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

The saga started with a single photograph, arguably the most consequential ever captured of a individual from the royal household.

Present was the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a teenage girl, while a companion beamed suggestively in the rear.

Absent that image, shot at a party in 2001, who would have believed the claims of a adolescent who stated she was transported across the ocean and compelled to have brief relations with a individual of the monarchy?

A curious, revealing gesture by someone who had openly stated to have no heard of her, said he could not have had sex with her, and yet provided a large amount of family money to resolve a long-delayed lawsuit.

Over a Decade of Controversy

Against this backdrop, conversations of the royals acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This affair has continued for the majority of 15 years since that photograph, and an additional photo of Andrew ambling congenially with a disgraced financier came to light.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his siblings, perhaps even his parents, understand that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Questionable Associations: They must have understood, if his aides and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable companions given he publicly welcomed them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the family did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with public money.

Travel were printed in royal annual reports: chopper flights from the estate to a golf course and back again in time for dining, private flights instead of scheduled services, all for the benefit of "the frequent flyer".

World of Deference

Then there was the entitlement which expected deference when he entered a area or the extreme consciousness about his honorifics used on his official documents in letters to his associates.

He could get away with it while his matriarch, who unaccountably indulged him, was still surviving. The sovereign did at least revoke him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the aftermath of his ill-fated and, it is now clear, mendacious public statement six years ago.

Current Situation

Just in the last two weeks that events accelerated, following the publication of books giving more troubling details of his conduct and that of his associates.

More information have again highlighted Andrew's assumption that he could get away with being untruthful about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

The public (and the press) were far in advance of the royals. There was nobody of any consequence to support him, a result of all those years of arrogance.

Monarchical Concerns

The more intelligent royals realized that. The primary concern is to transfer the crown, if not as heretofore at least whole and untarnished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to reverse the image of past sovereigns, showing they are useful, responsible and attentive to their citizens.

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

Consequences

Finally, the well-known indecisive king was pushed more. There was little choice. The palace had surrendered command of the story.

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

• Reduction: Lowered to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The initial monarch to surrender his honorifics in recent history
• Armed Forces: Especially hurtful given his service in the engagement

He continues to be a counsellor of state, in principle able to stand in for the monarch, and he is still eighth in line to the crown, but none of these will ever occur.

What Lies Ahead

Will people he comes across still defer to him? Will they still make mistakes and call him Your Highness? Would they say Sir,

Naturally, he is not withdrawing to a common area, but to the royal family's large grounds at Sandringham.

There, he will be supplied by the sovereign with one of the estate properties and given some type of personal stipend.

This differs from his prior accommodation, where he paid a nominal lease for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit distant, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Pending Matters

The situation continues. There are still files in the hands of US Congress to be revealed.

• Political Pressure: Will parliament demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or examine the improper use of state resources
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a police investigation into his conduct

Possibly for the time being the harm to the monarchy to the crown is restricted. The message from the palace was plainly that the removal of titles was what the king, and especially other senior royals, sought.

Changed Stance

An end to illusion that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, significantly, the concise announcement showed plainly that the institution were aligning with the victim's version of occurrences.

Furthermore, for the first time they finally showed regard for the victims: "The censures are deemed necessary, despite the fact that he maintains his innocence of the claims against him."

Ultimately it is presumption, self-interest and laziness that will kill the monarchy. In his foolishness, personal excess and corruption, Andrew gives the impression never to have grasped that reality.