The Queen Faces "Future Crisis" Over "Mysterious Money," Claims Royal Expert
The public isn’t quite as accepting of financial transparency as in the past.
The Royal Family is notoriously private when it comes to many of their affairs, ranging from their diets and personal lives to their finances. For hundreds of years it was accepted that members of The Firm kept their financial records concealed from the public eye, including how much they pay in taxes to details of their wills. However, now that times are changing, the public isn't quite so supportive of public figures being allowed rights that others aren't – and this includes the Royals and their finances. Read on to learn more about Queen's potential financial "crisis" and what we know (and don't know) about her financial situation.
Royal expert Daniela Elser predicts that this will be a "future crisis" for the family, as the people will expect them to be more transparent. "It comes down to this: The Queen and the royal family to this day, receive special treatment from the UK government when it comes to things like taxes and their wills, all the while they are allowed to conceal the true extent of their personal riches," she told Express. "For more than a century Britons have swallowed the near total blackout when it comes to the Windsors and their stuffed wallets, but for how much longer?"
Freedom of Information requests and the Public Records Act are two areas that the family is exempt from. However, the Palace maintains it makes up for it with transparency in other financial areas. But the Palace maintains it provides information as freely as possible in other areas. However, per Elser "as of 2019, there were 3,629 sealed files relating to the Queen and her family, according to a Privy Council member."
"Again, in an age when the people not only want but expect much greater transparency and openness from public figures, how much longer will Brits accept this one-rule-for-them/one-rule-for-everyone-else unfairness?" Elser asks.
Elser also explains that the Royals get their money through three sources of income: Taxpayer-funded sovereign grant, the Duchy of Lancaster private estate, and their own personal money. However, things "get really muddy" since nobody is sure where the personal income comes from.
"The most recent Sunday Times Rich List put the Queen's personal wealth at $640 million (£370m), the source of which no one really knows. Over the years, we have gotten glimpses inside the bank accounts of various HRHs which have only raised more questions that the Windsors have never answered," Elser continued.
Elser also questions where Fergie gets her money. "Obviously, the royal family does not want the world to know just how stonkingly rich they probably are; it's much harder to make the case that you are dutifully and selflessly working for the nation it if should turn out that you have vast investments and enough ready cash to bail out the Bank of England." She added that the Queen Mother and Prince Philip's fortune were also questionable. When Queen Elizabeth's husband died in 2021, he reportedly left behind £32 million. "His own parents who lived in France and Greece barely had a centime to rub together and his father Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark died nearly penniless in Monte Carlo," she pointed out. "So again, how did a man who had no known source of outside income manage to squirrel away so much dosh?"
