Watch Season 1 Episode 2 of What’s the Monarchy For? — full English dub. This episode delves into the role, power, and relevance of the British monarchy in modern society. Analyzing political influence, public opinion, and historical controversies, the show sparks discussions about monarchy, democracy, and modern governance. Don’t miss this thought-provoking episode.
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#WhatsTheMonarchyFor #MonarchyDebate #PoliticalDocumentary #UKPolitics #RoyalFamily #KingCharles #2025Episode #DocumentarySeries #EnglishDub #HistoryAndPolitics
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Short filmTranscript
00:01Fire and rescue.
00:03Winter Castle here.
00:04Yes, we've got a fire in the firewood chapel at Winter Castle.
00:07Fire in private chapel.
00:11We're to Rondae versus Corsair.
00:21Just after 11 o'clock on the morning of 20th of November,
00:25I had a phone call from BBC Radio Berkshire.
00:28Can you tell us about the fire at Windsor Castle?
00:31First I've heard of it.
00:36What was the scene when you arrived?
00:38It was very dramatic.
00:40There were quite a few fire appliances there, a lot of fire.
00:49Photographers and television crews.
00:52The Brunswick Tower was just like a factory chimney,
00:56spouting orange flames.
00:59That's the Brunswick Tower.
01:00What?
01:01Brunswick Tower.
01:02There was a certain amount of disbelief.
01:05I must go.
01:06I'll come back.
01:07Because nobody can imagine something like the castle going up in flames.
01:11That middle of the afternoon, Queen arrived, she was obviously devastated.
01:20I suppose deep into her mind was, well, how are we going to get it all together again?
01:24Some events take on a symbolism of their own.
01:37This castle, like the monarchy, had stood for a thousand years as the Queen's much-loved home,
01:43a childhood sanctuary during the Second World War.
01:48And suddenly here it was, ablaze.
01:52But when it was announced that we, the taxpayers, and not the Queen, would pay for the repairs,
01:58it set off a dangerous reaction.
02:0190% of the public opinion would say the taxpayers shouldn't foot this bill.
02:07Couldn't give a damn about what's going down in winter.
02:09We're talking about the whole country.
02:11And if Lizzie wants her fancy castle back, let her have it back.
02:13But she can pay for it because she can damn well afford it.
02:16For a moment, our focus on the royal family wasn't about scandalous gossip or affairs.
02:24It was about money.
02:25I don't see why now I should have to pay for somebody else's home.
02:29Why should taxpayers have to pay for it?
02:30We are talking about the richest woman in the world.
02:33All that outrage sprang from a misunderstanding because the truth is,
02:38Windsor Castle wasn't owned by the Queen, but by us, the nation.
02:43So it wasn't unreasonable to expect that we should pay for the repairs.
02:50But what had become clear was that the subject of money
02:54could become perilous for the royals.
02:58Good morning, everybody.
02:59This is the real centre of today's events.
03:03I seem to have been reporting on the monarchy forever.
03:06The lighting is all cockeyed, isn't it?
03:08Are you pro-monarchy, Mr Dimilby?
03:10Well, I'm pro-television series about the monarchy.
03:16And there are important questions I want to ask.
03:19Well, I've never talked about any of this before in my life.
03:22I hope it all led me into very bad ways.
03:24Bloody hell!
03:26At a time when millions are struggling to make ends meet,
03:30how is it that the royal family is making more money than ever?
03:34Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for paying your rent every now and then.
03:41Discovering how rich they really are isn't that easy.
03:45The secrecy is institutional, it's obsessive.
03:48Of course he lives a life of luxury.
03:50That's the life of a member of the royal family.
03:53Where does their wealth come from?
03:57That is a huge amount of money flowing from the public purse
04:02into the private pockets of the royal family.
04:05Well, I had quite a few conversations with the queen about it.
04:08And did she purr with pleasure when you explained how it worked?
04:12And are they worth it?
04:14The grand procession, which will bring Her Majesty.
04:43To us.
04:53On the day of the coronation, I was 14 at the time.
04:56I remember it was a very wet day walking through the streets of London.
05:00But it was a very grand affair.
05:06Brazen display of glorious ceremony.
05:10No expense spared.
05:14The royal family was, of course, already rich.
05:19Though not long into the queen's reign, they did claim they were feeling the pinch.
05:25If nothing happens, they should either have to marry, they have to move on the smaller fences, you know.
05:34Over the years, the queen and her advisers achieved an extraordinary feat.
05:40God save the king!
05:48God save the king!
05:50By the time of Charles' coronation, he didn't just inherit the crown.
05:55I am deeply aware of this great inheritance.
05:59Astonishingly, he inherited more wealth than any monarch for generations.
06:07And on top of that, the sovereign grant that funds his public duties is more than it ever was during the queen's reign.
06:14To understand why, it helps to do something that is slightly indelicate, which is to work out how much the king himself actually is worth.
06:26What he owns privately, and what's ours as a nation.
06:31And it's a particularly tall order, because if you ask them directly how much is the king worth, you're met with a stony silence.
06:43How big a team were you working on it?
06:45We had about 12 of us.
06:46The actual task involved in answering a question, how wealthy is the king, is vastly more complicated than it is to pose the question.
06:54Our team spent months trying to establish what we could see, what we couldn't see, and then we try to assign values of everything that they own.
