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00:00Hello and welcome to Catching Up with the Royals, the show that never complains but always explains.
00:06In today's episode we're going to be answering more of your questions,
00:10from Queen Elizabeth's favouritism within the firm to the lessons Prince Harry could have learnt
00:14from previous spares. I would literally get pushed out of the way because I wanted to be interested
00:18in him and of course it didn't matter, but you know it really did matter. Sibling rivalry,
00:24you know, that could be tricky. When Harry and Meghan get the wrong end of the stick,
00:27things can get a bit nasty. Plus we'll be taking a look into the property portfolios of the royal
00:32family and asking if it's time they ended their grace and favour agreements. Do the royals pay for
00:39them out of their own funds? No. Is it entirely appropriate that you should live in that sort of
00:46style? And we'll be sharing our predictions on the changes Prince William may be making when he
00:52becomes monarch. If I'm a Prince William and I think about how can we slim this down, how can we
00:56make
00:56this just more acceptable? One thing would be probably getting rid of all that stuff.
01:00I don't feel he's really answered the question.
01:08Welcome back to Catching Up With The Royals with me, Emily Andrews. Hello. And my lovely co-host Richard.
01:15You've been brilliant sending us so many of your questions and if you have any more burning questions,
01:21please do email us at royals at spirit-studios.com. And without further ado, Richard, shall we get
01:30into them? I mean, they've been coming in thick and fast. Thank you. Richard, we're going to adopt
01:35the Prince Harry position and we're going to talk about spares now. So I think we might probably have
01:41to inevitably talk about Prince Harry, but I think we should also look at other spares in the royal
01:46family. And we've got a couple of questions. And the first of which is from Evelyn. She says,
01:51all this talk about the spare, I'm assuming she means as of Prince Harry or Prince Andrew. She said,
01:58Princess Margaret was the spare to her sister, Queen Elizabeth, but we didn't get all this jealousy
02:02between the sisters that we know of. In fact, Margaret seemed to enjoy the freedom as the spare.
02:08Harry should have just enjoyed his freedom rather than be jealous of his brother. What do you think?
02:12Well, I'll do Liz's question as well. We'll throw that into the mix. Go on then.
02:16Liz says, I'd like to put in a word of appreciation for the Princess Royal, Anne. It's often overlooked
02:21that she grew up as spare to a spare to a spare, being pushed down the line of succession after
02:26Charles, then Andrew, and then Edward, but never voicing self-pity. She just got on with it,
02:30has carved out a very successful path in life for herself. So I suppose when we're thinking about
02:36spares, can you ever escape your destiny? Famously, obviously, George VI never thought
02:43that he would be king. He was because his brother, because of the abdication.
02:48He wanted to be a spare. He wanted to be, he didn't want to be king.
02:51He wanted to be a spare. And I don't think he wanted his daughters necessarily to be,
02:55you know, monarch and spare. I think it's the only way to do spare is to be reconciled to the
03:01notion
03:01that you're a spare and to realize that that's probably good for you in lots of ways. I think
03:06where it's tough is this, if you, I imagine if you were like two brothers, roughly, you know,
03:12maybe two years apart in age and you grow up and then all of a sudden the realization comes that
03:15one of them is special in a way that the other one isn't. And bearing in mind developmental stuff
03:21and the way kids are, the way boys are, the way brothers are, sibling rivalry, you know,
03:25that could be tricky. I think there's a couple of things here, aren't there? Because as you say,
03:28most families have sibling rivalry. I mean, there's been so many studies done
03:32by neurologists and paediatricians that where you're born within a family affects your personality,
03:40it affects your future prospects. Where are you? I take a guess. Middle child. No. Oldest child. No,
03:47I'm the eldest. Well, there's two of us. So I'm the elder. Okay. I'm going to guess for you.
03:53I think you're middle. Exactly right. Yes. Yeah. What does that mean if you're middle?
04:00Nobody knows our pain. Oh. Nobody knows our pain. I think it did make me sort of, I don't know,
04:06my older brother kind of, he forged a way ahead and everything. And I felt that that was,
04:12I had to follow. And then I thought, no, I mustn't follow. I must do my own thing. So yeah,
04:16it's a hugely formative thing. I think we are in the pecking order does. I mean, obviously I,
04:20as the elder was like people, parent pleaser, massive wannabe overachiever. We'll, we'll see
04:26whether I am an overachiever or not in another 40 years time. But, but, but where you are,
04:31and so I guess, and it must be superannuated when you're born into a dynasty, a Murdoch,
04:38a Windsor, you know, whatever the surname, there are pressures, aren't there? And I wonder,
04:42you know, I remember being in Chile with Prince Harry. I think this probably was about 2014.
04:50Prince Harry and I were chatting and he said, you know, Emily, the thing is, I've got 10 years.
04:56I was like, oh my, oh my goodness. Have I got a really good scoop here? It's Prince Harry telling
05:00me something awful. I said, well, what do you mean? And he said, well, you know, every,
05:05every morning I kind of wake up and think, what can I do? You know, how can, how can I
05:08make things
05:08better? How can I help people? But I've only got 10 more years because
05:12he said, once George grows up in 10 more, in 10 years, whatever, everyone will be interested
05:17in George and they won't be interested in me anymore. And it wasn't a me ego, no, it wasn't
05:23self-pitying or ego me. It was more my platform and what I can do and the light I can
05:29shine. I mean,
05:30it was just before it was like probably about six months before he launched the first Invictus games.
