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> People like to make out her life was easy and that it's not fair that she inherited such a privileged position, but I think the exact opposite. Her life seeme

• Angostura 4y ago
  The wealth is private. She wasn't granted immense wealth for doing paperwork. She did the "paperwork" through a sense of duty.
  • Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
    It’s literally called the Crown estate. In the Top10 in every ranking with regards to real estate asset management. Also all the planes and trains and cars. Top notch brand of each for the last 70 years were provided by the State.
    • highwaylights 4y ago
      The Crown Estate is explicitly not the property of the monarch.
      • gnulinux 4y ago
        This is simply semantics. She was clearly given tons of property, real estate, airplanes, vehicles and means to access goods&services only because she was the queen; including the very estate she passed away in: Balmoral Castle. She was rich because she was part of the royal family; it's not the case that she was part of the royal family and then independent of that had private wealth. There was never a possibility of her being poor as long as she was the queen.
        • Veen 4y ago
          Balmoral isn't part of the Crown Estate. It is the Queen's (now the King's) private property.
        • goosedragons 4y ago
          Balmoral Castle is owned by the family, not the Crown unlike other residences like Buckingham Palace. She was head of state. It's not uncommon for heads of state to have houses, cars, planes etc. for their use as part of the job provided by the government. Even for ceremonial ones. Should she have entertained other world leaders in a one room flat?
          • confidantlake 4y ago
            I think that is the problem. An undemocratically elected monarch should not be entertaining world leaders period.
            • talideon 4y ago
              It was literally her job as head of state. That's part of what heads of state do. Now, being antimonarchist is a fine thing - I'm one - but not having an understanding of the duties of a head of state, elected or not, is a whole other thing.
          • ragazzina 4y ago
            >Should she have entertained other world leaders in a one room flat? What would exactly be the problem here? A lot of the people that the queen supposedly represent live in a one room flat.
• clpm4j 4y ago
  She didn't really "sign up" for it though. She was born into it in 1926. It's not like 2022 where she could've said "yeah, not for me, I'm moving to Santa Barbara". I don't see how she had any choice but to do what she did, and by all accounts she did it well.
  • pvg 4y ago
    It's not like 2022 where she could've said "yeah, not for me, I'm moving to Santa Barbara". Plenty of monarchs have done just that including her very own uncle.
    • highwaylights 4y ago
      Which begs the question of why they’re all moving to Santa Barbara. It must be lovely.
      • pvg 4y ago
        It is lovely but does not beg the question.
      • selimthegrim 4y ago
        Maybe they like Welsh experimental rock music?
    • ecnahc515 4y ago
      And he wasn't treated very well by his family as a result either. So you're kinda choosing between your family and leaving. Not saying you should always pick family, but for a young 20 something year old girl, that can be quite the ultimatum.
      • pvg 4y ago
        Most people end up doing something or other their family disapproves of - it's not some unusual hardship of adult life that outright prevents you from doing things. In his case, being both a doofus and a bit of a Nazi cut off the possibility of future family reconciliation. I suppose there's a line even in royal families.
• cies 4y ago
  I respect /u/dang's request not to go in monarchy bashing, but as a result I see lots of "praise her reign" on top. > she consciously chose to do so every day and in exchange she and her family was granted an immense wealth This! Saying that wealth and status is a burden for XYZ always elicits a "but they can give it all up in a singe day if they want to" response from me.
  • davrosthedalek 4y ago
    Can they though? I mean, yes, they can give away the wealth and status, but the burden, mainly being constantly the focus of the public eye, would that really go away? Don't get me wrong, I am not a fan of dictatorships or monarchies. But if you compare how she handled it, compared how to others did in similar situations, she handled it well.
  • gnulinux 4y ago
    Ok I'm sorry if this is considered "monarch bashing", I don't see how that's the case. I just pointed out that she did this voluntarily (as evidenced by countless other people who were born into royal families and chose to skip the line of succession).
    • cies 4y ago
      I did not mean to say you were bashing. (Believe me I love bashing monarchy, also when others do it). I found your point valid. Where other al say she was had no choice and did well under circumstances. I rather saw her end the monarchy all together, or at least step out of it herself.
  • percevalve 4y ago
    I think the point here is that her wealth being mostly private (or enough of it being private not being a specialist in those matters), the way she carried her duty was even more remarkable. You could easily imagine somebody inheriting similar wealth and not behaving nearly as well as she did for her country. I do not think it is about being pro or against monarchy here.
• chrisstu 4y ago
  You think she enjoyed the trappings of wealth? I never had that impression. And no, she didn't "sign up for it", she became Queen as a result of birth. Yes, she could have abdicated but the fact that she chose duty is to her credit. She was not faultless, but it's difficult to imagine another monarch doing a better job. I say all this as an anti-monarchist. I don't want one, but if we have to have one, she was the best.
  • aaronbrethorst 4y ago
    Smart billionaire monarchs don’t flaunt their wealth lest the peasants realize what a raw deal they have and revolt.