07:04There are a huge number of properties that are associated with the royal family.
07:08Buckingham Palace, they don't own that.
07:11It's what we would call owned and right of the crown.
07:13A dressed up way of saying it belongs to the United Kingdom.
07:18So they can't sell it?
07:20No.
07:21You've got Kensington Palace, you've got St James's Palace, you've got Clarence House.
07:26These are all properties that are owned in right of the crown.
07:29And do they live rent-free?
07:31The king?
07:32For the most part, yes.
07:34So that you or I would have to pay rent to live in these places?
07:37That's very true, but they're not a normal family.
07:42What private houses does the king have?
07:44There's actually only really two.
07:46Sandringham Estate, a vast estate which includes residential properties, tenant farmers, the village of Anmer.
07:56Second big private property, Castle Balmoral.
07:59That's not just a castle, that's huge swathes of land.
08:03Private property in all how much?
08:05All in all £330 million, we think.
08:08So what are their jewels? They're famous for the royal family.
08:12Find something for the sapphires.
08:15Diamonds and tiaras and necklaces.
08:19They're the most incredible pieces you've ever seen, and for the most part privately owned.
08:24This is a nice piece of jewellery, right? If you sold it, it would raise a pretty penny.
08:28But if you then tell people, oh, and by the way, did you know Queen Elizabeth owned this and she wore this?
08:32The price goes through the roof.
08:34Of course.
08:35Nobody can calculate what the Windsor premium is.
08:37So we think, like, applying a kind of very, very conservative premium of ten times,
08:43we think those are worth about £533 million, bare minimum.
08:47What about this? What's this great thing? Stamps.
08:51It is the most comprehensive collection of stamps in the world, by far.
08:55Bare minimum £100 million.
08:58So nothing rivals their collection of jewellery, nothing rivals their collection of stamps.
09:03Livestock. Bloodstock. Horses.
09:08Where did you go on horses?
09:10The Queen was very, very enthusiastic about horses.
09:13She collected a stable worth about £27 million.
09:18Art is the hardest one to value.
09:21There are corridors lined with great masterpieces.
09:24But, again, you've got to distinguish between the publicly owned art and the privately owned art.
09:28There is no kind of publicly available listing of the art they privately own.
09:32So one of the ways that we assessed this was just to go through the photos they have produced
09:37of the residences where they live, for example.
09:40There is a Monet on the walls in one of the palaces, but we think it's privately owned.
09:46Based on what we can tell what they privately own, we think about £24 million,
09:50but that's probably a very significant underestimate.
09:55Toss it all up and what do you come to?
09:57Altogether, that's £1.2 billion.
09:59£1.2 billion?
10:01Yeah, it's very probably an underestimate.
10:03Because I would imagine that more of it is things that are harder to see, the invisible assets.
10:08Things like shares.
10:09What was the reaction when you came up with this figure for all this wealth?
10:12Well, they didn't like it very much.
10:14They said it was a creative mix of sort of speculation and assumption and inaccuracy.
10:20But in that case, what's your figure?
10:22And it's when you don't get answers to reasonable questions, you start to wonder why there isn't a simple answer.
10:29I see the king and the queen leading the charge here, stepping out onto the balcony.
10:38It's no accident that there isn't a simple answer.
10:42Over the years, the royals have grown their wealth, apparently, without the public really noticing it.
10:49To understand how they managed to do it, we need to go back to 1973, a year most people remember for different reasons.
11:04Good evening. It's really been one of those weeks, hasn't it?
11:07As always, everyone's been blaming everybody else for what's happened.
11:11It was a winter full of discontent.
11:18The country in recession.
11:21The government imposing a three-day working week,
11:25petrol and electricity about to be rationed.
11:29And to save power, we were even told we should clean our teeth in the dark.
11:38The only light was the first royal wedding of a generation.
11:43But while we were distracted from our troubles by Princess Anne's fairytale wedding,
11:52the queen had a problem to solve.
11:58Ted Heath's government was working on a new law which would allow British companies to see the name of any of their shareholders,
12:07so that investors in companies could no longer keep their identities secret.
12:12At a time when many of her subjects were worried about making ends meet,
12:21the queen now risked having her growing wealth revealed.
12:27But luckily for the queen, there's a little-known power that the sovereign has that doesn't apply to anybody else.
12:34It's called Queen's Consent, or rather now, King's Consent.
12:40And it means the monarch can take a view on any proposed law sent to them,
12:46which affects their private interests before parliament even gets a chance to look at it.
12:52Over the queen's reign, at least 160 laws were designed in one way or another to exempt the monarch.
12:59And they included things like health and safety regulations, wildlife protection, the Race Relations Act, equal opportunities.
13:10With each of these laws, she had the power to say,
13:13it doesn't apply to me, thank you very much.
13:16So in the week just before her daughter's wedding, the queen sends her emissaries down to Whitehall
13:24to discuss Ted Heath's proposed transparency law.
13:29And these are the memos which were leaked later to the press about the discussions.
13:34And they do say that it's potentially embarrassing to the queen, embarrassing again,
13:41three times embarrassing in their discussions.
13:44So they were obviously worried about it.
13:47The reply then comes back from the department that they have, I love this word,
13:52they have evolved the following solution.
