🔗 Share this article

This episode commenced with a single photograph, perhaps the most significant ever taken of a member of the monarchy.

There stood the Baron Killyleagh, arm-in-arm a young woman, while another individual smiled knowingly in the rear.

Lacking that image, taken at a social event in 2001, it would have been difficult to accept the allegations of a adolescent who declared she was moved across the ocean and obliged to have perfunctory sexual encounters with a individual of the monarchy?

A curious, revealing move by someone who had openly stated to have no known about her, said he could not have had relations with her, and yet handed over millions of monarchical funds to settle a long-delayed court action.

A Long Period of Controversy

Considering this, talk of the monarchy acting swiftly to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This affair has persisted for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and another photo of Andrew strolling amiably with a notorious individual emerged.

• Hubris: How long did his siblings, perhaps even his mother and father, know that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Problematic Connections: They must have realized, if his aides and the police were fulfilling their roles, that he had some deeply disreputable associates given he publicly invited them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the family did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his overspending with public money.

Travel were documented in royal annual reports: private aircraft flights from the palace to a golf course and back again in time for lunch, chartered planes instead of scheduled services, all for the benefit of "the frequent flyer".

A Life of Privilege

Furthermore the presumption which required deference when he walked into a space or the extreme obsession about his honorifics used on his correspondence in letters to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his mother, who strangely indulged him, was still surviving. The monarch did at least strip him of public duties and ceremonial ranks in the consequence of his catastrophic and, we now know, mendacious public statement six years ago.

Current Situation

Just in the last two weeks that events accelerated, following the publication of biographical works giving more troubling details of his behavior and that of his companions.

Additional revelations have again highlighted Andrew's assumption that he could get away with deceiving about his relationship with a convicted criminal.

The public (and the media) were far in advance of the monarchy. There was nobody of any importance to support him, a consequence of all those years of presumption.

Institutional Fears

The wiser royals recognized that. The one imperative is to transfer the monarchy, if not as previously at least intact and untarnished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to overcome the reputation of earlier rulers, demonstrating they are useful, dutiful and reactive to their subjects.

He was placing all that in danger in an time when deference and discretion is no longer enough.

Aftermath

Finally, the famously uncertain king was pushed additional. There was no other option. The institution had surrendered command of the narrative.

Currently the removal of honorifics and the continued and life-long public humiliation that will afflict Andrew most severely.

• Demotion: Demoted to just a private citizen
• Historical Precedent: The primary member to surrender his titles in modern times
• Armed Forces: Especially hurtful given his duty in the conflict

He continues to be a counsellor of state, theoretically able to act for the monarch, and he is still eighth in line to the monarchy, but neither of these will actually happen.

Coming Developments

Can persons he meets still show respect to him? Might they still make mistakes and call him Sir? Might they say Sir,

Naturally, he is not moving to suburbia, but to the sovereign's large estate at a royal residence.

There, he will be provided by the sovereign with one of the estate properties and given some type of private allowance.

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

Pending Matters

The situation continues. There are still records in the possession of American legislators to be revealed.

• Parliamentary Interest: Might legislators seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or investigate the misuse of taxpayer funds
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a criminal probe into his actions

Perhaps for the time being the reputational impact to the monarchy is restricted. The message from the palace was evidently that the removal of honorifics was what the king, and especially other senior family members, desired.

Altered Approach

An end to pretence that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, remarkably, the brief announcement showed plainly that the royals were siding with the victim's narrative of events.

Furthermore, for the initial instance they eventually showed concern for the survivors: "These actions are considered essential, notwithstanding the reality that he maintains his innocence of the claims against him."

Finally it is entitlement, self-seeking and inactivity that will undermine the institution. In his foolishness, self-indulgence and venality, Andrew appears never to have grasped that reality.