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This episode commenced with a isolated photograph, perhaps the most consequential ever snapped of a royal family member.

There stood the Baron Killyleagh, with his arm around a female youth, while an associate smiled conspiratorially in the background.

Lacking that photograph, captured at a social event in 2001, few would have credited the allegations of a teenager who declared she was transported across the Atlantic and forced to have brief intimate contact with a member of the monarchy?

A curious, revealing gesture by someone who had openly claimed to have never known about her, asserted he could never have had intimate contact with her, and yet paid millions of family funds to resolve a drawn-out legal case.

Over a Decade of Controversy

In this context, talk of the royals acting decisively to sever ties with Andrew are misguided. This affair has continued for the better part of 15 years since that picture, and an additional image of Andrew ambling amiably with a disgraced financier came to light.

• Hubris: For what duration did his family members, perhaps even his relatives, realize that Andrew was so arrogant?
• Problematic Connections: They must have realized, if his employees and the police were fulfilling their roles, that he had some extremely unsavory associates given he openly invited them to palaces.
• Monetary Excess: If the monarchy did not know about his personal conduct, they certainly knew about his extravagance with taxpayer funds.

Journeys were documented in public records: helicopter travel from the palace to a golf course and back again in time for midday meal, chartered planes instead of commercial flights, all for the convenience of "the frequent flyer".

A Life of Privilege

Additionally the entitlement which demanded respect when he entered a area or the profound consciousness about his designations used on his correspondence in letters to his personal acquaintances.

He managed to escape consequences while his mother, who unaccountably spoiled him, was still surviving. The sovereign did at least revoke him of public duties and honorary colonelcies in the wake of his ill-fated and, we now know, deceptive television interview six years ago.

Latest Events

Just in the last fortnight that events sped up, following the release of accounts giving more grim particulars of his conduct and that of his associates.

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

People (and the media) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was not a single person of any significance to speak up for him, a outcome of all those years of arrogance.

Institutional Fears

The more intelligent family members realized that. The one imperative is to pass on the crown, if not as previously at least complete and unstained.

Over time the last 190 years trying to reverse the reputation of earlier rulers, proving they are valuable, dutiful and reactive to their subjects.

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

The Fallout

Eventually, the notoriously hesitant king was prodded additional. There was little choice. The institution had lost control of the narrative.

Presently the removal of honorifics and the persistent and life-long public humiliation that will pain Andrew most deeply.

• Demotion: Demoted to just a private citizen
• Historical Precedent: The initial royal to surrender his titles in recent history
• Military Service: Especially painful given his service in the conflict

He continues to be a royal advisor, on paper able to stand in for the king, and he is still in the lineage to the crown, but none of these will ever come to pass.

Coming Developments

Can persons he meets still acknowledge him? Could they still make mistakes and call him Sir? Will they even say Andrew,

Naturally, he is not withdrawing to an ordinary town, but to the monarchy's large grounds at Sandringham.

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

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

Pending Matters

The situation continues. There are still documents in the hands of American legislators to be disclosed.

• Political Pressure: Might parliament demand more
• Financial Investigation: Or scrutinize the improper use of taxpayer funds
• Criminal Investigation: There may even be a police investigation into his actions

Possibly for the time being the reputational impact to the monarchy is restricted. The message from the palace was plainly that the revocation of titles was what the king, and especially other senior royals, desired.

Altered Approach

No more deception that Andrew was making the choice himself. And, notably, the concise announcement showed evidently that the monarchy were supporting the accuser's account of incidents.

Furthermore, for the first time they ultimately showed consideration for the survivors: "The measures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the reality that he maintains his innocence of the accusations against him."

In the end it is entitlement, self-interest and laziness that will kill the crown. In his folly, personal excess and venality, Andrew gives the impression never to have learned that truth.