Foolishness and Royal Self-Entitlement Sunk Andrew, and It Might Persist Yet

The saga started with a isolated photograph, perhaps the most consequential ever taken of a royal family member.

There stood the Duke of York, arm-in-arm a female youth, while another individual smiled conspiratorially in the background.

Absent that photograph, taken at a party in 2001, few would have credited the assertions of a teenager who said she was transported across the ocean and compelled to have brief intimate contact with a individual of the royal family?

A strange, indicative move by someone who had openly stated to have not been aware of her, asserted he could not have had intimate contact with her, and yet paid a large amount of family funds to settle a protracted lawsuit.

A Long Period of Disgrace

Against this backdrop, conversations of the royal family acting firmly to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This scandal has continued for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and another image of Andrew walking congenially with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Self-importance: How long did his siblings, maybe even his relatives, understand that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Problematic Connections: They must have realized, if his employees and the authorities were doing their jobs, that he had some extremely unsavory friends given he openly invited them to palaces.
• Monetary Excess: If the monarchy did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with taxpayer funds.

Journeys were listed in public records: chopper flights from the royal residence to a sporting venue and back again in time for midday meal, exclusive air travel instead of commercial flights, all for the convenience of "the travel enthusiast".

A Life of Privilege

Additionally the entitlement which demanded subservience when he walked into a space or the extreme awareness about his honorifics used on his correspondence in communication to his friends.

He managed to escape consequences while his matriarch, who inexplicably pampered him, was still alive. The sovereign did at least revoke him of official roles and military positions in the consequence of his catastrophic and, as revealed, untruthful media appearance six years ago.

Recent Developments

Merely in the last fortnight that events progressed rapidly, following the release of accounts giving more grim information of his behavior and that of his companions.

Further disclosures have again exposed Andrew's thinking that he could escape being untruthful about his relationship with a convicted criminal.

Society (and the media) were far in advance of the monarchy. There was nobody of any significance to speak up for him, a consequence of all those years of hubris.

Royal Worries

The more intelligent monarchical figures recognized that. The primary concern is to hand down the crown, if not as previously at least intact and untarnished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to reverse the image of earlier rulers, proving they are beneficial, dutiful and responsive to their subjects.

His actions endangered all that in peril in an era when submission and secrecy is no longer enough.

Consequences

Ultimately, the notoriously indecisive sovereign was pressured additional. There was little choice. The institution had lost control of the story.

Presently the removal of designations and the persistent and lifetime social disgrace that will hurt Andrew most deeply.

• Downgrading: Demoted to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The first royal to lose his honorifics in modern times
• Naval Career: Especially stinging given his duty in the engagement

He is still a counsellor of state, on paper able to substitute for the sovereign, and he is still in the succession to the monarchy, but neither of these will ever happen.

Coming Developments

Will people he meets still show respect to him? Might they still slip up and call him Sir? Would they say Mr,

Certainly, he is not withdrawing to suburbia, but to the sovereign's extensive property at a monarchical property.

There, he will be provided by the monarch with one of the royal residences and given some sort of personal stipend.

It is not his former home, where he paid a nominal rent for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit distant, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Outstanding Concerns

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

• Governmental Scrutiny: Could parliament demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or investigate the misuse of state resources
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his actions

Perhaps for the present the harm to the monarchy to the monarchy is limited. The message from the palace was clearly that the revocation of designations was what the monarch, and especially other senior family members, desired.

Altered Approach

The cessation of illusion that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, significantly, the concise announcement showed clearly that the institution were siding with the complainant's narrative of events.

Furthermore, for the premiere occasion they ultimately showed concern for the affected individuals: "The censures are judged required, despite the truth that he continues to deny the accusations against him."

Ultimately it is presumption, self-interest and laziness that will destroy the crown. In his folly, personal excess and venality, Andrew appears never to have understood that truth.