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catching up with the royals with rev richard coles s01e08
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00:00Hello and welcome to another episode of Catching Up with the Royals with me, Emily Andrews.
00:05And me, Richard Coles. This is the podcast that takes you beyond the headlines and lifts the lid
00:10on what life is really like behind palace walls.
00:14Although I one time did have to buy him a drink. He didn't buy me a drink.
00:17Hey, hey, hey, hey, more on that please.
00:19This week we'll be pulling back the proverbial curtain on the inner workings of the so-called firm,
00:25arguably one of the most lucrative companies in the world,
00:28from which royal earns the most.
00:30The king.
00:31He is the first billionaire monarch.
00:34Doesn't hurt if you are exempt from inheritance tax.
00:37Two, the act of quitting the family business.
00:39What does the world owe you if all of a sudden you've handed back your crown?
00:42We'll be uncovering exactly how the House of Windsor is run and makes its money.
00:52Well, here we all are again, catching up with the royals.
00:56Now, Prince Philip famously referred to it not as a family, but a firm.
01:02Do you think that was apt?
01:05I think so. I think for two reasons, really.
01:08One, the monarch is like the CEO, the chief executive, and effectively runs everything.
01:15He or she, any person within the firm, be they working royal, member of the family or courtier,
01:22that answers to the monarch. And actually, I think it's apt that Philip coined it because he was the arch
01:26moderniser.
01:27He was a real moderniser in the royal family of the 20th century.
01:32And I think that what's interesting about the firm is that they are, in some respects,
01:40when we were in the age of influencer, aren't we?
01:42But aren't they the ultimate influencer?
01:43Aren't they the ultimate brand?
01:45So it's really important to make a distinction between royals, which we talk about, obviously, catching up with the royals.
01:51That's all of them.
01:52That's all of them. They're all welcome here.
01:53Princess Michael of Kent.
01:55Yes, Zara Tindall. She is a royal. But the working royals are funded by the Sovereign Grant.
02:01Now, the monarch is funded in three ways. He or she has their own private inherited income.
02:06Not, they don't have to pay income tax. So because of that, I think Charles is the first billionaire British
02:11monarch ever,
02:12because he didn't have to pay inheritance tax on his mother's inheritance.
02:17So they're funded by personal wealth, the Duchy of Lancaster, and the Sovereign Grant.
02:21The heir to the throne, the Prince of Wales, is funded by the Duchy of Cornwall.
02:24Hang on. Duchy of Cornwall, Duchy of Lancaster. What are those?
02:27Yes, those are two separate duchies. So the monarch is also the Duke of Lancaster.
02:33Queen Elizabeth was the Duke of Lancaster. And they're separate duchies.
02:37They are huge land-owning entities.
02:41Now, the Sovereign Grant is a percentage of the Crown Estate.
02:45So the Sovereign Grant is paid to the monarch that funds all the work of the royal family.
02:49So the Crown Estate are those holdings that belong not to the individual, the king, Charles,
02:54but to the crown, to the king and his successors.
02:57Absolutely. And a percentage of the profits goes to pay for all the working royals and their travel,
03:05the job that they do, basically, for Britain, PLC.
03:09I've got two other words for you. Corporation tax?
03:12I don't know whether the Crown Estate pays corporation tax. That's a really good question.
03:18If you start from the notion that actually anything held by the Crown is exempt from taxation,
03:23because it's HMRC, isn't it? It's the Crown that does the taxing.
03:28Exactly.
03:28So the Crown taxing itself does sort of have to be by its own volition,
03:32because that's how it works, right?
03:35Yeah. Everything else that they do, even when they're going, say, they're visiting India
03:39or they're visiting the US, then that's paid for by us via the Sovereign Grant.
03:43Now, the working royals are the king, the queen. Come on, Richard. Who else?
03:48The Prince of Princess Wales.
03:50Yes.
03:51The Princess Royal.
03:52Yes.
03:53The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh.
03:55Well done, Sophie and Edward.
03:58There's three more.
04:01Princess Alexandra.
04:02The Duke of Kent.
04:04Yes.
04:05I can't. I've run out of royals.
04:06And the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester.
04:07Of course, yeah.
04:08And then, of course, for the Prince of Wales, the heir to the throne is funded by the Duchy of
04:13Cornwall.
04:14All those biscuits.
04:15All those biscuits, yeah.
04:16Actually, fun fact, you're absolutely right to say about Dutch originals,
04:20but that was set up by Charles as Prince of Wales, but now it's wholly owned by Waitrose.
04:27Oh, really?
04:28Yeah.
04:28But the brand and the association endures?
04:31The brand and the association endures.
04:32It was set up in partnership, I think, between Charles and Waitrose,
04:37and then any profits from the range were given to the Prince's Trust.
04:43Oh, I see.
04:43So it's actually, it's profits going to charity.
04:46Yeah, profits still go to charity, even though it's now owned by Waitrose.
04:48We're talking about kind of large sums of money here, but I just want to say on the sovereign grant,
04:52before people think that that's actually kind of tax that could otherwise, you know,
04:57be spent on hospitals, schools and roads, which indeed it could be,
04:59but actually the sovereign grant comes out of the income of the Crown Estates, right?
05:03So that's holdings that belong not to Charles, but to the monarchy,
05:09and the sovereign grant is a percentage of the profits from that.
05:13That's absolutely right.
05:14Right.
05:15And that was an arrangement that goes back historically.
05:17I know they tinker with it from time to time.
05:19Yeah.
05:20So George Osborne, when he was Chancellor back in, I think, like 2011, 2012,
05:24it used to be the civil list.
05:26So effectively, the UK government would dollop a whole load of cash
05:29to the Keeper of the Privy Purse, who is like the chief accountant at Monarchy HQ.
05:34Funnily, the principals, the royal family, call Buckingham Palace Monarchy HQ.
