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The saga started with a isolated photograph, possibly the most impactful ever taken of a individual from the royal household.

In the frame appeared the Earl of Inverness, standing closely beside a teenage girl, while an associate grinned conspiratorially in the rear.

Without that snapshot, shot at a gathering in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a adolescent who declared she was trafficked across the ocean and obliged to have cursory relations with a member of the royal bloodline?

A strange, telling move by someone who had openly asserted to have not known about her, asserted he could no have had relations with her, and yet handed over a large amount of his mother's money to resolve a long-delayed legal case.

A Long Period of Scandal

Against this backdrop, conversations of the royal family acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are inaccurate. This scandal has endured for the largest portion of 15 years since that image, and an additional photo of Andrew ambling congenially with a convicted sex offender emerged.

• Self-importance: How long did his siblings, maybe even his relatives, know that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Questionable Associations: They must have understood, if his staff and the authorities were doing their jobs, that he had some highly questionable companions given he unabashedly hosted them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the family did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his extravagance with public money.

Trips were listed in royal annual reports: chopper transfers from the estate to a golf course and back again in time for lunch, exclusive air travel instead of regular transport, all for the benefit of "Airmiles Andy".

A Life of Privilege

Then there was the arrogance which required respect when he entered a area or the extreme awareness about his honorifics used on his correspondence in communication to his associates.

He could get away with it while his mother, who unaccountably pampered him, was still alive. The Queen did at least revoke him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the wake of his ill-fated and, it is now clear, mendacious television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

It was only in the last two weeks that events sped up, following the publication of accounts giving more grim details of his actions and that of his companions.

Additional revelations have again highlighted Andrew's belief that he could get away with deceiving about his contact with a disgraced individual.

The public (and the media) were far more perceptive of the monarchy. There was not a single person of any importance to support him, a consequence of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

The more astute royals realized that. The primary concern is to transfer the crown, if not as heretofore at least whole and unstained.

Over time the last 190 years trying to overcome the image of past sovereigns, demonstrating they are useful, responsible and responsive to their people.

Andrew was putting all that in danger in an age when submission and privacy is no longer adequate.

Aftermath

Finally, the notoriously indecisive king was pressured more. There was little choice. The palace had surrendered command of the account.

Currently the removal of designations and the ongoing and lifetime social disgrace that will afflict Andrew the most.

• Demotion: Lowered to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Prior Instance: The initial monarch to surrender his honorifics in modern times
• Naval Career: Notably painful given his duty in the engagement

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

Future Prospects

Will people he comes across still defer to him? Could they still forget themselves and call him Your Highness? Will they even say Mr,

Certainly, he is not retiring to an ordinary town, but to the sovereign's vast property at Sandringham.

There, he will be furnished by the sovereign with one of the royal residences and given some type of private allowance.

This differs from his former home, where he paid a token payment for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit distant, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Unresolved Issues

The situation continues. There are still files in the possession of American legislators to be made public.

• Parliamentary Interest: Will legislators seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or investigate the misuse of state resources
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his conduct

Possibly for the present the institutional damage to the crown is restricted. The narrative from the institution was evidently that the revocation of titles was what the monarch, and notably other senior monarchical figures, desired.

Changed Stance

The cessation of deception that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, remarkably, the brief communication showed evidently that the institution were siding with the victim's narrative of incidents.

Furthermore, for the initial instance they finally showed concern for the affected individuals: "The censures are deemed necessary, regardless of the truth that he continues to deny the allegations against him."

Ultimately it is presumption, self-interest and inactivity that will kill the institution. In his folly, self-gratification and venality, Andrew gives the impression never to have understood that lesson.