Late last week, Britain’s National Audit Office released a report on royal lodgings and who pays what for various properties. That’s when we learned that “royal sources” had been lying their asses off for years and years about royal leases, sublets and more. We learned that the Crown Estate, NOT Prince William and Kate, spent £400K to renovate Forest Lodge, despite “sources” claiming the opposite for the better part of a year. We also learned that Princess Beatrice and Eugenie both maintain London homes which are entirely paid for by the Duchy of Lancaster (meaning, the sovereign’s private funds). Additionally, we learned that Prince Andrew and Prince Edward are able to sublet their royal leases to whomever they want, and they can pocket the money too.
Well, over the weekend, Prince William was in a rage about all of this (except the Forest Lodge lies, naturally). In between kissing Princess Beatrice’s cheek in greeting at Peter Phillips’ wedding, William found time to brief several royal reporters on his big Scooter King plans. From Roya Nikkhah’s piece in the Times:
The Prince of Wales will “do things differently” with the royal family’s many properties when he is King. He will consider banning the sub-letting of homes, as well as stopping those who do no official duties from living rent-free in palaces. Under his future reign, reviewing the official use of all royal residences and members of his family’s living arrangements is understood to be a priority for William. The King has always done an annual review of the arrangements.
William, 43, is understood to be concerned about the optics of non-working royals benefitting from preferential living arrangements. William recently made public the terms of his lease on Forest Lodge, the Waleses’ home in Windsor where he and the Princess of Wales will remain living when they are King and Queen. It showed they pay £307,500 a year in rent on the grade II listed mansion, £100,000 more than the previous tenants. A clause in the lease also prevents the sub-letting of three cottages in the grounds of Forest Lodge.
William is planning changes in how the monarchy operates that will be swiftly implemented under his reign. Sources close to the prince told The Sunday Times that he wants to ensure it is “fit for purpose in the modern era” and will “look under the hood” of the institution. He is said to be “mindful of how much the monarchy costs” and the size of the organisation, and will be “hands on” in restructuring a leaner machine while assessing the “footprint of the institution”.
It is understood the King will also continue to annually review the living and rental arrangements of members of the royal family at royal residences. Sources close to Charles noted that under his reign, the rent paid on Beatrice and Eugenie’s royal homes has risen to more than 68 per cent and 64 per cent respectively of market value. Under the late Queen’s reign, the rent set for Beatrice’s apartment at St James’s Palace was 60 per cent and Eugenie’s Ivy Cottage was 50 per cent. A royal source said: “In this, and more broadly, the King has attempted to deal with some of the challenges he inherited from his mother.”
The revelations have sparked more scrutiny for the royal family’s finances. On Friday, Baroness Hodge of Barking, the former chair of parliament’s public accounts committee, told Times Radio: “I cannot for the life of me understand why any members of the royal family were able to charge rent [and] make money out of properties that they got on lease.”
A few things are happening all at once. For one, King Charles is trying to avoid blame for a situation which, to be fair, he actually did inherit. That being said, the “annual review” is BS, because he clearly wasn’t in any hurry to change Prince Andrew’s leases or B&E’s leases. While Charles is trying to avoid blame, Prince William is calling up his media allies and pontificating about all of the changes he’ll make as king, while simultaneously pointing out that Charles is dithering. What’s remarkable is that father and son are quite similar in this narrow way – they want all of the royal loot and royal land all for themselves, no sharing with cousins or uncles or brothers. William can’t wait to start evicting everybody, I guess.
William’s kiss for Beatrice showed that King Charles ‘is reasserting control over Royal Family’ and wants his son to welcome ‘freeloading cousins’ back into fold https://t.co/8Sq7EQHuiU
— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) June 7, 2026
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, screencaps courtesy of AppleTV+.