05:38They do call it Monarchy HQ.
05:40So the UK government used to give a whole load of cash to the Keeper of the Privy Purse,
05:46which would fund all their work.
05:49And then under the Cameron Coalition government between the Tories and the Lib Dems,
05:55George Osborne was Chancellor, and he actually did the royals a real favour,
05:59because he said that a percentage of the crown estate, which, as you've absolutely said,
06:05is held, it's kind of like it's crown lands, but all the money goes to the UK taxpayer,
06:11and now a percentage goes to the royals to fund their work.
06:15So you could say, in a sense, that there's sort of self-funding, if you were looking to...
06:19Oh, no.
06:20No, I don't think you can say that.
06:22Quite the opposite.
06:23Well, I'm going to say, if you were looking as a way...
06:25And what I'm saying is it's a highly political debate, and indeed a politicised debate.
06:29And some people would argue that you do get value for money from the royal family,
06:33some would say, or the monarchy, and some would say you don't.
06:36And that's a very polarised view, and I'm just trying to figure out
06:39what the arguments are on either side of that.
06:41I think how they're funded and whether they provide good value for money,
06:45in my opinion, are two slightly different debates.
06:48And the other complications, of course, is how much of this is because it's not unreasonable
06:52to pay people to do a job.
06:54In other words, how much of this is in return for services rendered,
06:57which is if you're head of a state, it involves things like palaces and security
07:00and that kind of thing.
07:01Or how much of this is people just getting an easy ride from the Treasury and HMRC,
07:06not paying inheritance tax, for example, if you're the sovereign.
07:08Well, I think are they worth it?
07:11Are they value for money?
07:13Depends on who you ask.
07:15And I think it often depends on your view of politics.
07:19I think it probably depends on your age.
07:22We tend to be more supportive of monarchy, I think, as we get older.
07:25Certainly younger people, all the popularity polls are that, you know,
07:29people don't support the monarchy as much when they don't.
07:32God save the Queen!
07:33I was the king now, innit?
07:35Say aye.
07:36It's really bloody complicated.
07:37It's really complicated.
07:37And that's one of the reasons why it works for them is they don't make it,
07:41it's not transparent.
07:42It's not transparent.
07:43And they want it to be complicated.
07:44And they want so that they, we don't delve too much
07:48into how much money they really do have.
07:50I've got a quiz for you before we go.
07:53Richard, how many official roles working for the family
07:57have been related to the lavatory?
08:00Oh my word.
08:02I know, bring the tone down, aren't I?
08:03I'm going to have to think about that.
08:05Back with you soon.
08:10Welcome back to Catching Up With The Royals.
08:12For the break, I asked you how many official roles working for the royal family
08:17have involved lavatories?
08:19Wait for it.
08:21And the answer is two.
08:23Number two.
08:24Oh, Richard!
08:26You have to bring the tone down, but I love it.
08:28I love it.
08:29Of course it had to be a number two.
08:31Yes, and that is relevant.
08:32Okay, so the two roles are, if you hadn't worked out already,
08:36groom of the stool and keeper of the royal bedchamber stools.
08:41Now, Richard, do you know what the groom of the stool had to do?
08:45Well, I was hoping it was someone who had to do with seating arrangements,
08:48but I guess we're on a different stool here, aren't we?
08:50I think it's a different stool.
08:51I'm going to leave it for you to explain.
08:53Okay, so the groom of the stool would literally be there
08:57to wipe the monarch's derriere.
08:59They would be there to wipe the monarch's bottom, should he or she chose.
09:03And I think also, in all seriousness, it was an important job
09:06because you also, it was to do with the health of the monarch,
09:09so you had to inspect the stool and make sure that it all looked appropriate
09:12and that they didn't have an upset tummy and they weren't ill.
09:14But whoever held that job was actually a very, very important courtier
09:20because he or she would be incredibly close to the monarch
09:25and was party to all their private thoughts in a very intimate environment.
09:28So in the days of, say, a Tudor monarchy, for example,
09:31where the monarch was the sun, the moon and everything,
09:34if you had the ear of Henry VIII as well as the bottom of Henry VIII,
09:39you had a very, very direct root of power.
09:42Yeah, definitely.
09:43And also I think there's something, isn't there, to be said.
09:45I don't want to speak for you, Richard,
09:47but when you're literally naked or partially clothed,
09:50you are quite vulnerable, aren't you?
09:52And I think there has to be a sense of real intimacy between someone who is helping you
09:59in that, you know, not that I've ever had this.
10:01You know, it's quite a vulnerable thing.
10:03Yeah.
10:03But also the fact that the health of the monarch was so closely related to the health of the nation.
10:09Yeah.
10:09So if the monarch's poo is looking a bit off, that might affect the value of the pound.
10:14Yeah, totally.
10:15Yeah.
10:15Interesting.
10:15Because the monarch needed to live because he or she, and it's the same now,
10:21you see it with people around the court, you know, of the monarch and the air in waiting,
10:27everyone's kind of thinking, how long have they got?
10:29Because if they go, my position goes too.
10:32Which is why the second role, keeper of the royal bedchamber stools was also important
10:37because that role involved making, putting out all the chamber pots for high ranking and
10:43official guests.
10:44And if you think, again, going back to kind of medieval Tudor times, when obviously there
10:48was letter writing, huge amount of letter writing, but the real way that diplomacy, well,
10:54like still like now, was effected was through face to face.
10:58It's access.
10:59Access.
10:59Yeah.
11:00Mind you, a bittersweet feeling to be told.
11:03The good news is you've been appointed to a very senior position at court.
11:06The bad news is bring your mittens.
11:09Yeah, I know.
11:11But there are other ones.
11:12It's so interesting that there's another job, the page of the back stairs.
11:18Billy Backstairs Billy.
11:19Yes, Backstairs Billy.
