The Royal Family’s “vulnerability” has been exposed by a royal commentator who says a real crisis is looming over the institution.
It comes after it was revealed in a report by The Guardian that the royals took £1.2 billion in private income from estates.
Royal commentator Norman Baker says the issue of money is one that is muddying the waters of the Royal Family.
Speaking on GB News, he said: “The reality is that the amount of money going to the Royal Family has increased enormously in there last ten years.
PA / GB News
“The civil list in 2011 is £7.9m. The sovereign grant last year was £85m. That’s how much it has gone up.
“I think therefore all the scams about Andrew and Harry and Meghan and everyone else is gazumped by the real scandal, which The Guardian is picking up now, which is money.
“This is where they are most vulnerable.”
It comes as an investigation into King Charles and the late Queen Elizabeth II revealed the pair have received payments equivalent to more than £1bn from two land and property estates that are at the centre of a debate over whether their profits should be given to the public.
King Charles has not shared any of his £650million inheritancePADuchy accounts reveal how the Queen and her first-born son, while the Duke of Cornwall, appeared to benefit from a large increase in their revenues from the duchies during her reign.
Their duchy income totalled £41.8m. When adjusting for inflation, the pair have received the equivalent of over £1.2bn in total from the two estates.
It comes as the King has expressed his support for the first time for research into historical links between the British monarchy and the transatlantic slave trade.
Buckingham Palace said Charles takes the issues “profoundly seriously” and the royal household will help with the academic project by offering access to the Royal Collection and the Royal Archives.
The independent research, the PhD project of historian Camilla de Koning at Manchester University, is co-sponsored by Historic Royal Palaces (HRP) which manages several sites.
It will investigate the monarchy’s involvement in the slave trade and engagement with the empire and is expected to conclude in 2026.
A Palace statement was issued in response to The Guardian, which has published a previously unseen document showing the 1689 transfer of £1,000 of shares in the slave-trading Royal African Company to King William III, from Edward Colston, the slave trader and the company’s deputy governor.
A spokesperson for the King said he had continued his pledge to deepen his understanding of slavery’s impact with “vigour and determination” since his accession.
At the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting last year, Charles told Commonwealth leaders in his opening ceremony speech that “to unlock the power of our common future, we must also acknowledge the wrongs which have shaped our past”.