05:35And, and I, my reading of what, of our chat was that that's kind of what he was thinking.
05:40He wanted to set up, what's my role. Yeah. What's my role. And I did wonder whether he was
05:45trying to prove to himself as much as to his father, to his grandmother, to the wider world,
05:53just as much to himself, try and find a role, because obviously his brother's role had always
05:59been set and defined.
06:01I was in back, when I was in a pop band, there was me and a singer, a duo, right?
06:05A brilliantly
06:06talented, amazing singer. Everybody was fascinated with him. Everybody wanted him. I would literally
06:11get pushed out of the way because wanted to be interested in him. And of course it didn't
06:16matter, but you know, it really did matter. If you stand next to someone who sucks up all the
06:21attention, the light and the air, unless you're a very robust personality, I think it's hard not to
06:26wilt in that. And I do understand it. Sometimes I found that immensely frustrating. Not so much now,
06:31I'm a bit older now. And also, uh, actually playing second fiddle is not a bad place to be.
06:38Well, this is the thing. And I mean, looking at someone like Princess Anne, I mean,
06:41she is venerated now, but I think age is on her side, but in Princess Anne, perhaps it helped
06:46that she knew that she never would be monarch because I mean, she's, I often think she's the,
06:52she's the best queen we never had, Princess Anne. But obviously because of the rules of, um, sort of
06:58male primogenitor, it meant that even when her older brother, Charles and her older brother,
07:04Andrew and her younger brother, Edward started having children, they would, all of those children,
07:08those children's children would be above her in the line of succession. She knew that. So that probably
07:14gave her freedom to do things, to always, to know that she would always be the spare. And maybe
07:21because she was the only woman, she was the only daughter of the queen and Prince Philip and,
07:25you know, arguably Philip's favorite, um, because the two were quite similar. And also she was a very
07:31successful sports person in her own right. And I do actually wonder for her and for Zara,
07:37because those two women seem very secure. I mean, look, Zara's a non-working royal, as we know,
07:40but because those two women have achieved outside the royal family, they've got something, you know,
07:47literally shiny. They've got medals in Zara's case, Olympic medals, because they've got this huge
07:53achievement that they compete with everybody else. It doesn't matter the fact they were royal.
07:57I wonder whether that gives them more confidence. And I, I, so I wondered kind of with, with Harry,
08:04I mean, yeah, maybe you should have, I, I, I always thought Harry should have stayed in the army.
08:09And what's the, what's the good thing about being the spare? You don't have all that expectation
08:13upon you. There's more room for your life to grow, perhaps in a different kind of way.
08:17You could get something out of that.
08:19Well, as, as, as Evelyn says, you get your freedom. And isn't that a good thing? And when
08:23we look at kind of the queen, sorry, the late queen, Queen Elizabeth, and her sister, Princess Margaret,
08:29I mean, obviously both those girls, when they were first born, they were the nieces,
08:35well, the granddaughters and then the nieces of the monarch. And so they never assumed ever,
08:41I think that either of them would be in line to the throne. Obviously their father was,
08:47was became king and then Elizabeth became heir. I mean, it must've been quite difficult for Margaret,
08:52particularly when of course it was her sister who decided who she could and couldn't marry. I mean,
08:58she infamously said that she couldn't marry group captain Peter Townsend, but I've always thought
09:03that actually Elizabeth was smarter than that and didn't sort of forbade it, but just said,
09:09if you're going to marry him as a divorcee, this is what you're going to have to give up. You're
09:14going to have to give up your security, your money, potentially your titles to become Mrs.
09:18Peter Townsend. Do you really want that? And Margaret was like, no, thank you.
09:23You can email us at royals at spirit-studios.com. And don't forget, you can catch us every Thursday,
09:31wherever you get your podcasts on Instagram, on Facebook, we're on YouTube and Richard.
09:38Yes.
09:39We're on five.
09:40You're all over it.
09:41And just before we go to the break, a question for you. When did Queen Elizabeth change the law
09:48that would affect the royal family's line of succession and why?
09:54Don't tell me. We'll be back after the break.
10:00Welcome back. Now, once again, it's Richard's chance to shine because I asked you, I mean,
10:07I love Richard. And of course he always shines, but he is also a polymath and knows a huge amount.
10:13And he will know the answer to the question of when Queen Elizabeth changed the line of succession.
10:19But do you know why?
10:20I don't know when. I know roughly when, but do you know why?
10:24And it was changed the line of succession so that a girl can inherit on equal terms with a boy.
10:28Absolutely.
10:29And I suppose it was with the birth of Princess Charlotte, was it? I'm not sure.
10:32It was with the Duchess of Cambridge's first pregnancy.
10:36Right.
10:36So when she was pregnant before the birth of Prince George in 2013, so no one knew.
10:43She and William didn't find out what the gender of the baby was.
10:46And the Queen had to get an agreement with all the 14 other realms to end
10:52primogeniture, which favoured boys. And the succession to the Crown Act modernised the British royal
10:57succession by introducing absolute primogeniture as opposed to just male primogeniture, meaning birth
11:05order determines succession regardless of gender. So it ended the rule where younger sons displaced
11:10elder daughters.
11:11I'm quite right too. I wonder if aristocrats who are in a similar sort of business of dynastic succession, one
11:18of the
11:18things that the same rule might apply to them, or you have to...
11:21I have a feeling that at the moment it's...
11:25It's the old-fashioned rules, inverted commas, still apply.
11:28So you'd have to change it.