11:20Now, the page of the back stairs, it sounds like you would rather be page of the main stairs,
11:25but the back stairs was where a lot of the unofficial business was transacted.
11:29So the back stairs where people could get in and out, up and down, in and out of the sovereign
11:34or the prince's chamber without being seen, without being on public display.
11:39So that's quite significant.
11:41I remember visiting a stately home and there was a suite that was reserved for the heir to
11:45the title.
11:46And that had a separate entrance, which went to a side door.
11:49So the heir to the title could conduct his, invariably in that case, his business without it being
11:56confused with the official business of the house.
11:59Do you see what I mean?
11:59Yeah.
12:00It's interesting, isn't it?
12:01It's very clever.
12:01Yeah.
12:01And then, of course, there's always the kind of, there's roles like the royal shoe wearer.
12:06I mean, and that's sort of that.
12:07I don't know whether that happens with King Charles, but that certainly happened with the
12:11late queen, Queen Elizabeth.
12:13Angela Kelly, otherwise known as AK47, because she was, and she still is pretty formidable,
12:19although she's retired now.
12:20She was the late queen's dresser for many, many years.
12:23A very impressive liver puddle in.
12:25And she had the same size shoe as the queen, the same size foot, sorry, as the queen.
12:30And she would wear in her shoes.
12:33Well, that makes sense because if you're the queen and you're on your feet all day, you
12:36could be literally put out of business if you've got a blister or if you, you know, you need
12:42that need, that's an indispensable service.
12:45Absolutely.
12:46If you're the queen and you're, or the king, and your time is minuteed to the second to
12:51the minute, and they do, their schedules are 7.43, 8.22, you know, if your shoes are rubbing
12:57and you're in pain, that's no good for anyone.
12:59I'm fascinated by Angela Kelly to have had that degree of access and also that degree of
13:04intimacy.
13:05And clearly, is affection the right word?
13:08I'm not sure.
13:08Yes, I think so.
13:10It's such an interesting role, isn't it?
13:12And also, how interesting that she's described as a weapon by her nickname at court.
13:17Yes, AK-47.
13:18Well, the story goes that while she was still working for the late queen, she was allowed
13:24to publish two books.
13:28The first of which was a book about royal dresses.
13:32And then I think the then Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, was very worried about what she
13:36might publish after the queen died.
13:40Because she literally had access to all the secrets.
13:43She used to watch television with the late queen.
13:45She was her confidant.
13:46She would know who the queen voted for on Strictly.
13:48Yeah, she would know.
13:49I bet she'd say you.
13:51I'm certain she wouldn't.
13:53But she would know.
13:54She would know who, if the queen put a bet, which horse she'd been betting on.
13:57She would know who, what the queen thought about Meghan.
14:02So.
14:03Also intimacy, knickers and bras.
14:05Exactly.
14:05Yes.
14:06All of that kind of thing.
14:07When the queen was unwell, Angela would go and personally care for her.
14:11She did her hair.
14:13She helped her with her makeup.
14:14And so when a monarch dies, everybody around the monarch, groom in the stall or not, is
14:20out on there.
14:21Exactly.
14:22It's out on there.
14:23So Charles made sure he gave her a nice house.
14:26I mean, there's a story that Backstairs Billy, who was so loyal to the queen mother and keeper
14:31of all the secrets, knew where all the bodies were buried.
14:33Once the queen mother died, he was booted out to a flat in Kennington, I think.
14:36I'm sure that's true.
14:39Allegedly.
14:40Allegedly.
14:40Allegedly.
14:41Well, he's dead now, isn't he?
14:42But I mean, he, I mean, he knew a lot.
14:45That can make you very powerful.
14:47Yes.
14:48Knowledge is power.
14:49Yeah.
14:49So I think it's interesting that now, of course, we don't have, you know, famously when Queen
14:55Camilla became queen and was crowned a couple of years ago, she let it be known that she
14:59wouldn't have ladies in waiting.
15:01She now has companions and Kay Middy, our friend, Kay Middy, the Princess of Wales, everybody.
15:07Her Royal Highness.
15:08Don't clutch your pearls too much.
15:09Her Royal Highness Catherine, the Princess of Wales.
15:11She doesn't have ladies in waiting either.
15:13Yeah, interesting.
15:14The other thing, of course, is if you've got all these people like wearing in your shoes
15:18or looking at your stools or whatever, that's payroll, isn't it?
15:22Payroll.
15:22How rich do you need to be?
15:24I mean, we've talked about, so the sovereign grant covers some of this, but what about the
15:27personal wealth of the senior or the sovereign?
15:30Let me look at my list.
15:31Let me look at my list.
15:32I'm glad you asked me that.
15:33So the Royal Rich List, who do you think tops it?
15:36The King.
15:37Of course.
15:38He is the first billionaire monarch.
15:40Now, that's partly because of that awful word, inflation.
15:44It's also partly through very savvy investments throughout the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s.
15:49And also, I think it's partly thanks to Prince Philip, because Philip and Charles started treating
15:55the royal estates, their personal income, their personal lands as businesses, the firm.
16:04And so then they started charging market rent.
16:06It wasn't just a feudal, oh, I'll just let you live in this house if you mow my field for
16:10me.
16:11They professionalised it.
16:12They professionalised it.
16:13They absolutely, they professionalised the business of being a monarch.
16:17And so Charles is estimated at 1.8 billion.
16:20Can I just add to this?
16:21It doesn't hurt if you are exempt from inheritance tax.
16:25I was just about to give you that.
16:26Richard, we need to talk about inheritance tax.
16:28I think we do need to talk about inheritance tax.
16:30Very quickly, I'm going to run through the rest.
16:31But then we need to explain to everybody about the inheritance tax issue.
16:35So Prince William, as the heir to the throne, Duchy of Cornwall, he's estimated at 90 million.
16:39Princess Anne, I didn't know this.
