At one time, I gather that the Royal Navy was funded by the king. Nowadays, I would expect it’s funded by the British taxpayer. Is this so? Is there any function of government that is funded by the queen?
Thanks,
Rob
I believe that officially she throws many parties, receptions, and other events. But those are paid for by the Government.
From the official Monarchy Today website: *About 70 per cent of the Civil List expenditure goes on staff salaries. It also goes towards meeting the costs of official functions such as garden parties, receptions and official entertainment during State Visits. The Queen entertains almost 50,000 people each year. * So even if you consider her entertaining to be a function of government, then no, she does not pay for that.
Note that the Civil List has recently been consolidated with other funding sources under the Sovereign Grant.
The site also says: The Queen’s personal income, derived from her personal investment portfolio and private estates, is used to meet her private expenses.
But it does not list any “private expenses.”
While the Soldier did take the King’s shilling, the King got the money from the taxpayer to begin with. So it’s really just a matter of how many steps you want to add the process.
But this is fundamentally correct. Aristocrats and officers are no longer expected to subsidize “their” units out of pocket. Another reason commissions are no longer bought and sold.