11:29So it would have to be changed. And even if you have, say, five daughters and then your sixth
11:33child is a son, that son inherits everything.
11:35Hey aristocrats, here's something you can do. A little blow for equality, about time.
11:40Got one from Christine.
11:41Can I give Christine a curtsy? Quick, quick curtsy.
11:44This one's a good seated curtsy.
11:45Quick curtsy, quick.
11:45That is a skill.
11:46Quick, yeah, quick curtsy.
11:47Christine says, I enjoy your insights on royal matters and wonder what your thoughts are about
11:52Harry and Meghan's inclusion on the royal website. It gives the appearance that they're still
11:57working members of the royal family, and after the controversy surrounding their Jordanian trip,
12:01I doubt that the rest of the family are too happy with being associated with it,
12:05particularly at this time. Should Harry and Meghan be labelled as non-working royals,
12:09or even removed entirely, as has happened with Andrew and the Duchess of Kent following her
12:14passing? Do you think that's the list you should get knocked off?
12:17Oh, great question, Christine. And thanks so much, because just before we recorded today,
12:24Richard and I had a quick look at the royal family's website, and you're absolutely,
12:27well, of course, you're absolutely right. But what's so interesting is that on the page
12:31about the royal family, it literally is in order of succession, so in precedent,
12:36so the King, the Queen, the Prince and Princess of Wales, you're absolutely right. The Duchess of
12:40Kent has been removed since her death from last year, and then after the Duke and Duchess of
12:46Gloucester, the next, the bottom people are Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex,
12:51and it makes no differentiation between the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's non-working royals
12:57and the rest of the royals above them.
12:59But do you think it's actually about the line of succession? That's what it's reflecting,
13:02because Prince Harry is still, he's quite high up, isn't he?
13:06He is. He's behind Prince Louis. So William is first, and then you've got the three Wales
13:12children. So Prince Harry is fifth, and then Archie is sixth, and Lilibet is seventh.
13:17Prince Andrew is eighth, but he is obviously not on the royal family's website. To answer your
13:23question, Christine, yes, I think Harry and Meghan should be removed from the same page
13:28as the rest of the working royals, and I think it should be more clearly differentiated working
13:34royals and non-working royals on the website. And then on the non-working royals, you could have
13:38Eugenia Beatrice, Mike, Tyndall and Zara, members of the family, but not working royals. Would that make
13:45any difference, do you think, Richard?
13:46What is this website for? Is it a sort of who we are kind of thing? Or is it a
13:52sort of more like,
13:54I don't know, a kind of hello sort of thing?
13:56I think it's probably a bit of, I mean, it's PR, isn't it? It's a bit of both. I mean,
14:00at the end
14:00of the day, the royal family are funded by the taxpayer. So I think it has to, it has to
14:06give quite
14:07a lot of, you know, information.
14:09It's what you're paying for.
14:09Exactly. This is what you're paying for. Lovely pictures of us. And in Harry and Meghan's case,
14:13lovely pictures of us on Bondi Beach when they were still working royals. That's their picture
14:19on the royal family website. And so I think that it's important that there is as much information as,
14:26and it is what they want to tell us as we've discussed before. I think it's very important
14:30that there's a website and it describes what they do and who they are. But when I come to write
14:34about
14:35them or when I come to, you know, some of the magazines that I write for, the royals that people
14:40want to read about and know about often are the non-working royals, like Mike and Zara.
14:46Oh, right. Or Harry and Meghan.
14:48Or Harry and Meghan. But I wonder whether this has been done just to kind of keep Harry and
14:53Meghan sweet. And what do you think, Richard? Not offend them?
14:56I don't know. I suppose there's a lot to be said for not offending people unnecessarily. I don't
15:02know. And also perhaps it's a way maybe of keeping the door open, or perhaps there's a courtier in
15:07charge of the website who's forgotten his password and can't get in and change it.
15:11Well, yes, passwords. I mean, we're not, neither you or I are very good with those,
15:15aren't we? And we're all writing them down on bits of paper so we don't forget. Actually,
15:18the royal family's website has always been a bit of bone of contention because other members of the
15:23family do look at it. And I mean, you know, infamously when Charles became king, Harry wanted
15:29Archie and Lilibet, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet to be listed on the website. And the courtiers who are
15:37in charge of it, the comms department, often the website lags behind real-time events. Certainly
15:42did with Megxit with Harry and Meghan leaving because everyone was so terrified about what
15:46to put on the website for fear of offending Harry and Meghan. They're in a state of paralysis.
15:51And I think that what happened when Harry and Meghan stepped back is partly to explain why they're still
15:56on the website. When in March 2020, under the terms of the Megxit and Sandringham summit deal,
16:02there was a year's grace given to Harry and Meghan as a way back in. And actually Queen Elizabeth,
16:08yeah, Queen Elizabeth wanted them to come back. It was, you know, let you go for a year,
16:13but we'll review it. And then in January 2021, it became, I mean, basically Harry and Meghan told
16:18the royal family that they were never coming back. So, and then they did Oprah in March 2021,
16:25just before Prince Philip died. And so I think that made it perfectly clear. But, but even
16:30so, as I understand it, as I've been told by courtiers, there's always been this
16:36reluctance to ever publicly criticize Harry and Meghan because they are, I mean, look,
16:40courtiers have said to me, Emily, what you need to understand is they are very touchy. They are very
16:44sensitive. They're thin skinned. I mean, aren't we all, some would say, but there was a real sense that
16:50they didn't want to unnecessarily antagonize or upset them. Because as we have seen, when Harry
16:57and Meghan get the wrong end of the stick, things can get a bit nasty. Remember when Harry said that
17:02he'd asked his grandmother's permission to give her pet nickname to his daughter, Lilibet. And then
17:09the Queen was very much not amused because the conversation that she had with her grandson,
17:14she didn't remember. Her recollection wasn't that Harry had asked permission to use her pet name,
17:19that her father had given her. He just basically told her he was doing it. And so she authorized
17:25her director of communications as a bit of a back slap to Harry and to say,
17:28no, this was not what happened. I wonder if there's also a kind of conflict here in a way,
17:33because on the one hand, Meghan and Harry want to distance themselves from the royal family,
17:37no longer do that kind of thing. But on the other hand, they seem to want to retain
17:41something. So they retain their royal titles and they're anxious that their children should be
17:45known as Prince and Princess. So maybe it's a bit more complicated than it appears to be.