13:57The queen, and subsequently her immediate family, whoever that means,
14:03would be excluded from Ted Heath's legislation.
14:07Those whom God hath joined together, let no...
14:12The queen must have been very relieved.
14:15I am glad that my daughter's wedding gave such pleasure to so many people.
14:21Just at a time when the world was facing very serious problems.
14:25The queen now had a purpose-built legal mechanism to hide her and her family's wealth.
14:35And it's remained hidden ever since.
14:42Do you have any right to know what the king's investments are, his private investments?
14:46I don't know yours, you don't know mine.
14:48That's true, but I'm not the head of state and neither are you, sadly.
14:53Yes.
14:54But there's an important point there, which is that the king is not a normal individual like you or I.
14:59He's the monarch.
15:00He has great influence over the running of the government.
15:03And anyone else in a public role.
15:06We have, you know, laws, guidebooks, codes.
15:08The prime minister has to disclose all of his properties, his shareholdings,
15:13any other interests that might influence his decision-making,
15:16might influence how he performs his role.
15:18None of that applies to the royal family.
15:20So how do they justify striking out laws that they don't want to affect them?
15:25I don't really know in all honesty because we've asked them this
15:27and, again, we can't get a straight answer out of them.
15:30We put this to the palace and they said such claims are misleading.
15:36They went on to say that the publication in question was given thorough assistance,
15:40background information and an on-the-record response in relation to their many inquiries
15:46on the issue of crown exemption.
15:54The royal family are peculiarly bad explaining almost anything.
15:59The mask of, have you come far? What do you do? How delightful?
16:04Slips when people say, how much money have you got?
16:08Which bits of this is our money? What's yours?
16:11There is a feeling of, well, this is incredibly ungrateful of people.
16:15You know, it's a terrible life I'm living on your behalf.
16:19Can't you leave me alone? There's a sort of...
16:21I do think they feel, at a certain point, this is all very impertinent.
16:26Is their wealth a stumbling block to their popularity?
16:31Definitely, I think so. They're living in the height of luxury.
16:35They have no financial worries.
16:38They have no worries of any ordinary person.
16:41So, of course, it is a stumbling block.
16:51The whole question of money was something that we always had to be extremely sensitive about.
16:57There is an unwritten compact, I think, between people and monarchy.
17:02But in return for the royal family being royal, living in palaces, having heads of state to visit,
17:10there is an understanding that there should be an attention to detail, an excellence,
17:16that there shouldn't be drop catches.
17:19But one can't stand still. One has to be sensitive to public mood.
17:24You used the word drop catches. I'm just wondering which catches were dropped.
17:29I was thinking of the fire, the response to the fire.
17:32I think it came as a shock to everyone that the government would be paying for the restoration of Windsor Castle.
17:43Members of the public have raised the question of who should pay.
17:47As the smoke cleared around Windsor Castle, the outcry over the repair bill, totalling £36 million,
17:57meant that something would have to change.
18:00How is it that suddenly we can find any amount of money where under the same week where you've got cardboard city,
18:07how to which you're falling apart and people being dispossessed?
18:11How can you justify that?
18:13Faced with public anger, the Queen stumped up some cash, a couple of million pounds,
18:19just a fraction of the total.
18:21In addition, she opened Buckingham Palace to the public for the first time.
18:26Oh, for £8 a ticket.
18:28But the effect of the controversy over Windsor was to shine a light on the whole business of royal finances.
18:34And then the Queen made another surprising announcement.
18:40This time, about tax.
18:46Historically, the monarch would not be taxed because they're the ones who are actually having to spend all the money.
18:52The monarch had to pay to fight wars.
18:54The monarch had to, you know, pay for a standing army and so on and so on and so on.
18:58Right from King John and Magna Carta.
19:01Of course, Parliament took over paying for all of that in the end,
19:05and income tax was introduced to help foot the bill.
19:09When it was, it seemed perfectly natural for the monarch to pay up as well.
19:19Queen Victoria, for instance, paid income tax.
19:22Edward VII paid income tax.
19:25George V, the Queen's grandfather, paid.
19:30They all coughed up.
19:33It made a really important statement of a monarchy that understood its people
19:38and wanted to be sort of shoulder to shoulder with them.
19:43But within weeks of taking the throne, the Queen's father, George VI,
19:49managed to persuade the government that the costs of being king were so high
19:53he shouldn't pay tax.
19:55And the Queen, when she came to the throne, simply carried on this income tax-free arrangement
20:04that her father had made, almost as if it was some kind of ancient royal tradition.
20:10To the point that the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 50s said,
20:14well, of course the Queen doesn't pay tax, it's perfectly natural.
20:17And so, for decades, the Windsor's wealth grew unchecked.
20:23But now, with public anger over the Windsor Fire dominating the headlines,
20:31the fact that the Queen didn't pay income tax only made things worse.
20:37I, like Queen Victoria, have always been a believer in that old maxim,
20:43moderation in all things.
20:46Just days after the Windsor Fire, the Prime Minister, John Major,
20:55made a surprising announcement.
20:59Though, perish the thought the fire had anything to do with it.
21:05Her Majesty, some months ago, asked me to consider the basis
21:08upon which she might voluntarily pay tax.
21:11The Prince of Wales has made a similar request.
