Monthly Archives: Jun 2026

Recent Royal Resources and Revelations

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Now is the time of year that the Royal Household publishes its financial reports detailing the use of the Sovereign Grant and other money sources. It is a chance for the public to look at “The Firm” as a business, and likewise for The Firm to advocate for itself on that basis. Obviously these are aimed at a higher reading level than most of the Palace’s announcements.

Earlier this year there was an additional publication: A report by the National Audit Office on the arrangements for Crown Estate properties which members of the family and their staff occupy. This was prompted mainly by the surrender of the Royal Lodge by the former Prince Andrew.

I have read through the majority of these documents (though the full Sovereign Grant Report, at 161 pages, may not be completed for some time). I will not comment on the majority of their contents as they are dense with financial jargon, but will highlight a couple of interesting revelations.

Working Royals

The definition of “working royal”, meaning one who carries out public duties on behalf of the sovereign, has sometimes been contested. This year’s documents appear to offer a canonical list of who currently counts. Page 35 of the NAO report says

3.10 In addition to The King and Queen, there are nine working members of the Royal family supporting the duties of the Sovereign: The Prince and Princess of Wales, The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, The Duke of Kent, The Princess Royal, The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh and Princess Alexandra.

This exact line is repeated in the Palace’s own financial report (page 3). This is obviously a rather smaller list than we would have seen a decade ago, due to several members from that time having died or withdrawn from duties (whether voluntarily or not) without anyone yet arriving to replace them.

The same page in the NAO report, as well as a few other sections, define four people as being outside the firm:

Princess Beatrice Princess Eugenie and The Prince and Princess Michael of Kent

The report repeatedly refers to “The Prince and Princess Michael of Kent”, giving them the definite article (with capital T, no less) normally reserved for royals in the first generation of descent from a monarch.

Sir Timothy Laurence is not mentioned in these documents even though, despite his lack of royal style or title, he definitely is on the duty roster. The status of the Duke of Edinburgh’s children and His Majesty’s grandchildren is also left unresolved.

(At this point I will take the opportunity to plug the work of Canadian journalist Patricia Treble, who has written in detail several times about the looming demographic crisis for the working royals. She noted in a post from April this year that contrary to official reports she considers Alexandra “effectively retired” due to the rarity of her appearances in the last few years.)

Buckingham Palace

Much of the word-count of the recent literature concerns the major refurbishment works on this residence, which had fallen into a dangerous state of disrepair by the early 2010s.

Over the last decade there have been multiple updates in formal documents, as well as the royal YouTube channel, about the work being done to overhaul the palace’s systems, structures and services.

Although it is now a prominent British icon — to the extent that “the Palace” is frequently used as the principal metonym for the entire institution of the monarchy — the physical structure has often been a source of problems. Histories of the late Georgian and early Victorian period will often point out that the construction ran well over budget requiring the replacement of the architect, and that the finished product was riddled with faults including sewer overflow, smoke accumulation and rat infestation. This was a recurrent theme in the first season of ITV’s Victoria series, and also got a sketch on Horrible Histories.

There were several renovations over the next century (including to repair bomb damage after the Second World War) which fixed some problems but not all. By the time of Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee there were news stories about windows losing too much heat, plastic buckets to catch leaks, and blocks of masonry nearly killing people when they fell to the ground.

Even aside from its structural shortcomings, a lot of monarchs simply didn’t like living there: William IV, who reluctantly inherited the unfinished work from his elder brother, preferred to stay at his own custom-built residence at Clarence House (so-called because he was Duke of Clarence at the time). Victoria was initially excited to move in, but later in her reign would leave it abandoned for most of the year in favour of Osborne and Windsor.

