My friends from the UK.

[WV. Rootman]

I mean this very respectively. I cannot understand the position of royalty in the UK. Do they have any impact on the government in the UK? What do they really do? Don’t they cost the UK a lot of money for what they actually do for the people?
Wasn’t there a prince that married a commoner and advocated the throne? When did it change that they can just marry a commoner and everything’s OK? There’s so much that doesn’t make sense to me.
If you have the time, would you please help me understand these things from your perspective ?

 

[Zerone]

Interesting questions, but I'll do my best to enlighten you as far as I can.

Neither the Queen, nor anyone else in her family have any direct involvement in the UK government. It would be a constitutional disaster if it was found otherwise.

As for her income, well it comes from a number of sources, but the only source which could be classed as public funds are that from The Crown Estates income. This is income from coastal lands, rivers, forests, harbours etc. The Queen is paid 15% from the net income, which amounted to about £45M in 2017. About 62p / year for every person in the UK.

Other income is from her private investments, which is not published.

Also, there is income from land and property which she has inherited from previous Kings/Queens and are mostly the spoils of various feuding barons, dukes, lords and others over hundreds of years. There are two main sources and tax is paid on both :-
1. The Duchy of Lancaster : £12.5M in 2017
2. The Duchy of Cornwall : £20.8M in 2017 (This is actually in the name of the Prince of Wales, currently Prince Charles.

There are no other public payments made to the Queen and the costs and expenditure of other members of her family, repairs and maintainence of royal property etc. are all paid from this income. Although, the cost of security is mainly paid by the London Metropolitan Police.

The cost of royal weddings is also paid by the Queen, other than the wedding rings/bands, which are all made from the same nugget of Welsh Gold used by Queen Victoria in 18??.

On the subject of marriage, the only imitations are that a King, or Queen cannot be a Catholic. They can be white, black, blue, pink, or yellow, makes no difference.

As for King Edward VIII abdicating in 1936, that was a problem of his own creation when he tried to interfere with government and walk all over established protocols. It was not only the UK government who objected to him, but also the Australian, Canadian and many other Commonwealth countries. The fact that he supported the Nazi party didn't help either.

 

[WV. Rootman]

Wow, thank you a lot. I appreciate the time you took to answer my questions. I think this thing is a big mystery to most Americans.
It also seems strange to me why people of the UK show so much positive interest in the royalty. They take the limelight of everything! Probably 300 years ago people were greatly oppressed by the king. My family left England and Ireland to settle in West Virginia. They worked as indentured servant for Lord Fairfax. The Fairfax stone is in the mountains of West Virginia. He owned the land from that stone to the Atlantic ocean.

 

[Zerone]

Think of it as our version of Disneyland. It's a great business and although it's difficult to calculate, it's estimated to bring in many tens of billions of pounds from tourists every year.

As for taking the limelight, someone has to be Mickey Mouse, Pluto, or the Fairy Princess and give up their freedom to wonder around Tesco looking for chocolate fudge cake, or even flying my drones whenever I want. I can, but they can't.

 

[WV. Rootman]

So much truth in your statements. I great way to look at things. I don't think they would like you comparing them to Mickey mouse . Lol I appreciate your insight. It has been very interesting and informative texting with you. Thank you so much for your time.

 

[Slim.Slamma]

The Pomp was like no other!

Blighty style