The Cost of the Crown, The File That Nails King Charles III: The Blurs of the Monarchy

Now a month after the coronation of Charles III, while the British newspapers devote pages and pages to the event which, in May, will bring the country to a standstill for three days, there is also a counter-narrative of the event. This is done by the Guardian, a progressive newspaper always well-informed, which decided to highlight aspects that Buckingham Palace tends to hide in order to report less on the royal family. It’s called “The Cost of the Crown” and it’s a massive dossier that looks through different insights into different aspects, starting with the family’s sources of income and private wealth, aspects that the palace tends to keep carefully secret. How much money will the coronation of King Charles III cost the United Kingdom? What rate of tax will our new monarch pay on his own income? How many business engagements have “working members” of the family such as the Dukes of Gloucester and Kent (cousins ​​of the King, ed.) attended in the five years How much do they pay? How much do Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, daughters of Prince Andrew, who do not work for the company, pay for their stays at the royal palaces?” In recent weeks, The Guardian has been asking Buckingham Palace all these questions. The answers were cold: “Ask someone else,” “Fix it yourself,” or simply “You have no right to know.”

“We beg to differ,” continues the newspaper, which then insists: “When Queen Elizabeth II died, everyone praised the quiet manner in which she administered the kingdom, or her alleged lack of interference in British politics. No one mentioned another hallmark of his reign: the veil of secrecy , giving rise to a way of thinking whereby the British people are denied basic information about the monarchy.To date, The Guardian has discovered, among other things, that Elizabeth II and Charles III have amassed more than £1.2 billion from two hereditary estates, the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall In the year 2022 Elizabeth II and Charles received £21 million each from the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall respectively, although it is by no means certain (there is an old debate about it…) that the incomes of the two estates were. It does not actually belong to the country. Empire also has large investment portfolios, but Charles pays no taxes on them.

money which clearly adds to the millions the king and his family receive annually as public funding in exchange for their official obligations. In fact, the King receives about £86 million annually from the state coffers. And he could theoretically claim an extra £250m, still taxpayers’ money, as David Cameron generously decided when he was prime minister in 2011. The King decided he didn’t want that extra money. Another hot topic is the monarchy’s relationship to slavery. Then there is the story of Kensington Palace, where many royalty have lived. Diana lived with her two children in the building in the heart of London. but it is now the residence in the city of, among others, the Prince and Princess of Wales: well, its history is uncomfortably intertwined with the subject of the relation between monarchy and slavery. Over the course of nearly three centuries, 12 British monarchs have claimed, if not, the benefits of Britain’s involvement in slavery. Finally, perhaps the wisest subject, that of the precious treasures looted from India and ended up in the royal collections: needless to say there is the legendary sapphire and a gold belt set with 19 emeralds, used by the Marajahs of Lahore. A series of troubles for the king.