De-royalled Andrew's arrogance undid him, and it may not be over

Indulged by his mother and ignored by his siblings, the disgraced former prince's behaviour typifies that which could kill off the monarchy

- Stephen Bates

It started with a simple photograph, probably the most consequential ever taken of a member of the royal family.

There was Prince Andrew, Duke of York, Earl of Inverness, Baron Killyleagh and Knight of the Garter, with his arm around a young woman, while Ghislaine Maxwell stood wolfishly grinning in the background.

Without that snap, taken at a party at Maxwell's London mews home in 2001, who would have believed Virginia Giuffre when she said she had been trafficked across the Atlantic as a teenager and obliged to have perfunctory sex with a prince of the blood royal? As it was, the story could not be convincingly denied, however much friends of Andrew tried to suggest the picture was a fake. Or that Andrew would seek to blacken her name later by instructing his royal protection officer to seek out derogatory details about her, even providing her birth date and social security number, which can only have come from the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein or his minions?

An odd gesture by someone who had publicly pretended to have never heard of her, said he could never have had sex with her and yet paid her £12m ($16m) of his mother's money to fend off a long prevaricated lawsuit.

In this context, talk of the royals acting decisively to cut Andrew off are wide of the mark. This scandal has gone on for 15 years since that photograph, and another of Andrew walking amiably in Central Park with Epstein, came to light. Arguably it was longer still: how long ago did his siblings, perhaps even his parents, know that Andrew was so self-entitled?

They must have realised, if his staff and the police were doing their jobs, that he had some deeply disreputable friends given he invited them to Buckingham Palace, or Balmoral, or even Royal Lodge, another of his perks.