21:14For the first time since the 1930s, a British monarch is to pay income tax.
21:19It's estimated that her bill will be around £2 million a year.
21:22Certainly, it's very hard to resist the conclusion
21:24that it is a response to the public clamour.
21:26Will it be enough to buy off the rising tide of criticism?
21:34By then, I'd been in the palace for five years.
21:37It was a time where I think a lot of questions were asked about the monarchy.
21:43The wealth of the institution, the whole question of tax,
21:48these kinds of events cause you to think about what you're doing.
21:54It was rather suspicious it was announced days after the fire.
21:57Well, suspicious to the extent that a lot of the work had been done before the fire,
22:03but it needed a catalyst to ensure that it was brought into effect.
22:09In plain language, without the fire, it might never have happened.
22:16Charged with making sure the new arrangements wouldn't hit the royal purse too hard,
22:23was one of the best money men in the business.
22:27The Queen's Director of Finance, Michael Peat.
22:34Is Her Majesty pleased that this has happened?
22:36Her Majesty is a very pragmatic person.
22:40She appreciates that there was a general feeling that she should pay tax,
22:45and she was conscious of that.
22:47Michael Peat was an accountant, great-grandson of one of the founders of what became KPMG.
22:53The P stands for Peat.
22:55He helps persuade the Queen that it would be a good idea to pay tax.
22:59Can you say by how much Her Majesty will be worse off?
23:03Not in precise terms.
23:05What I can say is that she will very definitely be worse off.
23:08I mean, these are real arrangements,
23:10and myself and my colleagues on the financial side
23:13are going to have to work hard to enable these new arrangements to be paid for.
23:18One of the arguments he puts forward is that there actually wouldn't be much material change for her.
23:26They were able to convince the Treasury that some of that cost,
23:30including the cost of running some of her private residences,
23:34would be put against tax as legitimate official expenses.
23:39So really the Queen was an astute tax avoider?
23:42Absolutely.
23:44Do you think this new arrangement is fair?
23:48Yes, I think it's very fair.
23:50If I could just add to that, it's fair insofar as tax is fair for any of us.
23:55Mr. Peat, thank you very much indeed.
23:57Thank you very much.
23:59The trouble with gestures, like suddenly announcing you're going to pay income tax voluntarily,
24:07is to make everybody inquisitive about, you know, what taxes you do and don't pay.
24:13I mean, it sparks in its own way a controversy.
24:17Do you pay capital gains tax?
24:20Do you pay inheritance tax?
24:22We all do.
24:24Inheritance tax? No. Nothing. Nada. Zilf. Absolutely nothing.
24:29Generation to generation, the wealth passes unmolested.
24:33Any other family, as it goes through the generations, the wealth is winnowed back.
24:38Not so with sovereign to sovereign bequests.
24:41There is never a moment at which it gets sliced down.
24:44So they just get richer and richer and richer?
24:47And they're exempt from capital gains tax.
24:49Who says?
24:50That's by agreement with the government.
24:53But the position now is that they voluntarily pay.
24:56Is there any prospect of their taxation position being reviewed?
25:01All of these things can be changed if the government wants it.
25:04But there's a kind of culture of deference, I think.
25:08It's very difficult to open that discussion without being perceived as the government of the day
25:13to have got some sort of problem with the monarchy or to be starting a fight with the king.
25:17It's the absurdity of situations where there is so much wealth and so much privilege in the sense of exemptions from taxation.
25:32Why does he need that money?
25:34And I think it's surprising that those questions haven't been asked more loudly, certainly since the late queen died.
25:42It's often felt in recent days that a veil of sorrow has covered the nation.
25:49So when the queen died, Charles made an inheritance tax saving on assets alone of hundreds of millions of pounds.
26:04Alongside their tax free inherited wealth, the monarch and the heir also benefit from a huge private income generated by two historic estates, which boast special tax exemptions.
26:23The Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall.
26:32And the profits made from the Duchy of Lancaster go to the king and the profits from the Duchy of Cornwall to the Prince of Wales.
26:40That's to say to William.
26:42Their majesty spent much of their time in informal visits to the Duchy of Arles.
26:45Many of the tenants on the Duchy estates had the pleasure of talking with their royal landlord.
26:51These names are a wee bit misleading because these estates are actually vast.
26:57Lancaster includes tracts of land spread across the whole north of England,
27:02while Cornwall is even larger with holdings across 23 different counties in England and Wales.
27:09And both of them have areas of prime real estate in central London.
27:21In every film you watch about the Duchies, the Windsors are portrayed as benign landlords.
27:28The wonderful thing about the Duchy of Cornwall has always been that family association,
27:35going back all these generations.
27:39Champions of local economy.
27:42We still have some farms going back to 1337.
27:46And heritage biscuit bakers.
27:48Now you can find Duchy originals in all branches of Waitrose.
27:54But that's never been the whole story.
27:57Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for paying your rent every now and then.
28:01When Charles first became Prince of Wales, it was quite a sleepy rural backwater in a sense.
28:11It was all about rural properties and the rents and so on that you get from them.
28:16In the 1980s, that started to change.
28:19The Thatcher government introduced legislation so the Duchy could invest more freely.
28:29And in the early 2000s, Charles persuaded Michael Peet to cross the Mall to Clarence's house to go and work for him.
