The Guardian does the accounts in the pockets of the British royals: here is the secret heritage of the Crown

A few weeks fromcoronation of King Charlesthe English newspaper The Guardian has begun to publish the results of a long investigation which could jeopardize the popularity of the new ruler. Is called “The cost of the crown» and it is a powerful dossier which, through various insights, investigates the secret finances of the British Crown. «How much money will the coronation of King Charles III cost the United Kingdom? What tax rate will our new king pay on his private income? How much do the princesses pay Beatrice and Eugeniethe daughters of Prince Andrew who do not work in the Firm, for their residences in royal palaces?». In the last weeks, the Guardian asked these and other questions at Buckingham Palace. The answer, writes the newspaper, was more or less always the same: «You have no right to know». On the other hand, the Palace has always tended to keep data such as the sources of income of the Crown and the private wealth of the royal family carefully confidential. Apparently it was there Queen Elizabethin the seventies, a block a bill on the transparency of real estates.

But the Guardian fielded a large team of investigative journalists who have spent months plumbing the fortunes of the British monarchy. And now you have begun to publish results which, especially in a period of serious economic crisis, your subjects do not like at all. Starting from the fact that, compared to other European royal houses, Charles and the rest of the British royals receive a much higher appanage from the state. The Windsors’ annual “salary” exceeds £86 million (just under 100 million euros, partly earmarked for the renovation of Buckingham Palace that has been underway for years), while the Dutch royals receive about 44 millionthose of the Belgium 12And the Bourbons of Spain 7. Furthermore, Charles III could theoretically claim an extra £250 million, still taxpayers’ money, because David Cameron generously decided so when he was prime minister in 2011. The King, however, has decided that he doesn’t want that extra money. Better that they are spent “for the public good”.

The Guardian he then discovered that Elizabeth II and Charles III over-grossed £1.2 billion from two hereditary properties, the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, on which they do not pay a pound of tax. Since he became Prince of Wales is William to receive about 40 million pounds a year since Duke of Lancaster and from Duchy of Cornwall inherited from the father. But the profits of those ducatswho operate as real “estate empires” (they manage numerous properties across England: farmland, hotels, medieval castles, offices, shops and luxury apartments) according to their subjects they should be aimed at the British people.

And then there’s the burning issue of links of the monarchy with slavery. the Guardian revealed the existence of a document proving that in 1689 King William III received £1,000 in shares in the Royal African Slave Trading Company, then a leading name in the slave trafficking. Buckingham Palace has not commented, but just recently King Charles gave the green light, for the first time, to an inquiry into the historical links between the British monarchy and the slave tradethe. The fact remains that Kensington Palaceone of the most loved residences by royalty as well as former London home of William e Kate Middletonwas bought and remodeled by William III.

Another embarrassing topic, that of the priceless treasures looted from India and ended up in the royal collections: like the famous Koh-i-Noorconsidered the largest diamond in the world, which in 1849 the Maharajah of Punjab was forced to surrender to the British East India Company as formal act of submission to Queen Victoria. The Koh-i-Noor, which is now on the crown of the Queen Mother (displayed among the treasures of the Tower of London) has become an emblem of Britain’s troubled relationship with its imperial history. So tormented that the queen Camilla he has decided that he will not wear that crown at the May 6 ceremony.

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