(11 minute read)
I don’t get it.
Okay, right up front I’m not speaking ill of Queen Elizabeth II. My sarcastic title has no doubt offended someone somewhere. I just don’t get the purpose of a Constitutional Monarchy.
The English have a lot, and I mean a lot, of rules regarding the royals and how people are supposed to act around them; what is acceptable and what isn’t. For instance, First Lady Jill Biden wore a fascinator instead of a hat to the Queen’s funeral and people lost their shit. Seriously. The only reason that I knew what a fascinator was is that Shelley wore one to our vow renewal otherwise I would have just thought of it as a smaller hat. I read an entire article about one of the youngster royals wearing a navy-blue suit instead of a black one. It turned out that it was okay.
A real nail biter up until then.
Defunded
(Boring part)
I see people blaming the United Kingdom monarchs of today for all sorts of evil actions in the world during her reign. The monarchy has been around since 1066.[1] Or 925 for those claiming King Athelstan was the first.[2] The King or Queen hasn’t had any real power for a long time though. It all started in 1215 with the Magna Carta Libertatum where individuals got some rights.[3] King Charles I was beheaded in 1649 so obviously he wasn’t in charge. Technically the monarchy stopped existing then, not to be reconstituted until King Charles II came back and got even with a lot of people. (Kind of like what Trump wants to do if gets to be King again.) Then along came a Declaration of Rights, aka Bill of Rights, and the Act of Settlement of 1701. This is where the monarchy lost control of the military and state finances. It was game over when they lost control of other people’s money. Oh yes, they also added the rule that no Catholic would ever be the monarch. They have some real heartburn about Catholics.
So, since the early 1700s the monarchy lost what little remained of their power. Here’s what remains of their official “power.” The monarch opens and closes sessions of Parliament, meets weekly with the Prime Minister and advises government. These duties are ceremonial. Like when our Vice President accepts the vote of our Electoral College. That’s it.
Check please!
Rolling in dough
Money still brings power though. The royals still have plenty. Well, some of the royals. Harry and Meghan are struggling to make do with being multi-millionaires since they decided not to be working royals, an oxymoron if I ever saw one, and are no longer on the royal dole. By Working Royal I mean that they show up at events so people can treat them like, well, royalty. Working Royals also have expenses paid with tax dollars. Billionaires and millionaires always seem to want mo’ money!
Let’s put some values on a few things:[4]
- Buckingham Place is worth an estimated $4.9 billion dollars.
- Balmoral Castle, $140 million.
- Duchy of Cornwall (135,000 acres), now managed by Prince William, is valued at $1.3 billion and generated $26 million in 2021.
- Windsor Castle, $574 million.
Okay, I’m going to stop the list there. It goes on and on for quite a while. The Monarchy Firm holds $28 billion in assets.[5] You get the idea. There’s a mix of properties, jewels, paintings, horses, furniture, stamps, etc. that are also worth a crap ton of money, some of which is controlled by the state and some by the royal family.
There’s wealth, and there’s personal wealth. The Royals independently also have a lot of money.[6] The monarchy is exempt from estate taxes so the $500 million the queen had as a private citizen goes intact to King Charles III. He was already worth $400 million. So, King Charles III will soon be a billionaire in just his personal fortune. All their wealth isn’t tied up in property.
They aren’t cash poor.
I don’t get it.
I get the love affair people have with Queen Elizabeth II. She went through the war with them and had been with them for a long time as monarch, through good times and bad. Loved dogs. She demonstrated excellent qualities as a person. She helped shepherd people into a new age. It helped her popularity that she had to deal with a dysfunctional family. It made her seem all the more normal. She was like an anchor point for not just the monarchy but the British culture.
It seems to me that the royals are extremely well-compensated in their cosplaying roles of being a major tourist attraction. They have lots of really old buildings, neat ceremonies, cool uniforms and people with all sorts of different titles of nobility. They represent various charitable works. In other words they have a purpose that they have convinced a nation that they’re needed to fulfill but they aren’t really necessary.
They’re like tits on guys.
Commitment
Then there’s the British Commonwealth.[7] Where Queen Elizabeth was the Queen of Canada, King Charles III is now the King of Canada. I’m not even going to attempt to explain that one. It’s like countries belong to a really big club but don’t have to do anything other than hold the occasional meeting to talk about things. Well, Canada does get to say that they have a King now. They used to have a Queen. I don’t know if they have to change the pictures on their money now or not.
Now that Queen Elizabeth is gone, I’m not sure how many countries will want to bother with keeping up the charade that for some reason they still need to say that they have a Royal that comes and visits them occasionally. Well, they do get to have parades. People love a good parade.
Let’s get down to brass tacks.[8] King Charles III isn’t all that likeable or photogenic of a guy. He just seems to me to have a starchy attitude about things. Then there’s that whole deal with the pen scandal and not knowing what day it was.[9] (Honestly, I can relate to him on that.) But the main thing for me is that
The Queen didn’t leave the dogs to him.
[1] https://study.com/learn/lesson/british-monarchy-history-power.html
[2] https://royaltyfaqs.com/queens/does-the-queen-control-the-government/
[3] https://royaltyfaqs.com/british-royalty/how-did-the-british-monarchy-lose-its-power/
[4] https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/how-rich-is-the-british-royal-family/
[5] https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/how-much-money-does-british-royal-family-make
[6] https://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity/g25050804/royal-family-members-net-worth/
[7] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Commonwealth-association-of-states
[8] https://english-grammar-lessons.com/brass-tacks-meaning/
[9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Encm187scA