17:50And I think probably keeping them on, I mean, it's an easy thing for the royal family to do,
17:54right? Isn't it? Just keep them on the website. It's a bit of a sop to them. And it's very
17:58interesting. We've seen time and time again, Meghan in particular, be very protective of her Sussex
18:05surname. Now, her surname is not Sussex, I would argue. Her Sussex is Mountbatten-Windsor,
18:11which is Harry's surname, which is Archie's surname. I mean, Harry was at pains to tell us,
18:16tell us, the reporters, that when Archie was born, that would be his surname.
18:21Curse, though. I mean, imagine having that as your email address.
18:25You'd definitely forget your password for that one, wouldn't you?
18:28Keep it to Wales, so much better, isn't it? Or Sussex.
18:31Or Sussex. Yeah, I mean, so you can, but I do think that Meghan perhaps wants to keep Sussex,
18:37just to remind everyone that they are still Duke and Duchess. But we've seen that Dukedoms can be
18:42taken away. We've seen with Prince Andrew, sorry, the man formerly known as Prince Andrew,
18:47Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, we've seen that Dukedoms can be taken away.
18:49And HRHs could be kind of unscrewed, right? And put in the drawer. How does that work?
18:56What normally happens is that they're kept, I think the phrase is kept in abeyance.
19:00Right, so not used. Not used. So a real sort of sore point was Diana. So she was Diana,
19:07Princess of Wales after her divorce from Charles, and her HRH title, His or Her Royal Highness,
19:13was removed. So she was told not to use it, put it in a drawer, throw away the key, never
19:19to be seen
19:19again. Harry and Meghan agreed not to use their HRH titles, His or Her Royal Highness, which is really
19:28the big demarcation between working and non-working royals. But then of course, we have seen that
19:33Meghan has used hers at least twice. There was a letter, I think from either Madame Zelensky,
19:40Vladimir Zelensky's wife or some high ranking, I think maybe the Ukrainian Prime Minister or
19:46Ukrainian politician to address to Meghan calling her Your Royal Highness. And Meghan also used an embossed
19:55note with HRH, the Duchess of Sussex, to send a thank you note and a basket of goodies to one
20:00of
20:00her friends. Maybe she won't get mixed up with another Duchess of Sussex. Well, thank you so much,
20:05Christine. That was a great question. I'm inferring that after you call it the controversy surrounding
20:10the Jordanian trip, you probably think that Harry and Meghan should be removed.
20:15We've got a question from Mrs. M. Thompson. Hello, Mrs. Thompson. She says,
20:19the Queen had four children. Why do you think Andrew was her favourite son? And do you think
20:24Charles, Anne and Edward resented him being referred to as this? I mean, everybody says that,
20:28don't they? That Prince Andrew, as he was, was the Queen's favourite son. Is there any evidence for that?
20:32Well, Courtier's told me. They weren't quite so blunt to say, Emily, Prince Andrew.
20:38Here is the list of her favourite children. Here is the list of favourites.
20:42Numero uno. Percentage. Andrew, 100%. It wasn't quite as blunt as that, but people said to me that,
20:51yeah, so Courtier's, so whether, whether the Queen actually thought that or not, that's what everyone
20:55around her thought. And I think the evidence for that is, is, is, is quite strong. And I think the,
21:02the potential reasons for it, well, of course that, you know, Charles was four and Anne was two,
21:08when the Queen became monarch. And then she embarked on a six month tour, I think,
21:12of the Commonwealth with Philip, when the, when her two elder children were very, very young,
21:18and kind of missed out on, on the whole kind of mum, mothering. And okay, fine, being a mum in
21:24the
21:251950s and 1960s is a bit different, perhaps to, to how, especially an aristocratic mother is a bit
21:30different to how it is now. But, but she really didn't see her children for months on end. And so
21:37then
21:37when Andrew, there's a 10 year gap between Anne and Andrew, and so, yeah, I mean,
21:42a 10 year gap is quite interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I suspect no one is ever going to have asked the
21:48Queen, did you plan that? Did you, can you imagine? I mean, I'm not, the questions that,
21:54the thoughts that go through my head, I cannot speak out loud, even though she is not with us
21:58anymore, because it would be inappropriate and very personal questions. But maybe she thought,
22:03listen, this is the biggest of big jobs. I can't get pregnant and have another child right now,
22:11because I really have to throw myself into, into this job. And it was when she was perhaps a little
22:19bit, maybe felt a bit, well, I mean, eight years later, she had Andrew. And so maybe when she felt
22:26a
22:27little bit more au fait. Maybe also, I imagine that you think if you are a monarch and you have
22:32a son, and that son is your heir, then you've kind of given them up to that somehow. And maybe
22:37you'd feel more closely bonded with the child who you hadn't have to give up to an institution.