16:41Her personal fortune is approximately 50 million.
16:44That's largely through inherited estates and wealth and investments.
16:48And then Prince Harry and Meghan, again, we don't know how much really they're worth
16:51because we don't know what any of them are worth.
16:53But Harry and Meghan combined private net worth is commonly estimated around 47 million pounds.
17:00But the monarch doesn't have to pay inheritance tax.
17:04This is a very significant perk, isn't it?
17:07Because it's 40% or something, isn't it, inheritance tax on most people.
17:10I know I inherited a little money from my mother and a chunk of that went to the tax man.
17:15And if that hadn't gone to the tax man, I would be wearing a tiara right now.
17:22Well, I wouldn't, but you know what I mean.
17:23I do.
17:24I mean, is it fair?
17:24I would say, I suppose the problem is, is that if the monarch was subject to inheritance tax,
17:30then would they go bankrupt?
17:31Well, I know, because there's a sort of, they use a language, which sounds like an exemption,
17:36which is sovereign to sovereign, right?
17:37So it's only the succeeding sovereign who enjoys that benefit.
17:43The only thing that's striking about this is that you do get this right,
17:46they do pay a certain amount of tax, but they seem to decide themselves.
17:50I would very much like to speak to HMRC and say,
17:52I've decided to pay you this amount of tax this year.
17:55Okay, with you, thank you very much, bye.
17:57It's not going to work, is it?
17:59Well, it's interesting because when Charles was Prince of Wales,
18:02he was quite open in the Duchy of Cornwall and used to say how much income tax he paid.
18:08He didn't tell us how they came about, the calculations,
18:12but he publicly said how much they paid.
18:14William, as Duke of Cornwall and Prince of Wales,
18:18is not telling us how much income tax he's paid.
18:19Isn't that interesting?
18:20Because that would be, that's a counterintuitive fact,
18:22because you imagine more transparency rather than less transparency would be the direction.
18:26I wonder if it's part of this, certainly with William,
18:31I wonder if it's part of this not wanting to appear rich.
18:35I can't believe that any royal would be diddling HMRC because that would just be,
18:40I mean, the only person who's above prosecution is the monarch.
18:43It does give you a formidable tax advantage.
18:45It does give you a formidable tax advantage if you're being prosecuted in the name of your dad.
18:52But I can't believe that all those civil servants and the keeper of the privy purse
18:57would allow them to get the tax bill wrong.
19:00But I do wonder, I do feel that William wants to be kind of like a man of the people
19:06and wants to be seen as another ordinary type of guy.
19:10Does publishing the millions he has to pay in tax?
19:14Because how much is he worth, again, do we think?
19:16Well, we don't know.
19:16We've worked about £20 million to £25 million a year in income from the Duchy of Cornwall.
19:19Yeah.
19:20I mean, that's a huge amount of money.
19:22£20 million a year, Richard.
19:25I mean, imagine how many tiaras both of us could buy with that.
19:27There's a caveat to this, isn't it, which is making it...
19:30I remember a neighbour of mine got really exercised when she found out
19:33that the cost of the coronation was about £70 million.
19:36And she said, why can't the king pay for that?
19:38And it seems to me quite obviously why.
19:40That's a head of state thing.
19:42Yeah.
19:42The king isn't crowning himself for his own amusement.
19:45He's doing it because as head of state, that's what you do.
19:48And he seems to be right that that should be paid by the state.
19:51But that's a useful confusion sometimes, isn't it?
19:53Because how would you always know how to distinguish between what is a function of state
19:57and what is a private benefit?
20:00It's hard to call that.
20:01But I mean, going back to what we were sort of saying before, are the royals worth it?
20:06You know, that £20 million a year to William, I mean, it's just...
20:09He's the same age as me.
20:10I mean, I just kind of...
20:10My mind boggles.
20:11And don't forget, that's from the £20 million doesn't include the money he will get
20:17as part of the suffering grants to be a working royal.
20:19But then another thing, and this is a hard thing, but I mean, I think all of us would
20:22want to have a distinguish between our private resources and the resources that came to us
20:28by virtue of what we do.
20:29And I don't...
20:30In principle, I don't think it sounds unreasonable that public stuff should be funded out of
20:38public money and private resources should not be lent on for that.
20:44I always liken the royals to...
20:45There's that famous advert by Heineken.
20:48And I don't think they do it anymore, but, you know, Heineken...
20:50Is it Heineken that it reaches parts...
20:52Other beers cannot reach.
20:53Other beers cannot.
20:54And I always think the royal family is a bit like the royal Heineken, the royal beer, because
20:58they can do...
20:59They can achieve things.
21:01They can convene people and bring people together in a way that I don't think anyone
21:05else in the world can.
21:06Look at the Trump state visit last year.
21:08There was the Princess of Wales dressed in Trump's favourite colour, gold.
21:13The amount of gold on that table at the Windsor Castle banquet was amazing.
21:17He was having the time of his life in the unprecedented second state visit.
21:23I mean, he absolutely loved it.
21:24And the result of that, Richard, meant that we had less bad tariffs than the rest of Europe.
21:30And it meant that factories here didn't close.
21:34Soft power.
21:35Soft power.
21:35And it's very hard to do a profit and loss on that, isn't it?
21:38Because they're very hard to track those figures.
21:39But I always thought other people would say, how much is the monarchy worth in terms of bringing
21:43in a tourist pound or dollar or yen by a significant amount?
21:47It's very hard to get any precise figures about that.
21:49But I still think even if we didn't have a monarchy, the coffers of the Royal Collection
21:53Trust, which administer the opening of Holyrood House, Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle,
21:57still think the tourists would come.
21:59King Charles or no King Charles?
22:00I've got a hypothetical.
22:02Go on.
