We all knew that King Charles and his family were fraught, but the claims that emerge – about how wealthy he is – are mind-boggling. The huge sums he amassed when Prince of Wales, after raking in the huge revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall, made him multi-millionaire many times over.
As always in the case of royals, it was very difficult to determine what represents his private wealth and what happened to him just because he is the son and heir of Elizabeth II.
Now a new calculation suggests the King is personally worth at least £1.8 billion. That’s what his “personal” wealth could be tomorrow if Britain became a republic.
The research, published by the staunchly Republican newspaper The Guardian, catalogs — trump after brilliant trump — some of the sources of this fortune.
A fleet of Rolls-Royces, Bentleys and Jaguars ‘conservatively’ worth £6.3 million – including a 1950 Rolls-Royce Phantom worth £2.5 million.
A new calculation suggests that the king is personally worth at least £1.8 billion. That’s what his “personal” wealth could be tomorrow if Britain became a republic
Property worth around £330m, including £250m for the Sandringham estate in Norfolk – which contains hundreds of rental properties and other nifty money generators – as well as around £80m for Balmoral.
A stamp collection, the best in the world, worth £100 million. Racehorses: At least £27 million even after Charles sells off some of his late dams.
We never see paintings by Monet, Salvador Dali, Marc Chagall, Lucian Freud, LS Lowry and countless others – many millions more.
Some 54 dazzling jewels: yours for maybe £533 million. Investments of a further £142m or so, although as with all of the paper’s calculations, the actual figures could – and very likely will be – much higher.
Some monarchists might reply: And then? We all know that kings and queens live very different lives than the rest of us. They have inherited palaces and castles, which are full of treasures, and all this is not their fault.
In Charles’s case, his admirers will add, he is an extremely crowd-pleasing royal. His charitable efforts have done more good, for more deserving causes, than much of the money we pay in taxes.
Such admirers will want to say, look at the young lives changed by the Prince’s Trust, which Charles founded and for which he worked tirelessly throughout his adult life.
Think of the Royal Drawing School, which has helped generations of young people learn traditional drawing skills. Think Dumfries House in Ayrshire, bought by Charles to avoid becoming a golf course for the super rich, and now providing employment and inspiration for the local community.
There has been great difficulty in determining what represents Charles’s private wealth and what happened to him just because he is the son and heir of Elizabeth II.
Yes, this is all true.
But the revelation of his private wealth – as opposed to the money he has raised for his charitable work – provokes a different set of reactions and raises a very difficult set of questions.
It was Queen Victoria who amassed the wealth in which her descendants now wallow.
You might think: ‘Happy them!’ But if, as I do, you value the monarchy as an institution, you should think again.
The monarchs and their families are only so wealthy because the eldest member of their family is the head of state.
Now, of course, the king does not claim personal ownership of Buckingham Palace, or Windsor Castle, or all the priceless works of art they contain.
He does not claim to own the Crown Jewels, even though he owns many other jewels.
But the money he got from the Duchy of Cornwall – every penny of which he kept as his private income – only came to him because he was the Queen’s eldest son.
As king, he is also Duke of Lancaster, and the money he receives from that dukedom – rent and other property – is enormous. Again, it comes to him for his personal use just because he is head of state.
If the country ever decided to become a republic, could the royal family really claim that all the wealth that came out of the duchies was their personal, ‘private’ income, much like your own savings, based on money you earned or maybe inherited, are yours?
Against the protests of her politicians, Queen Victoria refused to cede the income from the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster. Since then, her heirs and successors have been allowed to blur the line between private and public assets.
Sometimes this blur is very unsavory.
Thirty or more years ago I had a conversation with someone who had recently become an ambassador. There was a royal visit to the country where he was posted and the Queen and Prince Philip stayed in his embassy for three days.
On their departure, the ambassador received an invoice with a declaration of ‘expenses’. This was for a pretty ridiculous amount of clothes – ten suits for the prince, ten hats and outfits for the queen, that sort of thing.
As king, Charles is also Duke of Lancaster, and the money he receives from that dukedom – rent and other property – is enormous
When I asked a long-time State Department employee, my ambassador friend was told, “They always do this when they stay in a foreign embassy. The ‘costs’ are paid by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and do not appear in any end-of-year audit as income that has fallen into the lap of the royal family.’
When I heard this story, monarchist as I am, I felt a strong urge to change my mind and become a republican.
We all revered the late queen and admired her robust, peppery husband. But what was described was pure greed – it was the kind of behavior we journalists sometimes joke about when our employers pay us ‘expenses’.
At the moment, the country is looking forward to the coronation. We continue to cherish the memory of the late Queen. And most of us want to give the new king the benefit of the doubt.
But as the unfortunate stories of Prince Andrew or Harry and Meghan show us, the royal family won’t always be popular. It only takes a few disasters – a marriage breakup here, an ill-advised TV interview there – for the Windsors’ reputation to plummet.
And that’s when it really matters – if you want the monarchy to survive – that the royal family doesn’t come across as pretty greedy in the eyes of the public.
In an ideal world, the king or his successors would hardly own anything anyway.
Becoming king would be like becoming pope – a life of luxury, but the institution, not the individual, owns the goods.
Perhaps they live in beautiful palaces surrounded by famous works of art. Maybe they ride around in golden chariots. But – because they are not like the rest of us – the houses and palaces they inhabit would not also be their personal property. Instead, they would belong to the nation.
That ideal world largely does not exist. The king inherited Balmoral and Sandringham as his private property, along with so much more.
We do not live in a communist state and given that the king has legally inherited this huge fortune, most of us taxpayers would not really want his personal belongings confiscated.
But there’s no reason why our head of state should be a multi-billionaire. It’s not part of the deal to be a monarchist.
Charles has often been extravagant, scorning his mother’s frugal ways: her Tupperware cornflakes, her one-bar electric fires. But anyone who wants him to rule us for a long time thinks he should also be sensitive to the feelings of a British people in need of money.
“Optics” – how public figures are perceived – is vital to their survival. The king can’t help but be immensely wealthy.
But he would do well to consider changing the privileged status he enjoys with the Tax and Customs Administration.
He alone, in all his realm, is exempt from paying the inheritance tax, the rest have no choice but to surrender.
If he offered to do so now – or even if he offered to pay some of the inheritance tax on his mother’s monumental fortune, the details of which remain secret – he would not only enhance his personal reputation, but also that of the Crown.