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It all began with a single photograph, possibly the most consequential ever snapped of a individual from the royal household.

Present was the Baron Killyleagh, arm-in-arm a teenage girl, while another individual grinned conspiratorially in the rear.

Without that image, taken at a gathering in 2001, who would have believed the assertions of a young woman who said she was moved across the ocean and obliged to have brief sexual encounters with a individual of the royal bloodline?

A curious, revealing action by someone who had openly claimed to have no been aware of her, asserted he could not have had relations with her, and yet handed over a large amount of monarchical resources to avert a long-delayed lawsuit.

Years of Scandal

In this context, conversations of the royals acting decisively to distance themselves from Andrew are wide of the mark. This affair has continued for the largest portion of 15 years since that photograph, and a further image of Andrew ambling pleasantly with a disgraced financier surfaced.

• Arrogance: How long did his family members, perhaps even his mother and father, know that Andrew was so presumptuous?
• Questionable Associations: They must have realized, if his aides and the police were doing their jobs, that he had some deeply disreputable associates given he publicly invited them to palaces.
• Monetary Excess: If the monarchy did not know about his intimate behaviors, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with state resources.

Travel were documented in royal annual reports: helicopter transfers from the palace to a sporting venue and back again in time for midday meal, exclusive air travel instead of scheduled services, all for the benefit of "Airmiles Andy".

Existence of Entitlement

Furthermore the presumption which demanded deference when he appeared in a space or the extreme awareness about his royal titles used on his official documents in letters to his personal acquaintances.

He could get away with it while his matriarch, who strangely spoiled him, was still alive. The sovereign did at least strip him of official roles and ceremonial ranks in the wake of his catastrophic and, we now know, deceptive television interview six years ago.

Recent Developments

Merely in the last two weeks that events sped up, following the publication of books giving more disturbing details of his behavior and that of his companions.

Additional revelations have again exposed Andrew's assumption that he could get away with lying about his relationship with a disgraced individual.

People (and the press) were far ahead of the monarchy. There was nobody of any significance to support him, a consequence of all those years of arrogance.

Institutional Fears

The more astute family members recognized that. The one imperative is to transfer the monarchy, if not as before at least intact and untarnished.

Over time the last 190 years trying to reverse the image of earlier rulers, proving they are beneficial, accountable and reactive to their citizens.

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

Aftermath

Eventually, the famously indecisive monarch was pressured more. There was little choice. The palace had relinquished authority of the account.

Currently the stripping of designations and the ongoing and lifetime personal shame that will hurt Andrew most deeply.

• Downgrading: Lowered to just Mr Mountbatten-Windsor
• Past Example: The first royal to forfeit his honorifics in modern times
• Naval Career: Especially painful given his service in the Falklands war

He is still a royal advisor, theoretically able to substitute for the monarch, and he is still in the lineage to the throne, but none of these will truly occur.

Coming Developments

Do individuals he meets still show respect to him? Will they still slip up and call him Sir? Would they say Sir,

Certainly, he is not moving to a common area, but to the sovereign's large grounds at a monarchical property.

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

This differs from his former home, where he paid a token rent for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit far, but even so it may not be sufficiently removed.

Pending Matters

This is not over. There are still records in the hands of American legislators to be made public.

• Political Pressure: Could legislators demand more
• Fiscal Review: Or examine the waste of public money
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a criminal probe into his conduct

Maybe for the moment the harm to the monarchy to the monarchy is contained. The narrative from the palace was evidently that the removal of honorifics was what the sovereign, and notably other senior royals, wanted.

Changed Stance

No more pretence that Andrew was doing it voluntarily. And, notably, the brief communication showed evidently that the royals were supporting the complainant's version of occurrences.

Even more, for the premiere occasion they eventually showed consideration for the survivors: "The measures are considered essential, regardless of the reality that he maintains his innocence of the claims against him."

In the end it is arrogance, selfishness and indolence that will undermine the crown. In his foolishness, self-gratification and corruption, Andrew gives the impression never to have understood that reality.