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This episode commenced with a single photograph, arguably the most impactful ever captured of a individual from the royal household.

Present was the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a young woman, while an associate grinned conspiratorially in the backdrop.

Lacking that photograph, captured at a social event in 2001, few would have credited the allegations of a teenager who declared she was moved across the ocean and compelled to have perfunctory relations with a individual of the royal family?

A curious, revealing move by someone who had openly claimed to have never heard of her, said he could never have had sex with her, and yet handed over a substantial sum of family funds to settle a protracted lawsuit.

Over a Decade of Disgrace

Against this backdrop, talk of the royal family acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This scandal has continued for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and a further snapshot of Andrew walking congenially with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his siblings, possibly even his mother and father, realize that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have realized, if his aides and the police were fulfilling their roles, that he had some deeply disreputable friends given he unabashedly hosted them to palaces.
• Monetary Excess: If the family did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with state resources.

Journeys were printed in public records: chopper flights from the royal residence to a golf course and back again in time for dining, exclusive air travel instead of scheduled services, all for the benefit of "the travel enthusiast".

World of Deference

Furthermore the arrogance which demanded respect when he appeared in a space or the supreme obsession about his honorifics used on his letterheads in messages to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his mother, who strangely pampered him, was still living. The sovereign did at least revoke him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the consequence of his disastrous and, we now know, mendacious public statement six years ago.

Current Situation

Just in the last two weeks that events sped up, following the publication of books giving more grim particulars of his actions and that of his connections.

Additional revelations have again revealed Andrew's thinking that he could escape lying about his contact with a notorious figure.

The public (and the press) were far more perceptive of the monarchy. There was nobody of any significance to speak up for him, a result of all those years of arrogance.

Monarchical Concerns

The more intelligent monarchical figures understood that. The primary concern is to transfer the crown, if not as heretofore at least intact and unblemished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the image of previous monarchs, showing they are valuable, accountable and attentive to their people.

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

Aftermath

Eventually, the well-known indecisive king was pushed further. There was little choice. The institution had lost control of the narrative.

Now it is the loss of honorifics and the persistent and life-long social disgrace that will hurt Andrew most severely.

• Reduction: Lowered to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Past Example: The initial royal to lose his titles in contemporary era
• Armed Forces: Notably painful given his role in the conflict

He remains a counsellor of state, on paper able to substitute for the monarch, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but not any of these will truly occur.

Coming Developments

Do individuals he encounters still defer to him? Might they still forget themselves and call him Sir? Would they say Sir,

Of course, he is not withdrawing to a common area, but to the monarchy's extensive grounds at a monarchical property.

There, he will be furnished by the sovereign with one of the estate properties and given some sort of financial support.

This is not his previous residence, where he paid a token lease for more than 20 years, and Norfolk is a bit remote, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Unresolved Issues

Matters remain unresolved. There are still records in the hands of overseas authorities to be disclosed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Might parliament seek further action
• Monetary Probe: Or investigate the waste of public money
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a criminal probe into his behavior

Perhaps for the present the reputational impact to the monarchy is limited. The statement from the palace was plainly that the revocation of honorifics was what the sovereign, and notably other senior monarchical figures, wanted.

Changed Stance

An end to deception that Andrew was acting willingly. And, remarkably, the brief announcement showed plainly that the institution were aligning with the victim's narrative of occurrences.

Furthermore, for the premiere occasion they eventually showed concern for the survivors: "The measures are judged required, despite the truth that he persists in refuting the claims against him."

Ultimately it is entitlement, selfishness and laziness that will kill the monarchy. In his folly, self-gratification and greed, Andrew seems never to have learned that truth.