22:42No, and Andrew and Edward were born quite soon after each other. And she was able to be there
22:47a lot more. I think that when she sent them to school, she sent them very close to school in,
22:52in to Windsor Castle, so she could see them all. I was told a story once, I was told a
22:57story once
22:57from a nanny of Prince Andrew and Prince Edwards. And it was clear that the Queen always kind of
23:03wanted to see Andrew first when she went up to the nursery at kind of tea time, when the children
23:07were kind of suited and booted. And I think that Edward and Anne did feel a little bit of the
23:16lack
23:16of kind of maternal sunlight. And there was a documentary made about five years ago,
23:23and I might be reading too much into it, Richard, but Anne was interviewed about her childhood.
23:28And obviously, you know, Charles was the heir, so he could never be kind of castigated or told off.
23:35But I think Anne and Edward were kind of, you know, chastised. And I think Andrew had quite a
23:42forceful personality, which actually made him quite popular with his parents. They thought
23:47he was robust and resilient. The Falklands hero. The Falklands hero. So I think actually they quite
23:52liked that about Andrew. Well, dramas, dramas, dramas happening around all these royal residences.
23:57We've got a question. Oh, on property? Well, I've got a question for them, first of all.
24:02We're talking royal residences next, but I wonder if you know what is the largest palace
24:09in the world. Back after this.
24:16Welcome back. Now, if you want to catch up with catching up with the royals, it's so easy to do.
24:20All you need to do is go to wherever you get your podcasts. You can go to YouTube and you
24:24could
24:24click and subscribe if you wanted to. On a Saturday, you can go to five and you can find us
24:29there.
24:30Couldn't be easier. Anyway, we left you with this question. What is the largest palace in the world?
24:35Do you know this, Emily? I don't. And I was thinking actually in the break, is it somewhere in India?
24:40It's not, no. I had to check the card then. I'll tell you where it's the Forbidden City in Beijing.
24:45No. Do you want some stats? I'd love some.
24:47Biggest palace by area, 720,000 square metres, around 980 buildings, contains 9,999 rooms,
24:56and was built between 1406 and 1420. Wow.
25:01That's a big palace, isn't it? Have you ever visited?
25:03I have, yes. Have you? It's the most beautiful place. Yeah.
25:07I'd love to go. I've never been.
25:08It's lovely. It's all done in this kind of scarlet stucco, and then it's got this lovely green glazed chinery,
25:14but it's beautiful. And Beijing's a fascinating place. But listen, palaces is our subject, isn't it?
25:20We've got a question. Bethany says, all right, thank you, Bethany. And if you've got any more questions,
25:27please do email us at royals at spirit-studios.com. But Bethany says, I would like to know how many
25:35grace and favour homes and people the royal family still fund. Since King Charles and Prince William
25:40have it in mind to whittle down the hangers-on, how many are still in our the British and Commonwealth
25:46taxpayers pay? Or are they? Do the royals pay for them out of their own funds nowadays?
25:52So a grace and favour home is effectively cheap, subsidised housing, palaces, apartments.
26:02Accommodation. Accommodation.
26:05Cheap accommodation in royal palaces or in royal buildings that are leased for 20, 30 years,
26:1250 years, at very small rents, to working, and crucially Richard, non-working members of the
26:19royal family. And I think maybe Bethany's asked this question because of Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie,
26:26because there's been quite a lot of attention recently, hasn't there, on the rent for Royal Lodge,
26:30for example, which was for a very, very long time journalists like myself tried to get from the Crown
26:35Estate how much rent Prince Andrew, the man formerly known as Prince Andrew, was paying,
26:41and the Crown Estate refused, refused, refused. But lo, last autumn, suddenly the Crown Estate
26:45released how much Andrew was paying, and it was a peppercorn if demanded.
26:53It's an old thing. Basically, you pay a whole load of money sort of up front, or in Andrew's case,
26:58he paid a whole load of money to renovate Royal Lodge, and that was in lieu of a rent like
27:06you and I
27:06would pay every month. Members of the royal family, members of the family get these grace
27:13and favour residences, should the non-working royals still benefit. A lovely producer, Eleanor,
27:20found a list of royal homes and residences that was prepared actually by the royal family. So it's
27:27from the royal family website. I mean, I'm just going to read you a few of the more esoteric ones,
27:31Richard, because obviously there's Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, which are not owned
27:36by the royal family, but are kept. Crown.
27:38They're crown, exactly. There's loads of these places, places that I didn't like. You know,
27:43Thatched House Lodge in Richmond, which I think is where Princess Alexandra is. Barnwell Manor in
27:49Northamptonshire. Now that's where the Prince and Princess Michael have...
27:54No, no, I said you could touch the Gloucester place.
27:55Do you think it's a Gloucester, Barnwell?
27:57Beautiful place.
27:58Yeah. I didn't know that that was owned by the royal family. I thought that was their private
28:01house. Obviously, there's like, you know, Craig Owen Lodge on the Balmoral Estate,
28:05which was where the Queen always used to go before Balmoral was shut to the public.
28:09Delna Demphe Lodge in Balmoral. There's obviously Highgrove, Birkhall. Tamarisk in the
28:14Arts of Scilly. Obviously, the Castle of May. There's huge amounts of property owned by the...
