Stupidity and Monarchical Hubris Sunk Andrew, and It Could Continue Yet

This episode commenced with a isolated photograph, possibly the most consequential ever captured of a individual from the royal household.

There stood the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a female youth, while another individual smiled conspiratorially in the backdrop.

Absent that image, shot at a gathering in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a young woman who stated she was transported across the Atlantic and compelled to have brief intimate contact with a individual of the royal bloodline?

A curious, indicative move by someone who had publicly claimed to have not heard of her, claimed he could no have had relations with her, and yet paid millions of his mother's money to resolve a protracted legal case.

Over a Decade of Controversy

In this context, discussions of the royal family acting decisively to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This affair has endured for the majority of 15 years since that image, and an additional photo of Andrew ambling amiably with a convicted sex offender emerged.

• Hubris: How long did his family members, possibly even his parents, understand that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Problematic Connections: They must have known, if his aides and the police were performing their duties, that he had some highly questionable associates given he publicly welcomed them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the monarchy did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with public money.

Journeys were documented in public records: helicopter transfers from the royal residence to a country club and back again in time for lunch, chartered planes instead of commercial flights, all for the benefit of "Airmiles Andy".

Existence of Entitlement

Furthermore the entitlement which expected subservience when he walked into a room or the extreme obsession about his honorifics used on his letterheads in communication to his friends.

He avoided accountability while his mother, who inexplicably spoiled him, was still alive. The monarch did at least revoke him of royal responsibilities and military positions in the consequence of his disastrous and, it is now clear, untruthful television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last 14 days that events sped up, following the issuance of biographical works giving more disturbing particulars of his conduct and that of his connections.

More information have again exposed Andrew's assumption that he could escape lying about his interaction with a convicted criminal.

The public (and the journalists) were far ahead of the royal family. There was not a single person of any significance to support him, a consequence of all those years of arrogance.

Royal Worries

The more intelligent monarchical figures realized that. The one imperative is to hand down the crown, if not as previously at least whole and unblemished.

For generations the last 190 years trying to reverse the legacy of earlier rulers, showing they are valuable, accountable and attentive to their subjects.

Andrew was putting all that in danger in an time when deference and discretion is no longer adequate.

Consequences

Ultimately, the famously hesitant monarch was pressured additional. There was little choice. The institution had relinquished authority of the account.

Currently the stripping of titles and the ongoing and lifetime personal shame that will afflict Andrew most deeply.

• Downgrading: Demoted to just a commoner
• Prior Instance: The first royal to forfeit his titles in recent history
• Armed Forces: Notably stinging given his role in the conflict

He continues to be a royal advisor, theoretically able to stand in for the sovereign, and he is still in the lineage to the monarchy, but none of these will truly come to pass.

What Lies Ahead

Will people he comes across still defer to him? Will they still slip up and call him Your Highness? Will they even say Sir,

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

In that place, he will be supplied by the monarch with one of the grace and favour houses and given some type of personal stipend.

It is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a nominal payment for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit far, but even so it may not be far enough.

Outstanding Concerns

This is not over. There are still files in the custody of overseas authorities to be made public.

• Political Pressure: Could lawmakers request additional information
• Fiscal Review: Or examine the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a police investigation into his actions

Maybe for the time being the institutional damage to the institution is contained. The narrative from the institution was evidently that the revocation of titles was what the king, and notably other senior monarchical figures, wanted.

Changed Stance

An end to pretence that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, notably, the concise communication showed evidently that the institution were aligning with the accuser's narrative of occurrences.

Even more, for the initial instance they finally showed concern for the survivors: "The measures are judged required, despite the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him."

Finally it is entitlement, self-interest and inactivity that will undermine the monarchy. In his foolishness, personal excess and corruption, Andrew seems never to have grasped that lesson.