22:02In the event that it was thought that perhaps we could manage perfectly well without a monarchy
22:07and it was abolished and we would form a republic, which is perfectly doable, whether it's wise
22:11or not is another question.
22:13Imagine the wrangling over who gets what.
22:16If the Windsors were to retire to private life, what would they take with them?
22:24Would the title in their art collection, their jewels, their land holdings, would that just
22:30go to the state or would they think, hang on, that was ours or that we, I don't know, it's
22:36an interesting one, isn't it?
22:36Well, some stuff is theirs personally.
22:38So...
22:39How do you untangle all that?
22:40Balmoral, Sandringham, Highgrove are all personal homes.
22:45Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace are owned by the state.
22:49The Crown Jewels, locked up in the tower.
22:52They're owned by the crown.
22:53They're owned by the crown.
22:54I would say, isn't that the state?
22:57I've got another thing to tell you.
22:59Tell me.
22:59Right, so I've looked this up actually and the British monarchy in cost is about 100
23:04million a year.
23:06The other monarchies, European monarchies, about half.
23:09I know.
23:10Some much less than that.
23:11But I think Denmark and the Netherlands are the next in terms of expense and it's half
23:18that cost.
23:18Yeah.
23:19And they, I mean, they seem to live pretty high on the hog, but obviously our lot are
23:22super expensive and that's partly to do with the splendor and the extent of their living.
23:28Well, there's not enough transparency for us to know.
23:31Well, it's time to go for a break.
23:33But after the break, we'll be asking the question, how do you actually quit the firm if you should
23:38choose to do so?
23:39Well, we'll come back to that.
23:40But we have a question for you to mull over also and it's this.
23:43Is it true or false that the monarch requires no passport or driving license?
23:51See you in a moment.
23:56Welcome back to Catching Up With The Royals.
23:59And a quick reminder that if you like what you hear and would like more content from us,
24:02then head to our social media channels.
24:05Search for Catching Up With The Royals.
24:07Now, before the break, the question was, true or false, the monarch requires a driving license
24:12or passport.
24:13The answer is, no, the monarch doesn't.
24:16Stopped by the cops, the monarch can say, no, no, no, be off with you.
24:21Stopped at immigration, no, no, no, be off with you.
24:23They're the fount of the monarch, it's the fount of all law.
24:26Doesn't need that stuff.
24:27The monarch is the law.
24:29Discuss.
24:30Anyway, look, we were talking about quitting the firm, Emily.
24:34If it is a firm, of course you have the right to hand in your notice.
24:38And it has happened, hasn't it?
24:39But it's never been a particularly smooth business.
24:43No.
24:44So, obviously, the most infamous was the monarch quitting the top job, Edward VIII, in 1936.
24:54It does seem a bit bonkers now, doesn't it, to think about it.
24:58But I think you have to put yourself back 100 years.
25:00And, you know, the monarch, well, still is.
25:03The monarch is the head of the church of England.
25:05No, no, no, no, no, no.
25:06Oh, sorry, yes, this is your.
25:07Point of order.
25:08Yeah, point of order.
25:08This is your domain.
25:10Talk to me.
25:11Supreme governor.
25:12Supreme governor.
25:12Not the head of the church.
25:13Sorry.
25:14Which is Jesus Christ.
25:15Okay, sorry.
25:16Supreme governor.
25:16Supreme governor.
25:17Small but important point.
25:18So, Jesus Christ is the head.
25:20Yes.
25:21And the British monarch is.
25:24The supreme governor of the church of England.
25:25The supreme governor of the church of England.
25:27Of course, after the breakaway from Rome by Henry VIII in the 16th century.
25:32It's so complicated.
25:33He did a ton of podcasts just to scratch the surface of that.
25:36And also, of course, at that point, he was still,
25:37he might have broken away from the church,
25:38but he was not Church of England.
25:40Anyway, that was Elizabeth I, but we're not doing history.
25:43We're doing royals.
25:44That's very good.
25:45Thanks.
25:45You're welcome.
25:46Elizabethan Settlement.
25:47Elizabethan Settlement.
25:48And, of course, and then there was Edward VI, but.
25:50Really good.
25:51Yeah, I know.
25:52And Mariah and Mary and, your neck of the woods,
25:55the Louisian Martyrs, I think.
25:58Oh, the Louis.
25:59Yes.
25:59The Martyrs of Louis.
26:00The Martyrs, yeah.
26:02Anyway, bonfire.
26:03I love a Louis bonfire.
26:04Those of you who know, who know?
26:05You know.
26:06But back to the Supreme Government of the Church of England,
26:09which was the monarch of Edward VIII,
26:12and therefore then he couldn't marry a divorcee.
26:15So he had to quit.
26:16I mean, the thing, the Church of England's doctrine at that time
26:18has changed now and made it impossible for a divorcee to remarry
26:23if the person they had originally been married to was still living.
26:25Not permitted.
26:26And so the Archbishop of Canterbury said no way.
26:29It was hard to imagine just what a crisis this was, actually.
26:32It was an unthinkable thing that all of a sudden everyone had to think about.
26:36It was a big trauma for all concerned.
26:38I think the deal was either you give up Mrs. Simpson
26:42or you abdicate and marry Mrs. Simpson
26:45or you marry Mrs. Simpson more genetically,
26:48which means that she would not become queen.
26:52She would not become royal through the marriage.
26:55And he said no.
26:56And presumably he could have stayed being king and had her as a mistress,
27:01like every other monarch before him.
27:03Yeah.
27:03And of course the cat was sort of out of the bag now and he upped the ante.
27:06But it's like one of those things, you know, situations,
27:08no, but don't speak, don't tell.
27:10Yeah.
27:11People can kind of make their own arrangements.
27:13But as soon as you sort of make that explicit,
27:15then you have to tidy it all up and, you know, you have to make a decision.
27:18It became official.
27:20And I think, I mean, there have been many books written, of course, famously.
