🔗 Share this article

It all began with a solitary photograph, arguably the most impactful ever captured of a individual from the royal household.

There stood the Baron Killyleagh, arm-in-arm a teenage girl, while another individual smiled conspiratorially in the background.

Absent that snapshot, captured at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the claims of a teenager who declared she was moved across the ocean and forced to have cursory sexual encounters with a member of the monarchy?

A strange, telling move by someone who had openly claimed to have never known about her, asserted he could never have had relations with her, and yet provided a large amount of family resources to resolve a drawn-out legal case.

A Long Period of Disgrace

In this context, talk of the monarchy acting firmly to sever ties with Andrew are misguided. This affair has persisted for the majority of 15 years since that photograph, and a further image of Andrew walking congenially with a notorious individual came to light.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his siblings, possibly even his parents, know that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his staff and the authorities were fulfilling their roles, that he had some highly questionable friends given he openly invited them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the household did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with public money.

Journeys were printed in public records: private aircraft flights from the estate to a country club and back again in time for lunch, exclusive air travel instead of scheduled services, all for the benefit of "Airmiles Andy".

A Life of Privilege

Additionally the presumption which required deference when he entered a space or the extreme awareness about his designations used on his letterheads in messages to his associates.

He could get away with it while his parent, who inexplicably pampered him, was still alive. The sovereign did at least revoke him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the consequence of his disastrous and, it is now clear, deceptive public statement six years ago.

Recent Developments

Merely in the last two weeks that events accelerated, following the publication of books giving more troubling details of his conduct and that of his connections.

Further disclosures have again highlighted Andrew's belief that he could avoid lying about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

The public (and the press) were far ahead of the monarchy. There was not a single person of any consequence to defend him, a result of all those years of hubris.

Royal Worries

The wiser royals understood that. The key objective is to pass on the crown, if not as previously at least intact and untarnished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to overcome the legacy of previous monarchs, proving they are valuable, responsible and attentive to their subjects.

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

The Fallout

Finally, the notoriously indecisive sovereign was prodded additional. There was no other option. The royal household had surrendered command of the story.

Now it is the loss of honorifics and the ongoing and permanent social disgrace that will pain Andrew most deeply.

• Demotion: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Historical Precedent: The primary member to surrender his designations in modern times
• Armed Forces: Particularly stinging given his duty in the Falklands war

He remains a royal advisor, on paper able to stand in for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but neither of these will ever happen.

Future Prospects

Will people he encounters still defer to him? Will they still slip up and call him Your Highness? Would they say Sir,

Naturally, he is not withdrawing to a common area, but to the sovereign's vast grounds at a royal residence.

At that location, he will be provided by the king with one of the grace and favour houses and given some type of financial support.

It is not his former home, where he paid a token lease for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit remote, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Outstanding Concerns

Matters remain unresolved. There are still documents in the hands of US Congress to be made public.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Could legislators demand more
• Fiscal Review: Or scrutinize the misuse of state resources
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his actions

Perhaps for the time being the harm to the monarchy to the monarchy is restricted. The narrative from the palace was clearly that the removal of honorifics was what the king, and particularly other senior monarchical figures, sought.

A Shift in Position

No more deception that Andrew was acting willingly. And, notably, the short communication showed plainly that the monarchy were supporting the victim's narrative of events.

Additionally, for the first time they ultimately showed regard for the survivors: "The measures are considered essential, notwithstanding the fact that he maintains his innocence of the accusations against him."

Finally it is entitlement, self-interest and inactivity that will kill the monarchy. In his foolishness, self-gratification and greed, Andrew seems never to have grasped that reality.