    • caleb-allen 4y ago
      I admire the queen if only for the masterful job she's done at convincing the masses that she is a victim of circumstance rather than the quintessential purveyor of privilege
  • gnulinux 4y ago
    > Yes, she could have abdicated If you can quit a job but you choose not to do so, in what sense did you not "sign up for it"? Her own uncle Edward VIII abdicated so he can marry Wallis Simpson without controversy. This has nothing to with anti-monarchism, I'm just pointing out that she was the queen only through her own free will.
    • 3836293648 4y ago
      Wasn't he the guy who was pressured into abdicating for being a Nazi?
      • foldr 4y ago
        No, that has nothing to do with why he was pressured to abdicate. Really he was pressured not to marry Wallis Simpson, not pressured to abdicate.
• davrosthedalek 4y ago
  She was "obscenely rich" whether she did her job or not. She did it anyway.
  • caned 4y ago
    That she was obscenely rich makes it all the more noteworthy that she lived a dutiful life. Need more examples of that.
  • highwaylights 4y ago
    This. Her personal wealth would already have been astronomical even without the Crown Estate. She could have retired 40 years ago and never worked another day in her life if she’d wanted to. Charles would still have been King and her family would have been no worse off.
    • deleted 4y ago
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• nmz 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure she didn't do it for the money but from some sense of moral duty. Don't forget, she took reign right after one of the worst wars in history.
  • irrational 4y ago
    Was it moral duty or was it wanting to have her name at the top of the list of longest reigning monarchs? It’s interesting that she died not too long after hitting that mark, almost as if she was just holding on to get there and then let herself die.
    • shakow 4y ago
      > It’s interesting that she died not too long after hitting that mark She didn't, Louis XIV is still up there.
    • shever73 4y ago
      7 years after hitting that mark. I think the death of her husband last year has more to do with it than “yay, I got to the top of the list so now I can die”.
• deleted 4y ago
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• Veen 4y ago
  > You make it sound like she was sentenced to sign paperwork for her entire life, when the reality is she consciously chose to do so every day They are not popular concepts these days, but the ideas you're grasping for are duty and service. She did her duty and she served her people. Also, the Royal Family is not in receipt of taxpayer money. The Sovereign Grant is funded from income generated by the Crown Estate.
  • wasmitnetzen 4y ago
    The Crown Estate is owned by the government, so it could be used to reduce taxes or increase spending if it weren't used to support the Royal Family. So indirectly, the money comes out of taxpayers' pockets.
    • highwaylights 4y ago
      Yes and no. The assets still have much the same value without a monarch but the opportunities to monetise them would be significantly reduced.
      • _alxk 4y ago
        I never bought this argument. France got rid of their royal family but the royal palaces and their art still attract millions of tourists each year. Tourists would still want to see Buckingham Palace and visit the royal gallery even without a sitting royal family.
        • Symbiote 4y ago
          And without the Windsors in the way, the visitors could pay £10 to look around inside.
    • trashtester 4y ago
      My understand is that the Crown Estate is owned by the Crown, personified by the Monarch. Also, it's NOT used to fund the Monarch directly, instead all profits from the Estate go to the Treasury, which in turn pays a percentage of that back to the Monarch, for the purpose of running the Monarchy. I'm not sure if it is in any way clearly defined what should happen to the Estate should Britain choose to become a Republic, but I suppose the actual result would be that it would be taken over completely by the government. But _formally_ it is still considered property of the Monarch.
• wenc 4y ago
  The Royal Family in the UK is unusual in that it generates more money in tourism for the UK than they take in. Probably due to so many people being interested in the British royal family. https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-57559653 https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-57559653
• helloworld11 4y ago
  For one thing, the Queen was rich for a list of complex reasons that largely have to do with hereditary properties and assets stretching back centuries. It's not as cut and dried as "taxpayer expense". Yes, the monarchy as an institution benefits from certain public resources, just as do all institutions in all major countries, but it doesn't do so to any obscene degree compared to a vast range of other public projects and organizations that waste enormously while being much better funded. Any major head of state also benefits enormously from taxpayer money in all sorts of ways and lives daily in the lap of luxury with enormous resources spent on his or her security, personal living "needs" and any trips they make. Despite this, I see little complaint about that much larger source of taxpayer money being spent. There seems to be a reflexive, emotional and partly irrational hatred of the UK monarchy spending heavily and having assets and money, along with certain public benefits (which by the way are carefully circumscribed) by people who barely bat an eye at the fact that the absolute largest sources of resource and tax spending on a vast range of immensely expensive but often wasteful and even pointless things are perfectly modern government institutions that have nothing to do with monarchs. It's an absurd sort of blindness. What the UK government spent on the idiocy of the Iraq War alone far exceeds all public funds given to the Monarchy in decades, but hey, let's complain about Elizabeth and the castles that have been in her family for centuries.