27:25Wallace and Edward VIII are buried side by side in the grounds of Frogmore House,
27:32just by Frogmore Cottage, where another American married a British prince
27:41and went to live after their married life.
27:43I've always thought it was quite funny that Harry and Meghan went to live in Frogmore Cottage,
27:47which is very, very close to the graves.
27:50Almost as if there were an element of deliberation.
27:53Whoever chose that for them.
27:54Well, do you know what, though?
27:55I broke the story that they were going to move to Frogmore Cottage.
27:58And of course, at the time,
27:59everybody thought that they were going to move into one of the vacated apartments
28:04in Kensington Palace.
28:05Everyone thought they were going to live next door to Kate and William.
28:09And there was, I think, apartment, Kate and William have apartment 1A,
28:11and I think apartment 1A was being renovated.
28:12And that was genuinely what was going to happen.
28:16But quite, I mean, we as the journos were always a bit late to the party.
28:19But what happened was Carrie and Meghan spent very little time at KP.
28:25They were living in Nottingham Cottage.
28:27And they didn't want to be, they disliked it so much
28:30that they rented a place near Soho Farmhouse in the Cotswolds.
28:34And they spent very little time at Cotswolds Palace.
28:36And then when they said they didn't want to move into apartment 1,
28:39somewhere had to be found for them.
28:41This whole episode we got to do on why royals don't like living
28:44in official accommodation,
28:45like the king and the queen don't want to live in Buckingham Palace.
28:48No, nobody wants to live in Buckingham Palace.
28:50No one wants to live in BP.
28:52When, I think soon, this year maybe,
28:55we're going to get an updated audit of the money that's been spent
28:59from the Sovereign Grant that's been uplifted for the last,
29:02for the 10 years of resurfacing.
29:04It's going to be interesting to see how much it's cost.
29:09And we should go round it, Richard.
29:11I've never been there.
29:12Have you not?
29:13No.
29:13Oh, by the way, I hear that they are personally quite tight,
29:18that they might have all these mega millions,
29:22but they don't like spending their own money.
29:24Well, there's great stories about Queen Mary,
29:28who used to go to visit people, and if she came to visit,
29:31people used to have to hide all their bibelos away
29:33because if she liked something, she'd just expect it to be given to her.
29:36It's a royal favour.
29:37And she used to go to her shops when they were closed to the public
29:40and go, that's nice, that's nice.
29:41And somebody would go around after and wrap it up in brown paper
29:44and deliver it to Buckingham Palace.
29:45No.
29:46Yeah.
29:46I think that sense of entitlement still does happen.
29:50I heard this great story about Meghan,
29:54that on the eve of the Queen's funeral, which was a Monday,
29:58she got very worried about gloves.
30:01Now, this is my opinion.
30:03This is what I was told.
30:04She got very worried about gloves.
30:05My opinion is, because the gloves that she actually wore
30:07on the day of the Queen's funeral were elbow length.
30:09In fact, comparisons were made to Wallace Simpson,
30:12who was a very stylish lady, but also liked an elbow length glove.
30:15I was told that on the eve of the funeral,
30:19she got one of her people to ring one of the,
30:23a couple of the big French fashion houses that have stores on Regent Street
30:27and wanted them opened so that one of her minions could go and get some gloves.
30:33I think in the end, the keys couldn't be found or burglar arm codes
30:36or people couldn't be, you know, stretched.
30:39And so in the end, she didn't get whatever gloves.
30:42I think she wanted shorter gloves.
30:43I think she suddenly got, this is my personal opinion,
30:45I think she suddenly got really worried.
30:47But that sense of, oh my goodness, I need gloves.
30:50I need gloves.
30:50They're the wrong gloves.
30:51Get me new gloves.
30:51Somebody go, go.
30:53It's quite, that optics is very problematic, isn't it?
30:57It's pop-stop.
30:57The thing is, you get used to the world being nice to you in about a day.
31:02The interesting thing is getting used to the world no longer caring about you.
31:06So when, you know, of course, Megan may sort of fret about her gloves.
31:09I don't know.
31:09But once you've stopped being the reason people are bothered about gloves, i.e. a member of the royal family,
31:16you need to really adjust very quickly, to trim very quickly to a world in which your caprices might not
31:24carry the weight that they did beforehand, right?
31:26So there's one thing about quitting, isn't it?
31:28All of a sudden, the world, what does the world owe you if all of a sudden you've handed back
31:31your crown?
31:32And I think that was the mistake that Harry and Meghan made because they are trying to make their own
31:37money now.
31:39All well and good.
31:40Well done then.
31:41But because they have literally bitten, publicly bitten the hand that fed them in terms of being so critical of
31:49the royals,
31:50that was the reason why everyone was interested in them.
31:52So whilst at the time them doing Oprah and doing the Netflix sort of, you know, speaking their truth and
31:59saying how victimised they were and how unfair it all was,
32:01was probably quite cathartic.
32:04And obviously we all lapped it up, didn't we?
32:06In the long run, it wasn't very sensible as a strategic move because they want people to buy what they
32:14are selling,
32:15be it Harry's life coaching or Meghan's jam.
32:18And if they've been...
32:20But, you know, if she wants us to buy what she's selling, we have to believe in her and we
32:27want to buy into her.
32:28And she's literally told us that she hated the one thing that we were interested in her for, being royal.
32:33But do you think the plan is that you shift from being interesting because you're a member of the British
32:36royal family
32:37to being interesting because you're kind of like the Kardashians,
32:40that there's a sort of another version of that, a sort of secular version of that, if you like,
32:44where people are interested in them for their own sake, rather than for them doing anything.
32:49Well, jam's nice.
32:50And I don't want to be horrible to either Meghan or Harry.
32:53And I think, you know, deprogramming from their weird life is obviously going to be complicated and difficult.
32:58We wish them the best, but I'm not sure how...
