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This episode commenced with a single photograph, arguably the most consequential ever captured of a member of the monarchy.

There stood the Earl of Inverness, with his arm around a teenage girl, while an associate smiled conspiratorially in the background.

Absent that image, captured at a social event in 2001, who would have believed the allegations of a adolescent who said she was trafficked across the sea and obliged to have brief intimate contact with a member of the monarchy?

A curious, telling gesture by someone who had openly asserted to have never known about her, claimed he could never have had relations with her, and yet paid a large amount of family money to settle a protracted court action.

Years of Controversy

Against this backdrop, discussions of the monarchy acting decisively to cut Andrew off are misguided. This scandal has continued for the better part of 15 years since that image, and a further photo of Andrew strolling congenially with a notorious individual surfaced.

• Hubris: To what extent did his brothers and sisters, possibly even his mother and father, realize that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Questionable Associations: They must have known, if his staff and the law enforcement were performing their duties, that he had some deeply disreputable friends given he publicly welcomed them to palaces.
• Fiscal Irresponsibility: If the household did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his extravagance with taxpayer funds.

Journeys were printed in public records: helicopter transfers from the palace to a sporting venue and back again in time for midday meal, exclusive air travel instead of regular transport, all for the convenience of "Airmiles Andy".

A Life of Privilege

Then there was the presumption which required deference when he appeared in a room or the profound obsession about his designations used on his correspondence in messages to his friends.

He could get away with it while his parent, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still alive. The Queen did at least remove him of public duties and ceremonial ranks in the aftermath of his ill-fated and, we now know, untruthful public statement six years ago.

Recent Developments

Just in the last fortnight that events progressed rapidly, following the issuance of accounts giving more grim information of his conduct and that of his companions.

Further disclosures have again exposed Andrew's belief that he could avoid being untruthful about his contact with a notorious figure.

Society (and the journalists) were far in advance of the royals. There was no one of any significance to support him, a outcome of all those years of presumption.

Royal Worries

The more intelligent family members recognized that. The primary concern is to hand down the monarchy, if not as heretofore at least intact and unblemished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to undo the legacy of earlier rulers, proving they are useful, accountable and attentive to their people.

He was placing all that in peril in an time when respect and discretion is no longer adequate.

Consequences

Finally, the well-known indecisive sovereign was prodded more. There was no alternative. The palace had lost control of the narrative.

Presently the removal of honorifics and the ongoing and life-long social disgrace that will afflict Andrew most severely.

• Reduction: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The primary royal to surrender his honorifics in contemporary era
• Naval Career: Notably painful given his service in the Falklands war

He continues to be a counsellor of state, in principle able to act for the sovereign, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but neither of these will ever come to pass.

Future Prospects

Can persons he encounters still defer to him? Could they still slip up and call him Prince? Will they even say Sir,

Certainly, he is not moving to a common area, but to the monarchy's large property at a royal residence.

At that location, he will be supplied by the monarch with one of the grace and favour houses and given some type of personal stipend.

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

Outstanding Concerns

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

• Political Pressure: Might lawmakers seek further action
• Fiscal Review: Or examine the waste of state resources
• Legal Possibility: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his behavior

Perhaps for the time being the institutional damage to the monarchy is contained. The message from the institution was plainly that the revocation of honorifics was what the sovereign, and particularly other senior monarchical figures, desired.

Changed Stance

The cessation of pretence that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, remarkably, the brief announcement showed evidently that the institution were supporting the accuser's narrative of occurrences.

Additionally, for the first time they ultimately showed regard for the affected individuals: "These actions are deemed necessary, regardless of the truth that he continues to deny the claims against him."

In the end it is presumption, self-interest and inactivity that will kill the crown. In his stupidity, personal excess and corruption, Andrew appears never to have understood that reality.