The Monarchy under Charles

[AuroraB]

Originally Posted by PrinceOfCanada

Actually, the only members of the family that receive Civil List payments free and clear are HM, HRH Prince Philip, and HRH Prince Charles. The others do receive payment for official duties, but HM repays it out of the Privy Purse.

Close, only HM and HRH Prince Philip are receipients on the Civil List. POW's income is from the Duchy of Cornwall.

[PrinceOfCanada]

Originally Posted by AuroraB

Close, only HM and HRH Prince Philip are receipients on the Civil List. POW's income is from the Duchy of Cornwall.

I know he has that personal income, but my understanding is that his official duties are covered by the Civil List and Grants-in-Aid.

[Elspeth]

Originally Posted by PrinceOfCanada

FINALLY! Someone else who understands that the Monarchy costs the citizens of the UK precisely nothing. In fact, it is HM who is giving her inherited revenues (Crown Estate, not the Duchy of Lancaster) to run her government!

I think you'll find that a lot of the regular posters here understand about the Crown Estate. It's when you get out into the real world where people don't know and often don't care about the Crown Estate, the Civil List, the Privy Purse, and the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, they just think the royal family are freeloaders, and a lot of people still don't know that the Queen pays tax on her private income.

[PrinceOfCanada]

I dunno, Elspeth.. reading through a lot of posts here has showed me that many, many members don't understand how it actually works. Comments such as "If the British taxpayers are paying for the monarchy..." and so forth are quite common, I think.

[wbenson]

If the monarchy ended, would the Crown Estates actually revert to being the personal property of the ex-monarch, though? It seems like it could easily be argued that it's become, like the palaces, something along the lines of "state property" due to the near unbreakable convention that each monarch surrender it. Did Edward VIII have to sell it when he abdicated, or did it automatically change hands? If it's the latter, I don't think it could really be considered personal property.

[Elspeth]

The Civil List does come out of public funds, as do the funds for royal travel and so on, so in that respect it's true that the monarchy is paid for by the taxpayer. The Crown Estate assets and income are the other side of that equation, which quite a few of the posters do know about even when they're grumbling about the cost to the taxpayer - they're just disregarding that side of the equation for the sake of the argument.

[PrinceOfCanada]

Originally Posted by wbenson

If the monarchy ended, would the Crown Estates actually revert to being the personal property of the ex-monarch, though? It seems like it could easily be argued that it's become, like the palaces, something along the lines of "state property" due to the near unbreakable convention that each monarch surrender it. Did Edward VIII have to sell it when he abdicated, or did it automatically change hands? If it's the latter, I don't think it could really be considered personal property.

My argument would run thus:

The CE belongs to the Sovereign.
The Sovereign voluntarily (via constitutional convention) surrenders the revenues.
Parliament votes (the traitorous bastards!) to abolish the monarchy.
All Sovereign property reverts to the person. That would, in my estimation, be the CE (as the CE is personally ceded), but no Windsor or Buck House, for example (as those are held by the State).

[wbenson]

Is the Crown Estate personally ceded though? Did Elizabeth who happened to be the Queen cede it or did the Queen who happened also to be Elizabeth cede it? (Does the monarch cede it in a personal role or in an official role?)

If it's specifically property of the monarch (and cannot be the property of anyone else) as opposed to the property of the person who happens to be the monarch (and could diverge from that), I would think it would be the same as the palaces.

I'll have to look into what happened when Edward VIII abdicated in regards to that. If he automatically lost it, I would think that in the event of a republic, the state would keep it.

[PrinceOfCanada]

My understanding is that the Sovereign inherits it at Accession, and then renews the arrangement. I wouldn't say it's the same as the palaces, though; they are 'held in trust for the people of the UK', same as the Royal Collection (though I imagine there could be a very pretty fight about that, since most items in the Collection were purchased privately AFAIK). The CE is essentially personal property.

[serenissima]

Originally Posted by LadyCat

You're probably pretty close Muriel. Except for the titles of B & E. I think Eugenie may give hers up without a fuss, however I feel Andrew (probably at the insistence of Sarah) will fight for keeping them. Call me jaded, but Sarah has nothing to talk about and sell herself with if she is no longer the mother of two princesses.

Cat

Oh, I remember now a couple of years ago, this was talked about. The Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie would have their HRH Princess ... bits taken away in due course and some people were feeling sorry for them. I think it was something to do with the Wessexs decided to style their daughter Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor or something and this triggered the idea of getting rid of those girls' HRH styles etc.

Anyway, they won't be able to pass their HRHs to their children, so, why not let them keep their HRH bit ?

[serenissima]

Anyway, the monarchy under Charles may be a very short one. Having said that he eats a lot of organic vegetables from his own patch, he may live longer. Oh, he and his wife love mutton, apparently, so they may get some coronary diseases induced by the unsaturated fat.

[LadyCat]

Undoubtedly, he will not reign as long as his mother -- since he had his children in his 30s, his son will probably have a longer reign. I am rather anxious to see how Charles fairs as King. Not to wish the Queen ill though!

Cat

[serenissima]

Originally Posted by LadyCat

Undoubtedly, he will not reign as long as his mother -- since he had his children in his 30s, his son will probably have a longer reign. I am rather anxious to see how Charles fairs as King. Not to wish the Queen ill though!

Cat

Oh, whenever I sing the National Anthem, I do mean "Long to reign over us" bit. Those clergy people who are close to the Queen in their service say that she sees her office is as an ordained ministry that she will never think of anything like an early retirement before her own demise as in abdication.