28:19And if you think about, we've just noted from Sandringham, it's not just the house,
28:22but there's all the houses on the estate in use by various members of the royal family,
28:26or former members of the royal family, whatever you want to call it. So, I mean, I suppose,
28:29you know, it's a dynasty. They've been around a long time. They've acquired a lot of real estate
28:33at that time. And maybe they see it as something to do with the firm that you have planned to
28:38accommodate officers of the firm. I don't know. But it is complicated, isn't it? Because then you
28:43wonder, well, how many... If you're not a working royal, is it entirely appropriate that you should live
28:48in that sort of style with that kind of support? I don't know.
28:51So I guess to answer Bethany's question, do the royals pay for them out of their own funds?
28:58No. It's complicated. Because for instance, is the king paying rent on Buckingham Palace or Windsor
29:05Castle? No. No, he's not because it's owned by the crown. William and Catherine, they have the
29:10Duchy of Cornwall. There's a manor house in Cornwall that they always stay at, which is owned by the
29:14Duchy of Cornwall. Are they paying rent on that? No. Are they paying rent on Forest Lodge,
29:21which is where they are now currently living in Windsor? Yes, they are, because it's owned by the
29:27Crown Estate. Having said that, are Beatrice and Eugenie paying rent for their apartments in St.
29:36James's Palace? Yes. But when these rents are set for Royal Lodge, for the apartments in St. James's
29:47Palace, the way that the rents are set is to look at how much you would be able to charge
29:54for the
29:54market rate. And because a lot of these properties are within very secure cordons, you can't actually
30:02rent out these properties to that many people. They'd have to jump through so many security hoops
30:06that probably quite a few people who might be able to afford it might not be able to. And so
30:11therefore,
30:12that means that the ability to rent out at market rate drops, as in their marketability rate drops,
30:17which is, well, that's how it's always been explained to me. Maybe to justify why members of
30:23the family are charged so little in inverted commas. And it can't even become, I knew someone who was
30:28who was in the royal household, who was a chaplain in the royal household, and he had an apartment at
30:34one
30:34of the palaces. But to play the organ in the chapel there, the organist had to walk through his flat
30:39to get to
30:40the organ console. So it was kind of everyone was sort of just shoved in.
30:44Well, exactly. So you wouldn't be able to charge hundreds of thousands of pounds for that flat,
30:49would you? Some organ is going to walk through your organ.
30:50Some organ is going to come and walk through your sitting room every time you want to watch
30:53the six o'clock news. I mean, you're not going to be, I mean, would you be lucky to get
30:57a fiver for that?
30:57So in a way, it's slightly, it's like, it's a bit like bishops and palaces,
31:01because I watched a bishop live in a palace where they tend to live in a flat at the top
31:04of the building,
31:05because actually they're workspaces as well as domestic spaces.
31:08Well, it was fascinating to find out that number 10 Downing Street is a grace and favor
31:14residence. And I mean, does the prime minister have to pay rent to stay there? Probably not.
31:18The prime minister doesn't live in number 10 Downing Street. They live over number 11.
31:21Number 11.
31:22In the flat.
31:23In the flat. That's because Cameron had, was it three children? And he swapped with,
31:28no, was it Blair who started that? I can't remember.
31:30The PM doesn't pay rent. I mean, if I were, if I were Prince William and I were thinking about
31:34how can we slim this down? How can we make this just more acceptable
31:37to contemporary standards? Well, I think one thing would be probably getting rid of all
31:41that stuff. The notion that Ralph Holmes is enormous, the plant, and it has all these sort of people
31:47living in grace, and not just members of the family, but sort of people who work for them,
31:50former retainers, the whole, you know, they used to have the civil list, and I know that they no
31:54longer have that now, but the civil list would pay pensions to people who'd done various services
31:58to the crown. I mean, it's huge, and it's cumbersome, and it feels a bit medieval.
32:02But then I would, and count to that, and to answer Bethany, I would say that a lot of people
32:08who work for the royal family, who work for the crown, aren't paid very much. And you're
32:15expected to be on call, depends what job you're doing, but say you're the queen's hairdresser,
32:19or you're the king's, you know, harpist, because he loves harp music, or you're, you know,
32:24whatever, you're the king's private secretary. You are on call all the time. You're not paid a
32:29commercial salary. But what you do get is you get an apartment in St. James's, or Buckingham Palace,
32:35or a muse house in Kensington Palace, and which is quite cool. But also, it's so that you can be
32:43living very close to your principal, so that you're needed.
32:46Yeah, I suppose my view would be that if you did slim it down, and I think there's a very
32:49strong
32:49case for slimming it down now, then you would slim it down proportionately. So there would be fewer
32:53people in, I don't know, Hampton Court Palace or something. It would be leaner in all regards.
32:58In all regards. But then let's say, let's say we, let's say.
33:01You wouldn't need as big a staff, would you? But let's say that Beatrice and Eugenie,
33:06I don't want to single them out too much. Because I mean, I don't think Peter Phillips, or
33:10Princess Anson. Zara, Princess Anson, or Zara Tindall, they don't have grace and favour apartments. But I
33:18bet you my bottom dollar, Richard, that were Peter, or Zara, to ever want to stay,
33:26probably at St. James's. Of course they could. Of course they could. You know, a couple of nights,
33:31Tuesday night, Wednesday night.
33:32Uncle Charles, could you put us up on Tuesday?
33:34Yeah, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, in central London. Of course, my dear.