28:38Why?
28:39It was put to me by someone who knew Charles well that he wanted to get more money out of the Duchy of Cornwall.
28:45He wanted the Duchy to be more efficient.
28:50Come here.
28:54In the years that Michael Peet was there, it changed its tack and it started moving away from rural properties and residential properties to commercial property.
29:03And became basically a very successful commercial property firm, but of course not treated like an ordinary company because of the anomalous tax regime.
29:12So the income that Charles got from the Duchy shot up.
29:15The Duchy's success didn't go unnoticed. The ever increasing sums paid out to the Queen and Charles caught the eye of Parliament.
29:28And the men who handled the royal money were summoned for questioning.
29:34Today, for the first time in history, MPs were able to question household officials on the Duchy's accounts.
29:40There's some irritation among Prince Charles' senior staff at this latest attempt to call his financial arrangements into question.
29:47This afternoon, the Public Accounts Committee is looking at the accounts of the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster.
29:55The committee tried to figure out why the Duchies shouldn't play by the same rules as everyone else.
30:03It's not taxed in the same way the PLC would be taxed with corporation tax, is it?
30:08The Duchy of Cornwall, like the Duchy of Lancaster, is exempt from the taxes.
30:15Do you want to give us an explanation for that?
30:21Well, I mean, these are matters of policy, really.
30:25At the end of the year, the profit, that all goes to the Prince of Wales?
30:28That's exactly the purpose that we exist for.
30:32How much is that?
30:34Last year, it was £11.9 million.
30:36Can we have a report on the list of properties?
30:39I don't see why.
30:41I know you don't see it, but I'm asking you, can we have it?
30:44I don't think it would serve any better...
30:45No, you don't think that, but I do, and I'm asking you a yes or no, will you make available a list of properties?
30:53I mean, are you refusing to do so?
30:54Well, I'm not saying no, but I still need to be persuaded there's a good reason to do so.
30:58If you're not saying no, you're saying yes, then.
31:00I mean, it's a simple yes, no question.
31:01I'm leaving the question unanswered, because I can't see the purpose of the stuff.
31:05These MPs grandstanded, they huffed and puffed, but they didn't land a glove on them.
31:15Charles gets a lot richer because the Dutch is producing more profit.
31:20Yeah, absolutely.
31:24In the years since, the Dutch's portfolio has continued to grow.
31:29Office blocks, service stations, shipping terminals, even two small towns, all filling the royal purse.
31:41It's only when you come here that you can really start to describe what the principles are.
31:45Prince Charles managed to scrape by on 16,273,000 last year, an increase of a million,
31:53and he managed to pull off the feat of increasing his income, but decreasing the tax he pays.
31:59He loves to spend it.
32:04Everyone knows that he's got a taste for luxury, so partly it goes on his lifestyle.
32:11But also he loves to do things, he wants to change the world.
32:14So he had an enormous staff, people running his charities and so on.
32:19We want to be able to make a difference on the ground, how do we do it?
32:22Whatever Charles's charitable instincts, journalists recently uncovered confidential details that revealed,
32:34sometimes, charity comes at a price.
32:37A really interesting story, this is the Duchy Files, an investigation by the Sunday Times and Channel 4 Dispatches,
32:46revealing full details of the vast ancient estates owned by the king and the prince.
32:51I think the word here is revelation, isn't it?
32:55The Duchies generate profits by charging the army, the navy, hospitals, the prison service, schools and councils
33:04for the right to use lands, rivers and seashores seized for the Duchies in medieval times.
33:11A spokesperson said it is a private estate with a commercial imperative.
33:16The Duchies imposed levies for the right even to dig graves.
33:21It was exposed.
33:22There is all these other ways in which taxpayer money gets funneled towards these people.
33:28The king gets £11 million over 15 years so that the NHS can rent a warehouse that it uses to store ambulances.
33:40Prince William gets £1.5 million every year from Dartmoor prison because it's on Duchy land.
33:48That is a huge amount of money flowing from the public purse into the private pockets of the royal family.
33:56£11 million could do all sorts of things for the public good.
34:02Instead it's making a king even richer than he already is.
34:05There was perhaps a whiff of hypocrisy about this, not just because it was making the king richer,
34:13but because the royal family often demonstrates their support for the NHS.
34:18Let's go to the calls.
34:23It's a usual robbery for the British citizens.
34:26Cathy from Lancashire, what do you think about this whole rent row in the royal family?
34:30At the end of the day, he doesn't need the monarchy. The more they get, the more they want.
34:35We don't want a monarchy that runs everything as though it's a commercial enterprise for profit.
34:44How would you have handled the row about the Duchess charging the NHS or charging for the army to use Dartmoor to exercise on?
34:53I think it's very important to understand what the Duchy of Cornwall is.
34:59It's a private estate and Charles, as Duke of Cornwall, and now William, as Duke of Cornwall, ran it successfully as a business.
35:08If we're trying to say, because they're owned by a member of the royal family, they should give their land away for free.
35:15That sounds very naive to me.
35:17The palace did seem to be embarrassed because they announced they would review some of the arrangements,
35:25though they did say their management act required market-based arms-length relationships with all public bodies.
35:38We've come a long way from the days of the early 1950s.