33:01Do we?
33:02Yeah, I think I do, really.
33:04I think I do, because, you know...
33:06I think we should.
33:07No, I think we should.
33:08I think with the...
33:09I always think...
33:10I always call it the Emily Andrews Venn diagram.
33:12So you've got three circles.
33:14Okay.
33:14You've got one...
33:15Are you with me?
33:15Are you with me?
33:16One circle is celebrity.
33:18Yeah.
33:19The next circle is, you know, history.
33:23Yeah.
33:23The bottom circle is the news.
33:26And in the middle of those three circles is the royal family.
33:29Yeah.
33:29So in a case, sort of to your point, if you take away the celebrity and you take away the
33:35news
33:35and you take away the history, what are the royal family?
33:38There isn't really much there.
33:40It's the combination of all those three things that make them so interesting, that makes them,
33:44you know, us want to talk about them.
33:46And makes them being able to earn a living.
33:48And makes them earn a living.
33:49The kind of living they want to earn.
33:51But then when they are the working royals, sometimes they feel quite trapped.
33:56And sometimes they want to quit.
33:57And also, the other thing I'd say in favour of Harry is, I understand why as a father you
34:03would be concerned for the safety of your children.
34:05And if you walk away from the royal family and all of a sudden you no longer get that
34:08protection, nonetheless, interest may endure.
34:11And I can quite understand why you would have anxieties that your children might be targeted
34:15and that you would feel that perhaps a degree of security would be available to you for that.
34:20And it's those little things you walk away from and perhaps don't fully anticipate
34:24what that's going to look like and what that's going to cost you
34:27and how different your life is going to be.
34:29Because if you've got security and if you've got stuff that comes with that, you know,
34:34kind of private jets or whatever, that's not a cheap life, is it?
34:39It's a very expensive life.
34:40I don't know how much you need to earn to live that sort of a life, but it's pretty hard
34:44to do that, I think.
34:45I think the security bill-
34:45Take more than jam.
34:47No, for sure.
34:48And I think that's-
34:48Or spread.
34:49That's why.
34:49Or spread.
34:50Spread.
34:51Spread.
34:53Or the sparkling-
34:56No, Emily, stop the accents now.
34:59Or the sparkling brute.
35:00She keeps calling it brute.
35:01I'm like, it's bubbles.
35:02What are you doing, love?
35:02Anyway, their security bill is about two million a year,
35:05so you can completely understand why Harry has mounted this huge campaign.
35:12It is a campaign.
35:13It's a military man campaign to get his Metropolitan Police security reinstated.
35:20But if, as is indicated currently, he does get that reinstated,
35:26that's going to be a huge cost to the British taxpayer.
35:29That, by the way, the security doesn't come out of the Sovereign Grant.
35:32That's out of us.
35:32It comes out of the Metropolitan Police budget.
35:35Yeah, yeah.
35:35Because the Metropolitan Police, which for those Metropolitan Police,
35:39it's London's police force, and they have a special security operation
35:43which protect VIPs, not just the royals, but, you know,
35:48the prime minister and senior politicians.
35:49I've got a hypothetical for you.
35:51Go for it.
35:52In the event of some international outrage,
35:55not an unimaginable situation,
35:58the head of state might be compromised by the kidnap of his grandchildren.
36:03Yeah?
36:05It's bad, isn't it?
36:06That could be really, really bad.
36:07God, that gives me, that makes me, actually,
36:10that's given me a physical reaction.
36:12But before we go, one question for you.
36:16Which of the following unusual facilities can be found inside Buckingham Palace?
36:22An ATM, a post office, or a police station?
36:26We'll be back after this.
36:32Welcome back to Catching Up With The Royals.
36:35Before the break, I asked which of the following unusual facilities
36:38can be found inside Buckingham Palace?
36:40An ATM, a post office, or a police station?
36:43What do you reckon, Richard?
36:45Police station.
36:46Well, you're right, but all of them.
36:50All of them.
36:51And I've seen all of them inside Buckingham Palace.
36:53And who do you think provides the ATM inside BP?
36:57I want to say Coots and Kelly.
36:59You are absolutely correct.
37:00Yes!
37:01It's a Coots ATM.
37:03It's a free standing.
37:04I actually used it just so that I could, you know,
37:07say that I had used the cash machine in Buckingham Palace.
37:11It's part of the NatWest group, actually, now.
37:12Is it?
37:13Yeah.
37:13I bet your account's with Coots, isn't it?
37:15It's not.
37:16No.
37:16But it will be.
37:17It's with another member of the NatWest group.
37:19NatWest.
37:19There you are.
37:20I'm very excited because I've got the red box here.
37:23It's your turn.
37:24This is viewers' questions.
37:26Yes.
37:26The most important bit of the show.
37:28Right.
37:28Let's have a little look.
37:29Okay.
37:32I've made a mess of it.
37:33Hang on.
37:34There we go.
37:34Careful of your mic.
37:35Oh!
37:36Oh, relevant.
37:37This is from Maisie.
37:39Okay.
37:39And she asks,
37:40has Harry's public image taken a turn for the worse
37:42since he no longer has access to the Palace AIDS?
37:46Oh, good question, Maisie.
37:50I mean, if you look at the opinion polls,
37:51his popularity has really nosedived.
37:55And as has Meghan's.
37:56I mean, he used to be one of the most popular members
37:59of the royal family.
38:00And I remember writing that Prince Harry was the one member
38:03of the royal family you'd love to go down the pub with.
38:05But the only one you can imagine going to have a pint.
38:07Yeah, have a pint.
38:08Although at one time did have to buy him a drink.
38:10He didn't buy me a drink.
38:11Hey, hey, hey, hey.
38:12More on that, please.
38:14Oh, we were in Chile.
38:17We were in Chile and on a royal tour.
