Foolishness and Regal Arrogance Ruined Andrew, and It May Not Be Over Yet

The saga started with a isolated photograph, arguably the most significant ever captured of a royal family member.

There stood the Duke of York, arm-in-arm a teenage girl, while a companion beamed conspiratorially in the backdrop.

Absent that snapshot, taken at a party in 2001, who would have believed the claims of a teenager who said she was moved across the sea and compelled to have brief intimate contact with a prince of the royal bloodline?

A strange, telling move by someone who had publicly stated to have never heard of her, asserted he could no have had sex with her, and yet provided a substantial sum of family resources to resolve a protracted legal case.

A Long Period of Scandal

Against this backdrop, discussions of the royals acting swiftly to cut Andrew off are wide of the mark. This scandal has endured for the largest portion of 15 years since that image, and another snapshot of Andrew walking amiably with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Hubris: To what extent did his brothers and sisters, maybe even his mother and father, understand that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Problematic Connections: They must have known, if his employees and the law enforcement were doing their jobs, that he had some deeply disreputable friends given he unabashedly welcomed them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the family did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his overspending with state resources.

Journeys were printed in official documents: private aircraft travel from the royal residence to a sporting venue and back again in time for midday meal, chartered planes instead of scheduled services, all for the convenience of "the frequent flyer".

World of Deference

Additionally the arrogance which expected respect when he appeared in a area or the profound awareness about his honorifics used on his letterheads in communication to his personal acquaintances.

He avoided accountability while his parent, who strangely pampered him, was still living. The sovereign did at least strip him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the aftermath of his disastrous and, we now know, deceptive television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

Just in the last two weeks that events sped up, following the release of books giving more grim information of his actions and that of his connections.

More information have again revealed Andrew's assumption that he could get away with being untruthful about his contact with a notorious figure.

Society (and the journalists) were far in advance of the royal family. There was nobody of any significance to support him, a result of all those years of hubris.

Royal Worries

The wiser family members understood that. The key objective is to pass on the institution, if not as previously at least whole and unblemished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to overcome the image of earlier rulers, showing they are useful, responsible and attentive to their people.

He was placing all that in danger in an age when respect and discretion is no longer adequate.

Aftermath

Ultimately, the notoriously hesitant king was prodded further. There was little choice. The institution had lost control of the story.

Currently the stripping of titles and the continued and life-long personal shame that will hurt Andrew most severely.

• Reduction: Demoted to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Past Example: The first monarch to forfeit his titles in contemporary era
• Armed Forces: Notably painful given his role in the conflict

He continues to be a constitutional officer, theoretically able to substitute for the king, and he is still eighth in line to the monarchy, but not any of these will actually occur.

Future Prospects

Will people he meets still show respect to him? Will they still slip up and call him Your Highness? Will they even say Andrew,

Of course, he is not retiring to a common area, but to the sovereign's vast grounds at a royal residence.

At that location, he will be provided by the monarch with one of the estate properties and given some type of private allowance.

It is not his previous residence, where he paid a token payment for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit distant, but even so it may not be far enough.

Unresolved Issues

This is not over. There are still documents in the hands of American legislators to be revealed.

• Political Pressure: Could parliament demand more
• Fiscal Review: Or investigate the waste of taxpayer funds
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a police investigation into his actions

Possibly for the time being the reputational impact to the institution is contained. The statement from the royal household was plainly that the removal of designations was what the monarch, and particularly other senior monarchical figures, desired.

A Shift in Position

No more pretence that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, notably, the concise announcement showed clearly that the monarchy were supporting the accuser's version of events.

Furthermore, for the premiere occasion they ultimately showed concern for the affected individuals: "The measures are deemed necessary, despite the fact that he maintains his innocence of the accusations against him."

In the end it is arrogance, self-interest and indolence that will destroy the crown. In his stupidity, self-indulgence and venality, Andrew seems never to have understood that reality.