Stupidity and Regal Arrogance Damaged Andrew, and It May Not Be Over Yet

This episode commenced with a single photograph, perhaps the most significant ever snapped of a royal family member.

In the frame appeared the Baron Killyleagh, with his arm around a young woman, while a companion beamed suggestively in the background.

Lacking that image, captured at a party in 2001, who would have believed the assertions of a teenager who declared she was moved across the sea and compelled to have brief relations with a member of the royal bloodline?

A curious, telling gesture by someone who had overtly stated to have not heard of her, asserted he could never have had intimate contact with her, and yet paid millions of monarchical funds to avert a long-delayed legal case.

A Long Period of Disgrace

Against this backdrop, discussions of the royal family acting firmly to cut Andrew off are wide of the mark. This scandal has continued for the better part of 15 years since that image, and an additional photo of Andrew ambling congenially with a disgraced financier came to light.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his siblings, maybe even his parents, know that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Problematic Connections: They must have understood, if his staff and the law enforcement were doing their jobs, that he had some extremely unsavory companions given he unabashedly welcomed them to palaces.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the family did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his overspending with public money.

Trips were listed in royal annual reports: private aircraft travel from the estate to a sporting venue and back again in time for dining, exclusive air travel instead of commercial flights, all for the convenience of "Airmiles Andy".

Existence of Entitlement

Additionally the entitlement which expected deference when he entered a space or the extreme awareness about his designations used on his correspondence in messages to his associates.

He could get away with it while his matriarch, who inexplicably pampered him, was still living. The sovereign did at least revoke him of official roles and ceremonial ranks in the aftermath of his disastrous and, as revealed, untruthful television interview six years ago.

Recent Developments

Merely in the last 14 days that events accelerated, following the publication of accounts giving more grim particulars of his behavior and that of his associates.

Further disclosures have again exposed Andrew's belief that he could escape being untruthful about his contact with a notorious figure.

The public (and the journalists) were far more perceptive of the monarchy. There was nobody of any consequence to defend him, a consequence of all those years of presumption.

Monarchical Concerns

The wiser monarchical figures recognized that. The primary concern is to hand down the institution, if not as previously at least intact and unblemished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to overcome the legacy of past sovereigns, demonstrating they are useful, dutiful and attentive to their citizens.

He was placing all that in jeopardy in an era when deference and privacy is no longer sufficient.

Aftermath

Finally, the notoriously hesitant king was pressured more. There was little choice. The palace had lost control of the story.

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

• Reduction: Reduced to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Prior Instance: The primary monarch to lose his titles in modern times
• Military Service: Particularly stinging given his duty in the engagement

He is still a royal advisor, in principle able to stand in for the monarch, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but neither of these will truly come to pass.

Coming Developments

Can persons he comes across still defer to him? Could they still make mistakes and call him Sir? Would they say Sir,

Naturally, he is not moving to a common area, but to the royal family's extensive estate at a royal residence.

In that place, he will be furnished by the sovereign with one of the grace and favour houses and given some form of financial support.

It is not his previous residence, where he paid a token rent for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit distant, but even so it may not be adequate distance.

Outstanding Concerns

Matters remain unresolved. There are still records in the custody of US Congress to be disclosed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will lawmakers seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or investigate the improper use of state resources
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a police investigation into his conduct

Possibly for the present the reputational impact to the crown is limited. The narrative from the royal household was evidently that the revocation of titles was what the monarch, and especially other senior monarchical figures, sought.

A Shift in Position

No more illusion that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, significantly, the concise announcement showed evidently that the royals were siding with the victim's narrative of events.

Furthermore, for the premiere occasion they eventually showed regard for the survivors: "The censures are deemed necessary, despite the fact that he maintains his innocence of the allegations against him."

In the end it is presumption, self-seeking and laziness that will undermine the monarchy. In his foolishness, self-gratification and greed, Andrew gives the impression never to have understood that lesson.