38:20And on royal tours, it's kind of,
38:24it's sort of like convention that if you go
38:27and follow them around and report on what they're doing,
38:30then there's a private drinks reception.
38:36And we got to the bar.
38:38And Harry is a delight.
38:41He's so fun.
38:42He's exactly, well, he was anyway.
38:44I think he lost a bit of his joie de vivre before he left the UK.
38:47I really hope he's got it back now.
38:49But he was so fun.
38:50He's like Tigger, bounding around.
38:52And he was like, hey, Em, he comes into the bar.
38:55I said, oh, hi, Harry.
38:56I said, oh.
38:57And he's like, oh, you got a drink.
38:58I said, oh, you not got a drink.
38:59He said, oh, I'll get you a drink.
39:01I'll buy you a drink.
39:02And I went, oh, thanks so much.
39:03I'll have half a pint or whatever.
39:06I can't remember what it was, whatever the local lager is.
39:09Did you think that it was an unusual thing
39:11that someone offered to buy a pint?
39:12I don't know.
39:15I think that they probably don't think that much
39:21about who is paying for things.
39:23I've certainly been on royal tours where William and Kate were in Bhutan
39:27and William and Kate wanted to buy some jewellery, I think,
39:31at the foot of the Tiger's Messing Up Monastery
39:33and they didn't have any cash.
39:35Equally, Charles, when he loves to go to a local market on tour,
39:39he doesn't have any cash.
39:40Now, you can kind of understand that
39:41because they're in almost like a bubble when they're on tour.
39:45So who has time to go and change your tenner?
39:48You don't go to a cash point, even though there is one in Buckingham Palace.
39:50Even though there is a cash point in Buckingham Palace.
39:52But that's probably giving out pounds.
39:54It's not giving out euros or I can't remember the currency in Bhutan now.
39:58So I think that's kind of understandable.
40:00But I think maybe the sense that I always got, even with Harry and William,
40:05who are very down to earth, was that they were always kind of used
40:08to people paying for them.
40:10Yeah.
40:11I suppose if things come your way, you don't really think about it that much.
40:15And also, I suppose you have to remember that,
40:17and this is part of the reason, I think,
40:20for Harry and Meghan leaving the royal family,
40:23that they were effectively being paid for by dad.
40:28So, you know, we've been talking this episode about funding.
40:33We talked about the monarch's funding.
40:34We talked about the Prince of Wales' funding as the heir to the throne.
40:37When Harry and William were growing up,
40:39it was their dad who was paying for everything for them.
40:42Fine when they were at Eton.
40:44Fine when they were in their military and at Sandhurst.
40:48But then when they were men in their late 20s and early 30s,
40:52they couldn't earn their own money because they were working royals.
40:56And they had to rely on handouts for dad.
40:59And particularly when they both started their own families,
41:02William with Kate and Harry with Meghan.
41:04Then, you know, when you start your own family,
41:07you want your independence.
41:09You might have children.
41:10You've got to have a bigger, you know, all that kind of thing.
41:12To continually have to kind of ask your dad.
41:15It's quite embarrassing, isn't it?
41:16I don't know, it's just such an unimaginably weird life to me.
41:19Yeah, it is.
41:20And also one that's, I can quite understand why you would not want to shine light upon it
41:24when so many people are struggling to pay bills, right?
41:27Well, and also in a cost of living crisis,
41:28I think it doesn't behove the family in a particularly good light
41:33to be seen as unimaginably wealthy.
41:36Yeah.
41:36And for Harry, so I think we have to, so to Maisie's question,
41:39which was, has the loss of the courtiers kind of served Harry a disservice?
41:45I mean, I think it just depends on, on who your staff are.
41:50I mean, infamously, Meghan and Harry can't keep hold of their staff that quickly.
41:56They do seem to go through staff quite quickly.
42:01And...
42:01It's the Duchess of Difficult.
42:03The Duchess Difficult, yes.
42:05And I think if the really, really good members of staff,
42:09and this was probably the same with celebrities, right?
42:11You would know this better than me,
42:12because, of course, you are an A-list celeb, Rich.
42:15But it depends on the calibre of the people around you.
42:18But crucially, they have to be able to stand up to and say no to their employer
42:24whilst also doing that in a way that they still have the confidence
42:28and trust of their employer, who is ultimately paying their wage.
42:32It's quite a difficult balancing act, isn't it?
42:34It's a very difficult one.
42:35And I imagine to have somebody, it's essential to have someone in your corner
42:39who has the power and the trust to tell you the difficult stuff you need to hear.
42:44And if you don't have that, you're really lacking something.
42:48For me, that's why Harry and Meghan's strategy,
42:53or on the face of it, lack of strategy, becomes so explicable.
42:59Because I think that they've gone from being, in my Andrews Venn diagram,
43:04in the middle, being royal, with all the associations that that comes with it,
43:08to moving out to America, to becoming just, in inverted commas, celebs.
43:13Now, that's great.
43:16But I think they've had a lot of yes people around them.
43:20And also, if, as I mean, Meghan's always denied all the bullying claims,
43:24it's got to be said.
43:25But if it is correct, then it's quite difficult to tell her what she doesn't want to hear.
43:32Do you know what else has run out?
43:34Time.
43:34Are we talking too long again?
43:36I think so.
43:37Well, we could talk about this for hours and hours and hours.
43:39But we haven't got any time left, and we have to say goodbye.
43:42We do.
43:43Well, don't forget, everybody, that you can send your questions.
43:45We love the questions.
43:47So please send more of your questions to royals at spirit-studios.com.
43:53We love the questions.
43:55Keep coming.
43:56That's all for now.
43:57We'll be with you every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts,
44:00over on our YouTube channel, or you can stream us now on 5.
44:04So until we meet again, it's goodbye from me.
44:07And goodbye from me.
44:24...
44:25...
44:27...
44:28You
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