy.

Present was the Baron Killyleagh, standing closely beside a female youth, while an associate grinned suggestively in the rear.

Lacking that snapshot, shot at a social event in 2001, few would have credited the claims of a adolescent who declared she was trafficked across the sea and compelled to have cursory intimate contact with a member of the monarchy?

A curious, telling gesture by someone who had publicly asserted to have not heard of her, asserted he could never have had sex with her, and yet paid millions of monarchical funds to settle a drawn-out court action.

A Long Period of Disgrace

Considering this, conversations of the royals acting decisively to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This affair has continued for the better part of 15 years since that image, and an additional image of Andrew ambling congenially with a disgraced financier surfaced.

• Hubris: To what extent did his brothers and sisters, perhaps even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Problematic Connections: They must have understood, if his aides and the authorities were performing their duties, that he had some extremely unsavory friends given he publicly invited them to palaces.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the monarchy did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his extravagance with taxpayer funds.

Journeys were documented in royal annual reports: helicopter transfers from the palace to a golf course and back again in time for midday meal, private flights instead of commercial flights, all for the convenience of "the travel enthusiast".

A Life of Privilege

Furthermore the arrogance which required deference when he entered a space or the supreme consciousness about his royal titles used on his letterheads in communication to his friends.

He managed to escape consequences while his mother, who unaccountably indulged him, was still alive. The sovereign did at least strip him of official roles and honorary colonelcies in the consequence of his ill-fated and, as revealed, deceptive public statement six years ago.

Recent Developments

Just in the last 14 days that events sped up, following the issuance of accounts giving more disturbing details of his behavior and that of his associates.

Additional revelations have again highlighted Andrew's thinking that he could get away with being untruthful about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

Society (and the media) were far more perceptive of the monarchy. There was not a single person of any significance to support him, a consequence of all those years of hubris.

Monarchical Concerns

The more intelligent family members recognized that. The one imperative is to hand down the monarchy, if not as previously at least intact and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to reverse the reputation of earlier rulers, showing they are useful, responsible and attentive to their citizens.

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

The Fallout

Eventually, the notoriously uncertain king was pushed further. There was no other option. The institution had lost control of the account.

Now it is the removal of designations and the continued and permanent social disgrace that will hurt Andrew the most.

• Demotion: Lowered to just a commoner
• Past Example: The initial royal to surrender his honorifics in recent history
• Naval Career: Notably painful given his service in the engagement

He continues to be a constitutional officer, on paper able to substitute for the monarch, and he is still in the succession to the monarchy, but not any of these will ever occur.

Future Prospects

Can persons he encounters still acknowledge him? Might they still slip up and call him Your Highness? Might they say Andrew,

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

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

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

Pending Matters

The situation continues. There are still records in the possession of overseas authorities to be revealed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will legislators seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or examine the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his behavior

Possibly for the present the reputational impact to the monarchy is contained. The message from the institution was evidently that the revocation of honorifics was what the sovereign, and especially other senior monarchical figures, desired.

Changed Stance

An end to illusion that Andrew was acting willingly. And, remarkably, the brief announcement showed evidently that the institution were supporting the complainant's account of events.

Additionally, for the first time they ultimately showed regard for the survivors: "The measures are considered essential, regardless of the reality that he maintains his innocence of the claims against him."

In the end it is presumption, selfishness and indolence that will undermine the monarchy. In his folly, self-gratification and greed, Andrew appears never to have grasped that lesson.