Folly and Monarchical Hubris Sunk Andrew, and It Could Continue Yet

This episode commenced with a single photograph, possibly the most impactful ever taken of a member of the monarchy.

In the frame appeared the Baron Killyleagh, standing closely beside a young woman, while a companion beamed conspiratorially in the background.

Without that snapshot, captured at a social event in 2001, few would have credited the claims of a young woman who said she was moved across the ocean and obliged to have brief intimate contact with a member of the royal family?

An odd, revealing gesture by someone who had publicly stated to have no heard of her, asserted he could no have had sex with her, and yet paid millions of his mother's money to settle a long-delayed court action.

Years of Disgrace

Considering this, conversations of the monarchy acting firmly to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This scandal has continued for the better part of 15 years since that image, and another snapshot of Andrew walking pleasantly with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Hubris: How long did his brothers and sisters, possibly even his relatives, realize that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have realized, if his staff and the police were fulfilling their roles, that he had some extremely unsavory friends given he unabashedly invited them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the monarchy did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his overspending with state resources.

Travel were listed in royal annual reports: private aircraft 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 travel enthusiast".

Existence of Entitlement

Additionally the entitlement which demanded respect when he appeared in a room or the extreme obsession about his designations used on his correspondence in letters to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his mother, who strangely pampered him, was still alive. The sovereign did at least strip him of official roles and honorary colonelcies in the aftermath of his catastrophic and, we now know, deceptive media appearance six years ago.

Current Situation

Just in the last two weeks that events progressed rapidly, following the release of accounts giving more troubling information of his conduct and that of his connections.

Additional revelations have again exposed Andrew's assumption that he could avoid deceiving about his interaction with a disgraced individual.

Society (and the press) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was no one of any consequence to defend him, a outcome of all those years of arrogance.

Monarchical Concerns

The wiser family members recognized that. The primary concern is to transfer the institution, if not as previously at least intact and unblemished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to undo the image of past sovereigns, demonstrating they are useful, responsible and reactive to their citizens.

His actions endangered all that in peril in an age when submission and discretion is no longer adequate.

The Fallout

Ultimately, the well-known indecisive sovereign was pressured additional. There was little choice. The royal household had surrendered command of the account.

Now it is the stripping of titles and the persistent and permanent personal shame that will afflict Andrew most severely.

• Demotion: Reduced to just a commoner
• Past Example: The initial monarch to surrender his designations in recent history
• Armed Forces: Notably painful given his role in the conflict

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

What Lies Ahead

Will people he encounters still acknowledge him? Could they still slip up and call him Prince? Would they say Andrew,

Of course, he is not retiring to an ordinary town, but to the royal family's vast grounds at Sandringham.

In that place, he will be supplied by the king with one of the royal residences and given some sort of personal stipend.

This is not his former home, where he paid a token payment for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit distant, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Unresolved Issues

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

• Parliamentary Interest: Might legislators seek further action
• Monetary Probe: Or scrutinize the waste of state resources
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a police investigation into his actions

Maybe for the present the reputational impact to the institution is limited. The narrative from the institution was evidently that the revocation of titles was what the monarch, and especially other senior family members, desired.

Altered Approach

The cessation of pretence that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, remarkably, the concise communication showed plainly that the monarchy were supporting the victim's account of incidents.

Additionally, for the initial instance they finally showed regard for the victims: "These actions are judged required, notwithstanding the reality that he continues to deny the allegations against him."

Ultimately it is entitlement, self-interest and inactivity that will kill the monarchy. In his stupidity, self-indulgence and venality, Andrew seems never to have grasped that truth.