Foolishness and Regal Arrogance Damaged Andrew, and It Could Continue Yet

The saga started with a solitary photograph, possibly the most significant ever captured of a individual from the royal household.

Present was the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a young woman, while a companion grinned suggestively in the backdrop.

Lacking that snapshot, captured at a social event in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the claims of a young woman who declared she was transported across the Atlantic and obliged to have brief intimate contact with a member of the royal family?

An odd, indicative gesture by someone who had overtly asserted to have no been aware of her, claimed he could no have had sex with her, and yet handed over a substantial sum of family resources to avert a protracted lawsuit.

Over a Decade of Disgrace

Against this backdrop, discussions of the royals acting decisively to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This controversy has endured for the largest portion of 15 years since that picture, and a further snapshot of Andrew walking pleasantly with a disgraced financier emerged.

• Arrogance: How long did his brothers and sisters, perhaps even his relatives, realize that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Problematic Connections: They must have known, if his employees and the authorities were doing their jobs, that he had some highly questionable friends given he unabashedly welcomed them to palaces.
• Financial Extravagance: If the family did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his extravagance with state resources.

Journeys were printed in public records: private aircraft travel from the palace to a sporting venue and back again in time for lunch, exclusive air travel instead of regular transport, all for the convenience of "the frequent flyer".

A Life of Privilege

Additionally the entitlement which required subservience when he appeared in a space or the supreme awareness about his honorifics used on his letterheads in messages to his friends.

He managed to escape consequences while his mother, who unaccountably pampered him, was still living. The Queen did at least strip him of royal responsibilities and honorary colonelcies in the wake of his disastrous and, it is now clear, mendacious public statement six years ago.

Recent Developments

It was only in the last fortnight that events accelerated, following the issuance of books giving more troubling information of his conduct and that of his connections.

Further disclosures have again highlighted Andrew's assumption that he could escape lying about his interaction with a convicted criminal.

The public (and the media) were far in advance of the monarchy. There was no one of any consequence to speak up for him, a result of all those years of hubris.

Royal Worries

The more astute monarchical figures recognized that. The primary concern is to pass on the monarchy, if not as before at least complete and unblemished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to overcome the reputation of previous monarchs, showing they are valuable, dutiful and reactive to their subjects.

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

Aftermath

Eventually, the well-known indecisive king was pressured more. There was no alternative. The palace had relinquished authority of the account.

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

• Downgrading: Lowered to just a private citizen
• Historical Precedent: The first monarch to forfeit his honorifics in contemporary era
• Armed Forces: Especially hurtful given his duty in the Falklands war

He remains a counsellor of state, in principle able to stand in for the sovereign, and he is still eighth in line to the throne, but not any of these will actually come to pass.

Coming Developments

Do individuals he meets still defer to him? Will they still slip up and call him Your Highness? Would they say Andrew,

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

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

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

Pending Matters

The situation continues. There are still documents in the possession of US Congress to be revealed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Might legislators seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or scrutinize the misuse of state resources
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a police investigation into his behavior

Possibly for the present the reputational impact to the institution is limited. The narrative from the palace was evidently that the stripping of designations was what the king, and especially other senior family members, sought.

A Shift in Position

No more illusion that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, remarkably, the brief statement showed clearly that the monarchy were supporting the complainant's account of occurrences.

Additionally, for the premiere occasion they finally showed concern for the victims: "The censures are judged required, notwithstanding the reality that he persists in refuting the claims against him."

Ultimately it is presumption, selfishness and inactivity that will undermine the monarchy. In his foolishness, self-gratification and venality, Andrew appears never to have grasped that lesson.