Stupidity and Regal Arrogance Sunk Andrew, and It Could Continue Yet

It all began with a solitary photograph, perhaps the most impactful ever snapped of a royal family member.

There stood the Duke of York, with his arm around a teenage girl, while another individual beamed knowingly in the backdrop.

Without that snapshot, taken at a party in 2001, few would have credited the claims of a young woman who declared she was transported across the ocean and forced to have brief relations with a prince of the royal family?

A strange, indicative action by someone who had openly stated to have not heard of her, asserted he could never have had sex with her, and yet provided millions of his mother's funds to avert a long-delayed legal case.

Years of Scandal

Considering this, talk of the monarchy acting firmly to cut Andrew off are misguided. This affair has continued for the majority of 15 years since that picture, and another photo of Andrew ambling pleasantly with a disgraced financier surfaced.

• Self-importance: For what duration did his family members, perhaps even his parents, know that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Questionable Associations: They must have realized, if his aides and the law enforcement were fulfilling their roles, that he had some extremely unsavory friends given he openly invited them to estates.
• Financial Extravagance: If the household did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his overspending with taxpayer funds.

Travel were documented in public records: helicopter transfers from the estate to a sporting venue and back again in time for lunch, private flights instead of commercial flights, all for the comfort of "Airmiles Andy".

A Life of Privilege

Then there was the entitlement which expected respect when he appeared in a room or the extreme consciousness about his royal titles used on his correspondence in messages to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his mother, who unaccountably pampered him, was still surviving. The Queen did at least strip him of public duties and military positions in the consequence of his disastrous and, it is now clear, untruthful media appearance six years ago.

Latest Events

Merely in the last 14 days that events accelerated, following the issuance of biographical works giving more disturbing particulars of his behavior and that of his connections.

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

The public (and the journalists) were far more perceptive of the monarchy. There was no one of any importance to speak up for him, a result of all those years of arrogance.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent monarchical figures recognized that. The one imperative 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 earlier rulers, showing they are valuable, accountable and attentive to their people.

Andrew was putting all that in peril in an time when deference and privacy is no longer adequate.

Aftermath

Ultimately, the notoriously uncertain monarch was pushed further. There was no other option. The royal household had lost control of the account.

Currently the loss of designations and the ongoing and permanent personal shame that will pain Andrew the most.

• Demotion: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Historical Precedent: The first royal to lose his designations in contemporary era
• Naval Career: Especially hurtful given his service in the Falklands war

He remains a royal advisor, theoretically able to stand in for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the monarchy, but not any of these will truly occur.

What Lies Ahead

Can persons he comes across still acknowledge him? Might they still forget themselves and call him Sir? Would they say Mr,

Naturally, he is not withdrawing to an ordinary town, but to the royal family's extensive estate at a monarchical property.

At that location, he will be furnished by the monarch with one of the royal residences and given some type of financial support.

This is not his prior accommodation, where he paid a token rent for more than 20 years, and the county is a bit distant, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Unresolved Issues

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

• Governmental Scrutiny: Will parliament request additional information
• Financial Investigation: Or scrutinize the misuse of public money
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a police investigation into his actions

Perhaps for the moment the institutional damage to the crown is restricted. The statement from the institution was plainly that the stripping of honorifics was what the monarch, and especially other senior monarchical figures, wanted.

A Shift in Position

The cessation of illusion that Andrew was acting willingly. And, significantly, the short statement showed clearly that the royals were supporting the accuser's narrative of occurrences.

Additionally, for the initial instance they ultimately showed consideration for the affected individuals: "These actions are judged required, notwithstanding the reality that he continues to deny the allegations against him."

Ultimately it is presumption, selfishness and laziness that will undermine the monarchy. In his stupidity, self-gratification and greed, Andrew appears never to have grasped that reality.