35:41Today, the two Duchess, taken together, provide the Windsors with a private income every year of £50 million.
35:54Is he aware and maybe embarrassed by the luxury of his life?
36:01No, I don't think he's embarrassed by it, and I think he knows how lucky, I mean, I'm absolutely sure he knows how lucky he is.
36:12And he does have a very, very strong sense of duty.
36:18But the Windsor's inheritance doesn't just come from land seized and exploited here in Britain.
36:23It springs from our history as a great imperial power.
36:32This is, it's, the history, of course, is very fascinating,
36:36that it belonged to so many of the kings of Persia and...
36:40The Queen talks with obvious warmth about this jewel.
36:44Queen Victoria was sent it from India. It's all fascinating, I think.
36:49So it'd be nice if one could go on wearing it, I think.
36:51You wouldn't know it from this film, but it's just one of many trophies
36:56that come from Britain's long history of colonial conquest.
37:00One of the smallest countries on the map is responsible for the mightiest commonwealth of nations in history.
37:06For 400 years since the first Queen Elizabeth, our monarchs acquired huge amounts of wealth from the Empire.
37:14Those early pioneers have left us a great inheritance, of which we may be justly proud.
37:18For might and rights go hand in hand.
37:21They've dealt in precious metals, in opium, in textiles, in tea and tobacco, in sugar and spice,
37:28and in human beings.
37:31The fact is that a certain amount of the royal family's wealth came from the transportation, kidnapping, rape, murder of Africans.
37:45That was transatlantic slavery.
37:46British society as a whole benefited from slavery.
37:50Absolutely.
37:51It wasn't just the king.
37:52I think everyone benefited from it.
37:53But I think increasingly historians are proving that the royal family pioneered the slave trade.
37:58The Royal African Company, set up by Charles II and his brother James, ran the monopoly of British slave trading at that time.
38:08So the crown had a monopoly on the slave trade?
38:11Yes. Many royals fought abolition and argued for the pro-slavery lobby.
38:16So it actually was a family business for the royal family?
38:21You could absolutely describe the Royal African Company as a family business.
38:25And when its enslaved cargo arrives in places like Barbados, they have the initials of the Duke of York, the brother of Charles II, branded into their flesh.
38:36Like so much to do with royal finances, the details of the monarch's involvement in slavery are very rarely discussed.
38:48The Queen never publicly mentioned the slave trade or the royal connection to it.
38:55She did, however, attend a service to commemorate the 200th anniversary of its abolition.
39:02The congregation in Westminster Abbey included representatives of all countries who had been victim of the slave trade.
39:13I was invited, as a member of the press, to report on it, to record this ritual.
39:21It was about 2,000 people.
39:26A lot of politicians, the Prime Minister, the royal family.
39:29A glorious day, a glorious day for, not a commemoration, but also, let's remember, a celebration.
39:38As a member of my community, I wanted them to say, look, as institutions that were involved and profited from this and still reap the benefits,
39:47we're sorry, we shouldn't have done that.
39:50But it was very patronising, the drums, the horns.
39:52I think this is going to be a unique service in many ways, not just because of who's here, descendants of slaves, of abolitionists, perhaps even, who knows, of traders themselves.
40:05The Queen walked past me.
40:09I was kind of reading through the programme about all the things we had to do, the actions.
40:13I didn't have the solemnity. It literally was a celebration.
40:16Welcome in the name of Christ, who sets all free.
40:20And there was a point where I was supposed to kneel down and pray to God and say, sorry for slavery.
40:28And it's horrific.
40:29All the hymns are happening and I'm looking around and I'm like, oh my gosh, and it's coming to this point.
40:42And it's like a time bomb for me.
40:45Today it is for us to face our history.
40:49And I'm like, I can't do this.
40:52Let us therefore confess our sins.
40:54I got up.
40:55In penitence and faith to our gracious Father.
41:00I had my hands up.
41:02What I said is not in my name.
41:05And forgives.
41:12Quite a bold thing to do.
41:14It's a human thing to do.
41:16Institutions, the wealth, the assets, are proceeds of those horrendous crimes.
41:22Not mention a Sandy Sharp. Not mention a Nanny. Not mention a Queen Zynga. And you advocate.
41:29Did you speak to the Queen? Did you address the Queen?
41:30Yes, I did.
41:32There was no response. She wasn't giving me eye contact.
41:35The protester being walked out.
41:40It is an emotional subject. There's no question about it.
41:42Let's go!
41:44I think it's back to the service now.
41:53Other sins of the father visited on the son.
41:57The individuals living in the 21st century are not responsible for what the royal family did in the 1600s.
42:05But as an institution, they could talk about it.
42:09Many institutions with ties to slavery, universities, museums, even the church, have responded in some way.
42:19And Charles, and later William, have expressed regret about slavery in general terms.
42:25I strongly agree with my father, who said in the appalling atrocity of slavery, forever stains our history.
42:34I want to express my profound sorrow.
42:37Slavery was abhorrent.
42:39And it should never have happened.
42:41As King, Charles has said he's deepening his understanding of it.
42:48But no-one in the family has gone into any detail about the direct role the monarchy played, or the fortune they made.
42:58I think the biggest problem is that royal family don't acknowledge their own history.
43:04They should embrace the complexity of their imperial history, you know.