33:37Well, because the other thing to remember is that they are, you know,
33:40if the Queen were to, or the King rather, were to have a state banquet, well then,
33:44not everyone's going to go home afterwards, are they? I mean, you've got to put people up,
33:48you've got to find room. If the Archbishop, I don't know, I don't know.
33:51Obviously, accommodation must be a thing. Yeah. And I mean, often there are people for
33:55those sort of state banquets, whatever people are put up at Buckingham Palace, which at the
33:59moment is being renovated. And so I've noticed actually that recently even investors are happening
34:03at St. James's Palace rather than Buckingham Palace. But I kind of think, well, if we did get rid
34:09of all these grace and favour residences, there needs to be income to be paid to keep them looking
34:16shiny and for the, you know. And staff. And the staff.
34:21These places still need to be looked after and maintained. Yeah.
34:24And even if the rent is a peppercorn, they still would have paid quite a lot of money
34:27up front to, you know, for the renovations or whatever.
34:30Two years ago, a friend of mine went to stay at Balmoral, connected with that thing,
34:34and he'd never stayed there before. And there was a kind of footman who sort of
34:38settled them into his room and everything. And so he left his bag, went down for a cup of tea
34:42with the royal family. And when he came back, all his stuff had been unpacked and all his loose
34:46change had been put on the table, but in the correct order of value and with the monarch's
34:52head all upright.
34:54Upright denominations.
34:55Yeah, it was all just very impeccably done.
34:56I love that.
34:57Well, yeah.
34:58It's classy.
34:59But, you know.
35:00Oh, are you saying that we shouldn't have that? Are you saying that that's too much?
35:03Are you saying that we don't need all the coin flunkies?
35:06I'm not sure that there's a really powerful case to make for a coin flunky these days.
35:11Oh, I'd love a coin flunky.
35:12You'd like a coin flunky.
35:13I'd love a coin flunky.
35:13When was the last time you actually used cash, Emily?
35:15I'd love a pound flunky.
35:16I'd love a note flunky.
35:18I'd like a internet flunky.
35:21Sadly, no flunkies for us, but.
35:24Question.
35:25Question.
35:26Question.
35:26And actually, I didn't know the answer to this, folks.
35:29So I'd be intrigued as to if anyone else knows.
35:32Richard, I'm going to come to you after the break.
35:34So hold your thoughts.
35:36What do Prince William and Harry Potter have in common?
35:42Richard.
35:43I'm going to have to let Richard breathe during the break.
35:45Otherwise, I'm going to lose my co-host.
35:47Be back in a bit.
35:52Welcome back to Catching Up With The Royals.
35:54And don't forget, you can always catch up with us on Thursdays,
35:58wherever you get your podcasts on YouTube.
36:00Don't forget to subscribe on social media and on Five on Saturdays.
36:05Now, Richard, that question about Prince,
36:08what do Prince William and Prince Potter have in common?
36:12Harry Potter.
36:13Is it Quidditch?
36:14Is it Quidditch?
36:15I mean, I'd love to see Prince William on a broomstick, wouldn't you?
36:18Yeah.
36:19Any other guesses?
36:20Not really.
36:21Fancy Hermione, Emma, what's the chops, Emma Watson?
36:26Thingamajig.
36:26Thingamajig.
36:27I've no idea.
36:29They both have scars on their forehead, which glow.
36:34No, I know.
36:36At age nine, a classmate hit Prince William with a golf club.
36:39I mean, can you imagine if you were the parents of that classmate?
36:42I want to know who that classmate was.
36:44Well, I know.
36:44I'm sure the journalists at the time tracked him down and the poor parents down.
36:48I mean, you'd be mortified, wouldn't you?
36:49Causing a depressed skull fracture that required surgery.
36:53William apparently calls the resulting forehead scar his Harry Potter scar because it glows.
36:58I mean, I suspect this was a Prince William chat with a child, trying to make the child,
37:03trying to, you know, I mean, because I cannot believe.
37:05Make the child feel better.
37:06Make the child feel better, yeah.
37:07Okay, last question for the day, and it's relevant to what we've been talking about.
37:10It's from Julie.
37:11She says, what changes do you think William will make when he becomes king?
37:15Good question.
37:16Good question, Julie.
37:17Because actually, although William has talked quite a lot about this, Richard, I don't feel
37:25he's really answered the question.
37:27About 18 months ago, William started to kind of slightly sort of tell us a little bit more
37:33about what he would do when he becomes monarch.
37:36Because it's slightly delicate, right?
37:38Because it involves the death of his dad.
37:40Yeah.
37:40So slightly tricksy question.
37:42But he said, I'm trying to do it with maybe a smaller R in the Royal.
37:48So a smaller R, not a capital R for Royal, if you like.
37:52It's more about impact, philanthropy, collaboration, convening and helping people.
37:57And I'm also going to throw empathy in there as well, because I really care about what I do.
38:01It's like being a vicar.
38:02That's literally what vicars do.
38:04Yeah.
38:04Except plus.
38:06Yeah, exactly.
38:06It's like being a national vicar.
38:08But that answer, that to me, didn't really answer the question.
38:13Because that's all, isn't that?
38:14A bit kind of like big ideas kind of answer.
38:16Feel, mood music.
38:17Feel, mood music.
38:18And surely isn't that what every monarch wants to do?
38:20Maybe not like, you know, the Anglo-Saxon monarchs or maybe the monarchs of, you know,
38:24from the Walls of the Roses.
38:25I mean, I think they were more about big R, Royal with a big R and chopping off, you know,
38:29people's heads.