[Jo of Palatine]

Originally Posted by PrinceOfCanada

My argument would run thus:

The CE belongs to the Sovereign.
The Sovereign voluntarily (via constitutional convention) surrenders the revenues.
Parliament votes (the traitorous bastards!) to abolish the monarchy.
All Sovereign property reverts to the person. That would, in my estimation, be the CE (as the CE is personally ceded), but no Windsor or Buck House, for example (as those are held by the State).

It's a bit different as there was a contract about handling over the CE in exchange for the payments from the Civil list. So far the queen by her own choice has accepted a change to that contract insofar as she gets much less money in exchange but still lets the CE be part of the public purse.

Once Britain becomes a republic it will remain to be seen how the contract has to be ended and who gets what on ending it. The could do it like Bavaria did it when the former kingdom became a republic: the Royal family kept all their personal possessions that were easily to identify as private. As it was impossible for many things and estates to figure out if the king had bought them as a private person or as the souverain (especially in times hwen there was no difference between the king and the state), these possessions became public property and the State of Bavaria mad a contract with the Royal family to establish a foundation for the benefit of the family of Wittelsbach. This foundation is called "Wittelbacher Ausgleichfond" - meaning Compensation fund for the Wittelsbach family - and the State put in money, estates or the right to use certain parts of certain estates while the rest was opened to the public, all valued at an amount the State and the family had agreed on. Today the Wittelsbach manage this fund with the help of state officials and all revenues are going to support the family. As could be seen from a recent interviewiiwth the Head of the House, The Duke of Bavaria, all sides are perfectly comfortable with it - so much that the family decided to introduce part of their private possessions into this fund in order to make it easier for the public to have access to it - eg the art collections.

I could imagine a similar concept for the Crown Estate - a kind of compensation fund for the benefit of the Windsors in case the monarchy is being abolished.

[Jo of Palatine]

From the Crown estates Homepage: Our History

"By 1760, when George III acceded to the throne, (...)
taxes had become the prime source of revenue for the United Kingdom and Parliament administered the country, so an agreement was reached that The Crown Lands would be managed on behalf of the Government and the surplus revenue would go to the Treasury. In return the King would receive a fixed annual payment - today known as the Civil List. This agreement has, at the beginning of each reign, been repeated by every succeeding Sovereign.
In 1955 a Government Committee under the Chairmanship of Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve recommended that to avoid confusion between Government property and Crown land, the latter should be renamed The Crown Estate and should be managed by an independent board. These recommendations were implemented by The Crown Estate Acts of 1956 and 1961."

As English common law is based on the fact that "The king never dies" -meaning that there is no interregnum between reigns, be they ended through death or the signing of an abdiction document, the moment a new king/queen accedes to the throne, the agreement has to be repeated by the new souverain. That means that the agreement automatically comes to an end when a reign ends - because of death, abdication or abolition of the monarchy.

The fact that they even introduced a new bill in 1961 in order "to avoid confusion between Government property and Crown land", means that it is agreed that the Crown Estate belongs to the king/queen and not to the government. IMHo, of course.

[serenissima]

[quote=Jo of Palatine;758027]It's a bit different as there was a contract about handling over the CE in exchange for the payments from the Civil list. So far the queen by her own choice has accepted a change to that contract insofar as she gets much less money in exchange but still lets the CE be part of the public purse. quote]

Oh, I can say this for certain that the Church of England is no longer funded by the state. Mrs Thatcher decided to take that away from the church in 1980's that the Church House did such a bad bad investment in order to find their own financial source but that went very very badly indeed. Now, many parish churches are closed or sold away to be converted into some luxury flats etc or simply demolished to build some new flats etc. Places such as St Paul's in London etc struggle to keep up their colloosal buildings.

The Queen is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England but not the spiritual head of it. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the Primate of All England and the Archbishop of York is the Primate of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the President of the Anglican Communion world wide. In fact, the Queen's role in the affairs of the Church of England is very much a nominal one now. She does not have her part in the course of the General Synod etc that are later dealt by the parliament for, say, even the use of a new prayer book in the Church of England has to be agreed by the parlaiment (though the church does not receive any financial support from the state any longer) However, her title the Fidei defensor is more political since it was confered upon the English monarch by the parliament that the sovereign has to be a member of the Church of England.

[Jo of Palatine]

Originally Posted by serenissima

Oh, I can say this for certain that the Church of England is no longer funded by the state.

snip rest of message

I don't understand why you are talking about the Church of England now?

[serenissima]

Originally Posted by Jo of Palatine

I don't understand why you are talking about the Church of England now?

Oh, because I was under the impression that you thought that the Church of England was funded by the public sector.

[PrinceOfCanada]

As English common law is based on the fact that "The king never dies" -meaning that there is no interregnum between reigns, be they ended through death or the signing of an abdiction document, the moment a new king/queen accedes to the throne, the agreement has to be repeated by the new souverain. That means that the agreement automatically comes to an end when a reign ends - because of death, abdication or abolition of the monarchy.

What a perfectly logical way of looking at it. Thank you!

[the1mcgraws]

Originally Posted by Huddo

I heard somewhere that when charles steps up to the throne that he intends to scale down the Royal Family!.....does that mean some people will loose their titles?....

No I don't think so. I think he will probably do it by attrition. It will be similar probably to what has happened with Prince Edward's offspring.