43:11We are a country that is defined by the history of the British Empire.
43:15It's the biggest thing we ever did as a country.
43:18And yet, the royal family don't talk about it.
43:21Rather than being a history that divides us, they could talk about it in a way that unites us.
43:27Uniting the country is, of course, the monarch's job description.
43:38The bread and butter of being king.
43:41And it means a never-ending series of royal engagements.
43:47Today, he's in Bradford, where news of his arrival draws excited crowds.
43:53She'd like to marry George, wouldn't she? No.
43:56No.
43:58She wants to marry George? No.
44:00She wants to marry George. No.
44:01I never said that, Mum.
44:02There's an idea. Marry George, you could be queen.
44:05Yeah.
44:07There's an idea, man.
44:16As you'd expect, the royals don't have to pay for days like today out of their own pockets.
44:21A system called the Sovereign Grant pays all their official expenses,
44:27which covers almost everything we see them do,
44:31from walkabouts, to garden parties, to state banquets.
44:36Monsieur le Président, mon épouse et moi-même.
44:40The system where we give money to the royal family each year
44:44goes back 200 years to George III.
44:46He struck a deal with Parliament.
44:50He handed over the revenues from vast swathes of royal land to the government.
44:56It was called the Crown Estate, and in return for the Crown Estate,
45:01the government offered George an annual allowance.
45:05A statement to the Prime Minister.
45:06The amount of that allowance has become the subject of lively debate in Parliament.
45:13The government proposes that the annual payment should remain at 7.9 million.
45:18The shams paid far exceed the services rendered.
45:23The arguments went on here about whether the royal family was value for money.
45:28When I see the coronation coach, I want to see it gilded with the finest gold that can be bought.
45:32There's no attack on the Crown here. This is how the money is used.
45:37An overwhelming number of people in this nation regard the royal family as the greatest asset the United Kingdom has.
45:44This is a pretty big winter heating allowance.
45:49It's all good parliamentary knockabout, but the royal family didn't much enjoy having their accounts poured over.
45:56In 2011, everything changed for them.
46:05The country was once again in the economic doldrums, a new government had come to power,
46:12and there was an eager new Chancellor of the Exchequer trying to slash public expenditure.
46:18Morning, Mr Osborne.
46:20George Osborne.
46:21Today is the day when Britain steps back from the brink.
46:27The figures for cuts are stark.
46:29£81 billion cut from public spending, almost half a million jobs to vanish.
46:35The deepest cuts to public spending in living memory.
46:40A stronger Britain starts here, and I commend this...
46:43The palace had been badgering the government for a change in the system,
46:46because the palace wanted more control over their finances.
46:50That was the palace's idea?
46:52Yeah. The palace thought they should get a proportion of the profits of the Crown Estate.
46:58Now, the Crown Estate is a vast property empire, but the government gets all the money.
47:03So George Osborne buys into this.
47:05OK, we'll attach it to the Crown Estate for no particular good reason,
47:09other than it sounds royal. It sounds good.
47:17The way of funding a monarchy has been running for 200 years.
47:21Why did you want to change it?
47:23My predecessor, Alistair Darling, said to me,
47:25Look, George, I've had to deal with a lot.
47:28The one problem I haven't solved is the funding of the royal family,
47:32and that's over to you.
47:33And that's when we created a new system, the Sovereign Grant.
47:38There's a formula that is decided by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor,
47:43and a representative of the royal family,
47:46that essentially sets how much the royal family gets
47:49as a percentage of the money that the Crown Estates generate.
47:54Now, the Crown Estates these days are just a kind of modern property company.
47:58Not a bad barometer of how the British economy is doing.
48:00Oh, really? You did this at a time when you were imposing austerity on everybody in this country,
48:07and were much hated for it.
48:10And yet at the same time, you attached the amount of money the royal family gets
48:14to a huge property company with investments in London and other parts,
48:19which inevitably is going to get richer and richer.
48:22I don't think that's fair. If the money starts to get too much,
48:25then the system kicks in and the percentage of the Crown Estate is adjusted down.
48:32So when I set the Sovereign Grant up,
48:35you know, the royal family was due to receive 15%.
48:39That's been adjusted up to 25% to take into account the rebuilding of Buckingham Palace.
48:44And then it's now been cut to 12%.
48:46So, you know, the formula, a bit like the royal family, the formula is flexible and adjusts,
48:52but the mechanism the Sovereign Grant endures.
48:55At first glance, that seems fair enough.
48:59A budget that can rise or fall.
49:03But not quite.
49:04At the heart of it is this fantastic mechanism from the royal family's point of view.
49:10If the profits of the Crown Estate go up, the Sovereign Grant will go up.
49:14But if the profits of the Crown Estate go down, the Sovereign Grant won't go down.
49:18It won't go down?
49:20It's a ratchet. It can only ever go up.
49:22So the palace is on a win-win.
49:25The actual cash they get under the system you set up can never go down.
49:31So if they have a bonanza year, their income rises and it never drops again.
49:38The higher it goes, the higher it stays.
49:40Even if the economy tanks, even if the Crown Estate that funds it all tanks,
49:46that was one of the rules you made, wasn't it?
49:49They should never suffer a fall in income, unlike everybody else in the country.
49:53Well, they never suffer a fall in cash.
49:58That's what people call income.
