Robert Jobson’s latest book, The Windsor Legacy, continues to be excerpted exclusively in the Daily Mail. The Mail’s editors seem to know that Jobson’s book isn’t a good look for the monarchy in general, because they refuse to promote these excerpts and I’m getting the feeling that certain stories are being purposefully buried. While the sections full of lies about QEII and the Sussexes got wider play, the main thrust of the book seems to be about how much King Charles despises his heir and how Prince William is lazy and angry. Well, one of the latest excerpts is about money, and how King Charles is completely changing how the Duchy of Lancaster operates and how there are too many random royal family members living in palaces.
Surprised at the way Buckingham Palace was being run, the King moved quickly after his accession to slash through the clutter of an overstaffed Royal Household. He bluntly instructed long-serving senior courtiers Vice-Admiral Sir Tony Johnstone-Burt, Master of the Household, and Sir Michael Stevens, Keeper of the Purse and Treasurer to the King, that he wanted change – and fast.
His plans were met with push-back from high-ranking courtiers. Some of the senior figures in the top-heavy Palace Household, accustomed to the more sedate pace of the late Queen’s twilight years, did not grasp at first that when the King flagged an issue, he expected immediate action.
‘Sure, he lost his temper when nothing changed, when he returned and saw nothing had been done, but eventually they got the message,’ said a senior source. ‘There have been staff cutbacks. That started straight away. The buzz phrase in the Household now is “value for money”.’
Aides have been ordered to tighten spending from the taxpayer-funded Sovereign Grant and the Duchy of Lancaster – the sovereign’s chief source of private funds. Charles also told them that the Royal Household was ‘top-heavy’ – too many high-paid chiefs and not enough lower-ranked staff remunerated fairly.
‘Too many advisers to advisers,’ one insider remarked. ‘That stops now. The Boss demands efficiency, real work, fair pay.’ Another said: ‘The old ways made no sense. Change had to come.’
The King’s priority is smarter use of resources – such as offering competitive pay and pensions to hire and keep top-tier staff.
Several non-working members of the Royal Family, including Charles’s nieces Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, have been told unequivocally they’ll have to stand on their own two feet and pay their own way.
One of the issues that frustrated the King, as he confided to friends, was that the Palace was ‘being run like a hotel, and not a very good one.’ Indeed, several members of the extended Royal Family have continued to enjoy subsidised accommodation, with some allowing their apartments to be used by their children as ‘London pads’. An inside source said: ‘Over time, that is all going to change. Properties will be let at commercial rates going forward and to people outside the family. Where it is in a Palace environment, they will of course be security vetted.’ Another source was more blunt: ‘The King isn’t running a housing association for distant relatives.’
The eviction of Harry and Meghan from Frogmore Cottage, a Crown Estate property granted to them by the late Queen but unused since their move abroad, was only the start of the process. Their loss of a British base, announced soon after publication of Harry’s memoir Spare, was described by one senior source as the ‘tip of the iceberg’. The message is clear: no freeloaders in the modern monarchy.
Since becoming the Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall on his father’s accession, William has been meticulous in watching over how his lucrative Duchy of Cornwall is run. To the surprise of some, he stays until the very end of Duchy finance meetings – and asks questions. He is right across it and won’t be bamboozled or have the wool pulled over his eyes.’
Last year, he earned a total of more than £23million from the estate – a matter of public record.
When his father was Duke of Cornwall, he publicly disclosed from 1993 onwards how much money he paid in tax from his Duchy income. Not William. The new Prince of Wales guards his privacy jealously, and keeps the amount he pays in tax a closely guarded secret.
“Properties will be let at commercial rates going forward and to people outside the family.” This is what I don’t understand, and what I didn’t understand about the palace’s excuses for why they *had* to evict the Sussexes from Frogmore Cottage. They claim it’s all financial, and that these are great properties and they need to be rented out at market rates. And then Frogmore sits there, empty, with no one leasing it for over two years. It’s the same for all of those apartments in Kensington Palace – either you have random royals living there or they sit empty, because they’re not going to be rented out to Joe Peasant. The royal-housing issue is not financial, it’s about Charles punishing his relatives and wanting everything for himself. His mother liked housing her extending relations at KP and St. James’s Palace – it gave her some degree of control over her relatives and she had enough royals to go around for patronages and events. Charles simply does not feel the same.
The part about William’s secret-squirrel finances is already known – Charles made moves to be more transparent when he was Prince of Wales, and now William has walked back all of it. William doesn’t want anyone to know how much money he makes from the Duchy of Cornwall or how the duchy operates or how many staffers he has or whether he employs any people of color. Jobson is telegraphing the fact that when Charles dies and Scooter King takes over, the royal finances are going to be really poorly run and secretive, and that alone will be the biggest driver of the republican movement.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
