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

There stood the Duke of York, with his arm around a female youth, while an associate beamed suggestively in the backdrop.

Without that image, captured at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the allegations of a young woman who said she was moved across the Atlantic and compelled to have perfunctory relations with a member of the monarchy?

An odd, revealing move by someone who had openly claimed to have no been aware of her, claimed he could never have had sex with her, and yet handed over a large amount of monarchical resources to resolve a drawn-out court action.

Years of Controversy

Against this backdrop, discussions of the monarchy acting decisively to cut Andrew off are misguided. This affair has persisted for the better part of 15 years since that image, and a further image of Andrew strolling congenially with a convicted sex offender surfaced.

• Self-importance: How long did his siblings, maybe even his relatives, know that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have known, if his employees and the police were doing their jobs, that he had some highly questionable companions given he openly hosted them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the family did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with state resources.

Journeys were listed in official documents: private aircraft travel from the estate to a country club and back again in time for midday meal, exclusive air travel instead of commercial flights, all for the comfort of "the frequent flyer".

World of Deference

Then there was the presumption which required subservience when he entered a area or the extreme awareness about his honorifics used on his official documents in letters to his associates.

He managed to escape consequences while his mother, who strangely indulged him, was still alive. The Queen did at least revoke him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the aftermath of his disastrous and, as revealed, mendacious media appearance six years ago.

Current Situation

Merely in the last two weeks that events sped up, following the release of accounts giving more grim particulars of his actions and that of his companions.

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

Society (and the journalists) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was nobody of any significance to defend him, a result of all those years of presumption.

Royal Worries

The more astute monarchical figures recognized that. The primary concern is to pass on the monarchy, if not as before at least intact and unstained.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the image of past sovereigns, proving they are valuable, dutiful and responsive to their people.

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

Consequences

Eventually, the famously uncertain monarch was pushed more. There was no other option. The palace had lost control of the story.

Now it is the stripping of titles and the ongoing and life-long personal shame that will pain Andrew the most.

• Downgrading: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The initial member to forfeit his honorifics in contemporary era
• Armed Forces: Especially painful given his duty in the conflict

He remains a counsellor of state, in principle able to act for the sovereign, and he is still eighth in line to the throne, but none of these will actually occur.

Future Prospects

Will people he meets still acknowledge him? Might they still forget themselves and call him Prince? Would they say Mr,

Certainly, he is not withdrawing to a common area, but to the royal family's vast property at Sandringham.

At that location, he will be provided by the monarch with one of the grace and favour houses and given some form of personal stipend.

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

Pending Matters

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

• Governmental Scrutiny: Could legislators request additional information
• Financial Investigation: Or investigate the misuse of public money
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a criminal probe into his actions

Possibly for the time being the institutional damage to the institution is contained. The narrative from the palace was evidently that the revocation of honorifics was what the sovereign, and particularly other senior family members, desired.

Altered Approach

The cessation of pretence that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, notably, the concise announcement showed plainly that the royals were siding with the complainant's version of occurrences.

Additionally, for the premiere occasion they finally showed concern for the affected individuals: "These actions are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the reality that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

In the end it is presumption, selfishness and laziness that will destroy the institution. In his stupidity, self-indulgence and corruption, Andrew seems never to have understood that lesson.