Stupidity and Monarchical Hubris Ruined Andrew, and It Might Persist Yet

The saga started with a single photograph, perhaps the most significant ever taken of a member of the monarchy.

Present was the Baron Killyleagh, with his arm around a teenage girl, while another individual smiled knowingly in the rear.

Without that image, shot at a social event in 2001, few would have credited the allegations of a teenager who stated she was moved across the Atlantic and obliged to have brief sexual encounters with a member of the royal family?

A strange, indicative move by someone who had publicly claimed to have no heard of her, asserted he could no have had relations with her, and yet handed over millions of monarchical resources to avert a long-delayed legal case.

Over a Decade of Scandal

Considering this, conversations of the royal family acting swiftly to cut Andrew off are misguided. This affair has persisted for the majority of 15 years since that photograph, and another photo of Andrew ambling congenially with a notorious individual emerged.

• Arrogance: How long did his siblings, possibly even his parents, understand that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his aides and the police were fulfilling their roles, that he had some highly questionable associates given he openly welcomed them to estates.
• Financial Extravagance: If the family did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his overspending with state resources.

Trips were printed in royal annual reports: chopper flights from the royal residence to a country club and back again in time for dining, chartered planes instead of regular transport, all for the convenience of "the travel enthusiast".

World of Deference

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

He managed to escape consequences while his parent, who strangely pampered him, was still living. The Queen did at least revoke him of royal responsibilities and ceremonial ranks in the wake of his ill-fated and, we now know, untruthful media appearance six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last two weeks that events progressed rapidly, following the issuance of accounts giving more troubling details of his behavior and that of his connections.

Further disclosures have again revealed Andrew's assumption that he could escape lying about his interaction with a notorious figure.

Society (and the media) were far more perceptive of the royals. There was no one of any importance to speak up for him, a consequence of all those years of arrogance.

Royal Worries

The more astute royals realized that. The one imperative is to pass on the institution, if not as heretofore at least intact and untarnished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to undo the legacy of earlier rulers, proving they are valuable, dutiful and reactive to their subjects.

Andrew was putting all that in peril in an age when submission and discretion is no longer sufficient.

Aftermath

Eventually, the well-known indecisive sovereign was pushed more. There was no alternative. The palace had relinquished authority of the account.

Presently the removal of honorifics and the continued and lifetime public humiliation that will hurt Andrew most severely.

• Reduction: Lowered to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Prior Instance: The first royal to lose his titles in recent history
• Military Service: Especially stinging given his service in the Falklands war

He is still a constitutional officer, theoretically able to stand in for the king, and he is still in the succession to the crown, but neither of these will actually happen.

Future Prospects

Can persons he comes across still show respect to him? Will they still forget themselves and call him Your Highness? Will they even say Sir,

Of course, he is not retiring to suburbia, but to the royal family's extensive grounds at Sandringham.

There, he will be provided by the king with one of the grace and favour houses and given some type of private allowance.

This differs from his former home, where he paid a minimal lease for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit far, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Unresolved Issues

Matters remain unresolved. There are still files in the hands of American legislators to be disclosed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Could lawmakers request additional information
• Monetary Probe: Or examine the misuse of state resources
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a criminal probe into his behavior

Perhaps for the time being the harm to the monarchy to the institution is limited. The statement from the royal household was plainly that the stripping of honorifics was what the king, and especially other senior monarchical figures, sought.

Altered Approach

The cessation of pretence that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, significantly, the concise announcement showed plainly that the royals were supporting the complainant's narrative of occurrences.

Additionally, for the premiere occasion they eventually showed concern for the victims: "The censures are considered essential, regardless of the fact that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

In the end it is presumption, self-interest and inactivity that will kill the institution. In his stupidity, self-gratification and venality, Andrew appears never to have grasped that lesson.