38:30But he's not really saying what he'd do, is he?
38:33No.
38:34But then again, I guess I suppose A, you don't know, and B, you would be constrained anyway.
38:38And it's fluid, isn't it?
38:40So it's when the moment comes.
38:42I would have thought that perhaps trying to make it fit for purpose, that's what you've
38:47got to do.
38:48What's the thing?
38:49You just don't want it to all disappear on your watch, do you?
38:52So you have to really think about what is the role and purpose of this institution?
38:56How does it match with the world?
38:58And how does it continue to have the necessary public support?
39:01Without public support, there's no point.
39:04No.
39:05I mean, I would imagine sort of a little list in my head would be less costumes, less
39:11royals, less titles, slimmed down.
39:16I mean, we've got a very slimmed down family already.
39:18Can we have to lose all the costumes?
39:20Can we keep some of the costumes?
39:22You'd keep Gar today, wouldn't you?
39:23You'd keep the flummery and the frills.
39:25Not the flummery.
39:26I like the dressing up, though.
39:28I like the royal boatmen thing.
39:32They look good.
39:33They look good.
39:34I think the guys on the back of the carriages, they look good.
39:38Footmen, yeah, they look good.
39:39Yeah.
39:40I was actually a bit disappointed that King Charles said at the coronation, no coronets.
39:47Well, I wonder if you've got one.
39:49I suppose you're never going to use it again, are you?
39:51Although who knows what the future portends.
39:53I don't think King William is going to say, bring out your tiaras, bring out your coronets.
39:59Bowing and curtsying and suring.
40:01I just think that's over now, really.
40:04I don't think people get deference.
40:05It just seems weird.
40:06And the other one is the whole religion thing.
40:09You know, I think that the Queen was a devout person, because the King is a devout person.
40:13I don't see it in William.
40:15I could be wrong, but I don't see it.
40:16And I wonder if that will be a really significant change.
40:19Interestingly, I think since Catherine was diagnosed with cancer and had her chemo, she has become a lot more interested
40:27in faith, I'm told, and a lot more interested in religion.
40:30I mean, I think her parents, Carol and Mike, are kind of, would you say quiet Christians?
40:35Nominal Anglicans or church goers?
40:38Church, because I don't know, they go to a bit like high days and holidays.
40:41They go to church on high days and holidays, Christmas Day, that kind of thing.
40:43But I think Catherine has become more interested in religion and faith and spirituality.
40:50I've always, whenever I've chatted to William, I've never got the impression, not that I have.
40:53Hi, Wills.
40:54Do you believe in God?
40:55Talk to me about Christianity.
40:57I mean, obviously, I've never been quite so disrespectful to anybody to ask that as my starter for 10.
41:03But I never got the impression that William goes to these services, but he doesn't really believe.
41:09Whereas I do get the impression that Catherine's really been exploring that side.
41:14Oh, that's interesting.
41:15Maybe that, because I don't see how you could do it without it, not the way it's done now.
41:18But I've got a question for you.
41:21If you were monarch, the crown has just settled on your head and you, all of a sudden, you have
41:26the powers of the monarch.
41:28What would you do?
41:29I wouldn't want to be queen.
41:31I know, but you are.
41:32But I'm queen.
41:33Okay, Queen Emily, for a day, would, and if money, I'm just going to say if money was no object.
41:38Ignore the Crown Estate, ignore the Sovereign Grant, ignore the Duchy of Lancaster.
41:43If the Duchy of Lancaster, which is the Sovereign's personal purse, were to be unlimited, I would send everybody free
41:51bouquets of flowers in the entire UK.
41:56Fill everyone's houses with fresh flowers.
41:59Really?
41:59Yeah.
42:00And maybe, if they didn't want flowers, they could have a spray tan instead.
42:03Flowers or a spray tan on the crown's coin?
42:05Yeah, flowers or a spray tan on the crown's coin.
42:09Surely that would make everybody feel better about themselves, if only for a couple of days.
42:14What would you do?
42:16Oh, easy peasy.
42:18Doggies.
42:18Doggies?
42:19Yeah, I mean, the queen mother, it's always corgis, right?
42:21But actually, through an accident, we've talked about this before, a corgi made special friends with a dachshund.
42:29And the result was a doggy, which I think was the queen's, the person who sort of invented it.
42:33The queen mother was very keen on doggies.
42:35I think we should have more doggies.
42:36Are you going to send everybody one?
42:38Or is it just a generic, everyone should have more doggies?
42:41I just would like the royal family, if it did have a sort of, you know, what's its kind of
42:44brand dog, I'd like it to be the doggy.
42:47Well, now it's Jack Russell as the brand dog, because of course, Queen Camilla's got Jack Russell.
42:51So I suppose for this reign, and the baubles have changed.
42:54For Christmas, the Royal Collection always used to sell corgis for your tree, for your Christmas tree.
43:00And now it's, you can buy a royal Jack Russell.
43:03Well, we're going to have to leave it there, I'm afraid.
43:05I'll buy you some flowers, Richard.
43:07I can't buy...
43:07I'll buy you a doggy.
43:08You buy me a doggy, I'll buy you some fresh flowers.
43:11But thank you so much for all your questions.
43:13Please keep them coming in, royals at spirit-studio.com.
43:18Goodbye.
43:19Goodbye.
43:20Goodbye.
43:21Goodbye.
43:21Bye.
43:22Have a great week.
43:24See you next week.
43:25Bye.
43:43Bye.
43:49Bye.
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