# Brittish Royalty **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 3, 2004, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brittish-royalty/248503 "2004-06-03T20:47:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TylerRose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9bd4f/32.png) [@TylerRose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TylerRose)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brittish-royalty/248503/1 "2004-06-03T20:47:55Z")
Are the royals in England paid anything? If so, how much tax money is used to support them? ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brittish-royalty/248503/2 "2004-06-03T21:14:09Z")
More than you ever needed to know can be found [here](http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page308.asp). > [@](#): > > In 1990 the Civil List was set by Parliament as a fixed annual amount of £7.9 million for a period of 10 years. As a result of Royal Household efficiency savings and lower than expected inflation during the period up to December 2000, a reserve of £35.3 million was carried forward. The annual amount of the Civil List for the next 10 years for the period up to December 2010 remained fixed at £7.9 million. > [@](#): > > In the financial year 2002-03 the revenue surplus from the Crown Estate paid to the Treasury amounted to £170.8 million. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brittish-royalty/248503/3 "2004-06-03T23:47:24Z")
Refering to the post above : I read several times mentions to the effect that the income of the crown estate was vastly higher than the civil list, in debates about the cost of the british royalty. I just don’t get this argument. I don’t think that the Crown estate is the private property of the sovereign. If the UK was to become a republic, tomorrow, I assume the curent queen’s family wouldn’t keep it as private property. So, how is this related. (Anecdotically, I just watched on TV the official political ads for the european parliament elections, and a royalist list is running in France :rolleyes: , so might be I should inform myself about the cost of monarchy, just in case 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brittish-royalty/248503/4 "2004-06-04T03:47:53Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Refering to the post above : > I just don’t get this argument. I don’t think that the Crown estate is the private property of the sovereign. If the UK was to become a republic, tomorrow, I assume the curent queen’s family wouldn’t keep it as private property. So, how is this related. I think that part of the Crown estate may be private property. I’m not a student of the current monarchy, but back in the “olden days” certain lands went with the titles. (For example, a piece of land may go with the title of Prince of Wales, from which the holder recieves his income, and is passed on intact to the next person who holds that title-- it belongs to the _title_, not to the person.) However, other lands may belong to the monarch, but not necessarily belong to the _government._ Such as Queen Victoria’s Osbourne House. As I understand, that was something she bought on her own, and it belonged to her as a person, not as the Queen, and could be passed to whichever heir she chose, just as a commoner would. Now, certain lands have been passed down from monarch to monarch for so long that they may have become the property of the Crown, or blended in with the titular lands. Please, someone tell me if I’m far off base, here. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brittish-royalty/248503/5 "2004-06-04T10:56:06Z")
The Crown Estates’ own [website](http://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/03_our_history_04_02_03-2.htm) gives a brief history of its origins. As it points out, originally all land belonged to the Crown. The Crown Estates were simply those bits that successive kings retained for their own use rather than grant to feudal tenants. (For reasons mainly of historical accident, the lands of the duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster have usually been administered separately from the Crown Estates but they too were estates retained for the Crown’s use.) But ‘for their own use’ mainly meant as a source of revenue used to fund the ordinary expenses of running the country. It was one of the main sources of government revenue in peacetime. This is why whether the land was ‘public’ or ‘private’ didn’t have much meaning. The idea that the monarch was a private individual with private property didn’t really exist. George III’s decision to surrender the revenues from the Crown Estates didn’t actually change the legal status of the lands. No one at the time was that interested in whether he was doing so in a public or a private capacity. As the revenues had always been paid into the Exchequer anyway, it was the other side of the deal that was the important bit. Only in the nineteenth century, when Victoria acquired Balmoral, Osborne and Sandringham did the idea develop that those particular estates were private ones held by the monarch as a private individual. Few gave this development much thought and no one was willing to make a fuss by pointing out that this could be considered an innovation. (Edward VII later gave Osborne away and it is now unquestionably owned by the government in the form of English Heritage.) What would happen to these lands if the UK became a republic obviously depends on what deal was done at the time. A government eager to have a smooth and dignified handover could conceivably decide to let them have, say, the duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster. If they were allowed to keep Windsor Castle, parts of Windsor Great Park might be thrown in as well. If, on the other hand, the plan was to gun them down in a basement, different arrangements might be made. Some, including in recent years the Palace press office, have used the Crown Estates argument as a justification for the size of the Civil List. Personally, I think this is a bit dumb and unnecessary, but this is GQ. ---
**Author:** ![One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/838e76/32.png) [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/One_And_Only_Wanderers)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brittish-royalty/248503/6 "2004-06-04T13:41:56Z")
Also, at the same time the corn lands revenues were surrendered to the exchequer, the Monarch ceased to be responsible for paying the police (the police are the only ones im sure of, may have been other services too), so it would be inaccurate to say more is going in the exchequer than is coming out. It’s not only the civil list that is coming out, its the entire police budget too. ---
**Author:** ![One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/838e76/32.png) [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/One_And_Only_Wanderers)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brittish-royalty/248503/7 "2004-06-04T13:43:21Z")
crown lands CROWN lands damn typos ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brittish-royalty/248503/8 "2004-06-04T14:15:16Z")
Except that the police budget now vastly exceeds the revenues from the Crown Estates and we also have to pay taxes to pay for all the other items formerly funded from them as well. (One could quibble that in the eighteenth century there wasn’t a police budget, but we know what you mean.) The more sensible way of looking at it is that the revenues from the Crown Estates now makes up only a tiny proportion of overall government income but that the Civil List makes up an even smaller proportion of overall government expenditure. It’s the equivalent of loose change to the Treasury.