Folly and Regal Arrogance Damaged Andrew, and It Might Persist Yet

This episode commenced with a single photograph, perhaps the most significant ever snapped of a individual from the royal household.

In the frame appeared the Duke of York, with his arm around a teenage girl, while a companion smiled suggestively in the background.

Without that photograph, captured at a party in 2001, few would have credited the allegations of a young woman who said she was moved across the sea and compelled to have perfunctory sexual encounters with a member of the royal family?

A strange, telling action by someone who had openly claimed to have never heard of her, said he could not have had relations with her, and yet provided millions of family funds to settle a long-delayed legal case.

Years of Controversy

In this context, talk of the monarchy acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are misguided. This scandal has continued for the majority of 15 years since that image, and an additional image of Andrew ambling amiably with a notorious individual came to light.

• Self-importance: How long did his siblings, perhaps even his mother and father, know that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Questionable Associations: They must have understood, if his employees and the authorities were performing their duties, that he had some deeply disreputable associates given he publicly welcomed them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the monarchy did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his overspending with public money.

Travel were documented in royal annual reports: private aircraft flights from the royal residence to a golf course and back again in time for lunch, private flights instead of scheduled services, all for the convenience of "the travel enthusiast".

World of Deference

Additionally the arrogance which demanded subservience when he entered a room or the extreme awareness about his honorifics used on his official documents in messages to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his matriarch, who unaccountably indulged him, was still alive. The monarch did at least strip him of royal responsibilities and military positions in the consequence of his disastrous and, as revealed, untruthful media appearance six years ago.

Recent Developments

It was only in the last two weeks that events sped up, following the release of books giving more grim particulars of his actions and that of his associates.

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

People (and the press) were far in advance of the royal family. There was not a single person of any importance to defend him, a outcome of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

The more astute family members recognized that. The key objective is to transfer the institution, if not as previously at least intact and untarnished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the reputation of earlier rulers, proving they are useful, accountable and attentive to their people.

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

Aftermath

Finally, the well-known uncertain king was pressured additional. There was no alternative. The palace had lost control of the account.

Now it is the loss of honorifics and the continued and lifetime personal shame that will afflict Andrew most deeply.

• Downgrading: Lowered to just a private citizen
• Past Example: The primary monarch to lose his designations in recent history
• Armed Forces: Particularly hurtful given his duty in the conflict

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

Future Prospects

Can persons he comes across still show respect to him? Could they still forget themselves and call him Sir? Might they say Andrew,

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

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

It is not his former home, where he paid a minimal lease for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit remote, but even so it may not be far enough.

Pending Matters

The situation continues. There are still documents in the custody of American legislators to be revealed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Could legislators seek further action
• Monetary Probe: Or examine the misuse of public money
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a police investigation into his actions

Possibly for the moment the harm to the monarchy to the monarchy is contained. The message from the palace was plainly that the revocation of titles was what the sovereign, and notably other senior royals, sought.

Altered Approach

No more pretence that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, notably, the brief communication showed evidently that the royals were supporting the accuser's version of events.

Even more, for the initial instance they ultimately showed regard for the survivors: "These actions are considered essential, regardless of the reality that he persists in refuting the allegations against him."

Finally it is arrogance, self-seeking and laziness that will kill the monarchy. In his folly, self-gratification and venality, Andrew gives the impression never to have grasped that lesson.