Foolishness and Royal Self-Entitlement Sunk Andrew, and It Could Continue Yet

This episode commenced with a isolated photograph, arguably the most consequential ever captured of a member of the monarchy.

Present was the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a teenage girl, while an associate smiled suggestively in the background.

Absent that image, captured at a party in 2001, few would have credited the assertions of a adolescent who declared she was transported across the ocean and forced to have brief sexual encounters with a individual of the royal bloodline?

A curious, indicative action by someone who had openly stated to have never heard of her, asserted he could never have had sex with her, and yet handed over a substantial sum of his mother's resources to settle a drawn-out lawsuit.

Over a Decade of Controversy

Considering this, talk of the royals acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This scandal has persisted for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and a further image of Andrew walking amiably with a notorious individual surfaced.

• Hubris: For what duration did his brothers and sisters, possibly even his parents, realize that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have realized, if his aides and the law enforcement were fulfilling their roles, that he had some highly questionable friends given he publicly invited them to royal residences.
• Monetary Excess: If the family did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with taxpayer funds.

Journeys were printed in royal annual reports: private aircraft flights from the royal residence to a sporting venue and back again in time for midday meal, chartered planes instead of regular transport, all for the benefit of "Airmiles Andy".

A Life of Privilege

Then there was the arrogance which demanded respect when he walked into a area or the extreme obsession about his royal titles used on his letterheads in communication to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his mother, who inexplicably spoiled him, was still living. The monarch did at least strip him of public duties and military positions in the consequence of his catastrophic and, it is now clear, untruthful public statement six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last two weeks that events sped up, following the issuance of biographical works giving more troubling details of his actions and that of his connections.

Additional revelations have again highlighted Andrew's thinking that he could get away with lying about his interaction with a notorious figure.

People (and the press) were far ahead of the royal family. There was not a single person of any significance to support him, a outcome of all those years of arrogance.

Monarchical Concerns

The more astute monarchical figures realized that. The primary concern is to hand down the institution, if not as heretofore at least whole and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the legacy of previous monarchs, proving they are valuable, dutiful and responsive to their subjects.

His actions endangered all that in jeopardy in an age when deference and privacy is no longer sufficient.

Consequences

Ultimately, the notoriously hesitant sovereign was pressured additional. There was no alternative. The royal household had relinquished authority of the story.

Currently the stripping of designations and the ongoing and lifetime public humiliation that will pain Andrew the most.

• Reduction: Lowered to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The primary monarch to forfeit his honorifics in recent history
• Naval Career: Especially painful given his role in the Falklands war

He continues to be a royal advisor, theoretically able to stand in for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the monarchy, but neither of these will actually happen.

Coming Developments

Can persons he encounters still acknowledge him? Will they still slip up and call him Your Highness? Will they even say Sir,

Naturally, he is not retiring to suburbia, but to the monarchy's large grounds at a monarchical property.

At that location, he will be furnished by the sovereign with one of the estate properties and given some sort of private allowance.

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

Outstanding Concerns

This is not over. There are still documents in the possession of overseas authorities to be revealed.

• Political Pressure: Might lawmakers request additional information
• Financial Investigation: Or examine the misuse of public money
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a police investigation into his conduct

Maybe for the time being the harm to the monarchy to the monarchy is restricted. The message from the institution was plainly that the stripping of designations was what the king, and notably other senior family members, sought.

Changed Stance

No more illusion that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, significantly, the brief announcement showed evidently that the monarchy were aligning with the accuser's version of incidents.

Additionally, for the initial instance they eventually showed consideration for the affected individuals: "The censures are deemed necessary, regardless of the reality that he persists in refuting the claims against him."

In the end it is arrogance, self-interest and inactivity that will destroy the monarchy. In his foolishness, self-gratification and venality, Andrew gives the impression never to have understood that reality.