50:00Yeah, but inflation means that that can be a real fall.
50:05How can that be fair?
50:07It's better than having an annual decision by Parliament how much to give to the royal family.
50:12Did the palace think it was a good wheeze?
50:14Well, I had quite a few conversations with the Queen about it.
50:17Not surprisingly, I took her personal interest.
50:19And did she purr with pleasure when you explained how it worked?
50:23No, I think at the time it was seen as quite a tough settlement.
50:27Didn't turn out that way.
50:29In reality, since it was introduced, the percentage may have fallen, but the actual money paid out has just gone up and up,
50:39soaring above the rate of inflation from around £30 million in 2012 to £72 million this year.
50:48And if nothing changes, it will only go ever upwards.
50:59Wouldn't you have done better to have had a system where you say,
51:02this is what the royal family needs in 2012, and we'll make sure it stays level with inflation?
51:10Particularly at a time when millions of people in the country are getting poorer and can't make ends meet.
51:17I don't agree with you that the system has overly rewarded the royal family.
51:22You know, it's grand, but it's not overly lavish.
51:27Frankly, the money that the public spends on the royal family is tiny by comparison to the things we spend on benefits or the NHS or the defence budget.
51:39You know, the NHS budget is, you know, well north of £150 billion.
51:44So a million a week is not to be sneezed at?
51:48No, but first of all, it's not money for their own personal expenditure.
51:52Second, it's gone to, you know, perform the functions we expect of the head of state and the palaces where great events of our nation happen.
52:01I think you get pretty good value for money as a country.
52:04You want some of the grandeur, some of the awe, so that when we throw a state banquet for the visiting American president,
52:11there's a little shiver down the spine of the president as we show Britain at its best.
52:18Mr. President, Mrs. Trump, it is with great pleasure that my wife and I welcome you to Windsor Castle.
52:28Melania and I are deeply grateful to you and Queen Camilla.
52:34And if we didn't have them as the head of state, we'd have to have someone else.
52:36And, you know, let's imagine we had President David Dimbleby.
52:41I can tell you he'd want a nice lavish state dinner and he'd want a big house and he'd want helicopters that flies around the place and all that.
52:49He'd be possibly even grander than the Windsors.
52:58Hi there.
53:01How are you?
53:09But there's another argument that's frequently made for the value of monarchy.
53:15You can see it on display four times a week outside Buckingham Palace.
53:20The sheer fact that we have a royal family actually brings an awful lot of money into Britain.
53:25Tourists come from all over the world to see our thousand year history on show.
53:32Visits Queen Road in Dr. Prassad's car.
53:37Is it an argument for monarchy that it is a net contributor to Britain's GDP?
53:42It's valid and I think it's also, at a very banal level, I think it's economically correct.
53:49Britain does extraordinarily well as a tourist destination and some part of that is probably attributable to that whole idea of royal pageantry and bling.
53:59But is it a good defence of monarchy to say it brings in tourism?
54:03No, if I'm just being honest, OK. If you gave me as an advertising person that amount of wealth and resource, I could probably find lots of other ways to attract people to the UK.
54:11You think if you had the funds the monarchy has, you could spend them better by improving London's nightlife?
54:18It's conceivable that Disney could do a better job than the Windsors.
54:23OK, the Disney Corporation manages to get millions and millions of people every year to visit Orlando in August, which is effectively a baking hot place in the middle of a swamp.
54:33So there are other ways you can attract tourists. A half a billion pound aquarium would probably be pretty impressive.
54:41But I don't think every decision in life should be reduced to an economic calculus.
54:48And I think the royal family is important.
54:51It provides a pretty potent symbol, what you might call an arbitrary but shared focus for our allegiance.
54:59In many ways, that's what we value them for.
55:03Whether you value the Windsor's Roll or you don't, it's a service that doesn't come cheap.
55:11The family firm's financial worries have long been put to rest.
55:19And Charles was the first billionaire to take the throne.
55:23Our royals have a lifestyle to match the richest plutocrat.
55:34And their wealth is only set to grow.
55:37As my grandmother said when she was crowned, coronations are a declaration of our hopes for the future.
55:46So what of the future?
55:47I commit myself to serve you all. King, country and Commonwealth. God save the King.
55:57At the moment William seems to be a bit secretive about his wealth.
56:01Unlike his father, he is refusing to publish his tax returns.
56:12Despite this, he and Catherine remain hugely popular.
56:16The argument for all the financial advantages we give the royal family is that it's a price worth paying for the life of dutiful public service lived on our behalf.
56:30But their position, their wealth, and all the perks that come with it, depend on whether they continue to win approval from us, the public.
56:45Couldn't the monarchy operate from a two bedroom flat in Wembley?
56:49The monarchy could operate very well from a two bedroom flat in Wembley, but no one would be very interested in them anymore.
56:55It's our interest in them that keeps the institution alive.
57:02Their public image is a royal obsession.
57:14But in the image business, when things go wrong, they can go really wrong.
57:19If you're born into this position, you have a duty to behave.
57:26But what lengths will they go to, to survive?
57:31Now we go!
57:49A content of what makes yougreen days lives.
57:52Then the roots of the nation may be found!
57:53Another thing that makes you passionate about the world Aku niż아서
58:16Transcription by CastingWords
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