Towards the end of George VI’s reign Philip Mountbatten & The Princess Elizabeth made their home at Clarence House as Duke & Duchess of Edinburgh. Following the latter’s accession to the throne they were reluctant to move to Buckingham Palace, only doing so because Sir Winston Churchill insisted it was the only proper place for the reigning monarch to live. It is speculated by historians that the royal couple at the time only gave way because they were relatively young and inexperienced on the throne whereas Churchill was very elderly and had achieved a near-divine status in the public mind, whereas by the end of the reign that dynamic had more than reversed. We can’t know for sure, but it feels a mightily-convenient coincidence that this announcement has been made at a time when the party in government is having a leadership contest, meaning that the incumbent is a caretaker who, in terms of effective political authority, may as well not exist.

Drawing of Clarence House from 1874.

Late in Elizabeth’s reign Clarence House became the official residence for Prince Charles’s own household, and there were reports that both he and his mother wished to shift the emphasis of the monarchy away from Buckingham Palace, perhaps even abandoning it as a residence altogether, and make Windsor Castle the principal royal residence. In Elizabeth II’s last few years events conspired in favour of this: In 2017 Prince Philip formally retired from royal duties and, while his wife continued at Buck House, he moved to Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate (where his middle son now lives). In 2020 when the pandemic hit and lockdown was imposed, they both moved to Windsor and had their “bubble” headquartered there. Over that year and the next the Castle was host to Philip’s funeral and a visit by President Biden after a G7 summit. Trooping the Colour, scaled down due to social distancing requirements, was also relocated there on both years. In early 2022 as the pandemic abated it was announced that Elizabeth would not move back to London, instead keeping Windsor as her main home and merely commuting when necessary.

On Charles’s accession he and Camilla had been living at Clarence House for nearly two decades. Although “Clarence House” as an organisation (a metonym for their separate household as Prince of Wales & Duchess of Cornwall) was formally dissolved at that point and merged with that at Buckingham Palace, the ongoing renovation works gave the couple an excuse not to actually move in. For over three years now Their Majesties have used Buckingham as the workplace for their constitutional and public functions as King & Queen, but kept Clarence House as their main London home. It also continues to be the venue for their private social functions as well as gatherings related to the charities and businesses they established there during the prior reign. At the end of 2024 the building works reached the state rooms, so that the next run of state visits (so far France, United States, Germany and Nigeria) were all redirected to Windsor as well.

Now that the restoration work is nearing completion, a long-term decision needs to be made. This week it was announced to reporters at a press briefing that Their Majesties will continue their current arrangements indefinitely, with no plans ever to move. This effectively makes official what has already quietly been the case for the past six years: Buck House is the monarch’s residence no longer. Prince William seems likely to follow suit here: The Prince & Princess of Wales have long had their official residence at Kensington Palace (which is also the metonym for their household), but where they and their children actually live has varied. Late last year the family moved into Forest Lodge, Windsor, and described it as their “forever home”.

This change may feel momentous, but royal residences have come and gone over the centuries: Westminster, Whitehall, Hampton Court, Richmond, Eltham and St James’s have all at some point been the home of the sovereign, then faded into the background (or, indeed, been destroyed). My suggestion to offer Buck House to Parliament again remains in place.

EXTERNAL LINKS

All The King’s Horses

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A photograph of Their Majesties in the Lords Chamber on 13th May, acquired through the United States embassy and therefore presumed to be public domain.

The May-June period tends to be quite a busy one in terms of grand royal ceremonies with equestrian components: In the past few weeks we’ve had the State Opening of Parliament, the Trooping of the Colour, the installation of Knights of the Garter and the races at Ascot. The first two events have, in recent years, been a good opportunity to get free-licence photographs of the senior royals for Wikimedia Commons. This year, unfortunately, the pickings have been quite slim.

For the state opening, the official House of Lords photographs have been uploaded to Flickr as “All Rights Reserved”. Those from the House of Commons are Non-Commercial No-Derivatives. The only ones I’ve actually been able to find and upload are a quartet from the Instagram account of the United States Embassy. There were also three photographs of the procession along the Mall taken by Alansplodge.

For Trooping the Colour, the Government Flickr accounts which took so many photographs in 2023, -4, and -5 have not taken any this year, so we are reliant on the generosity of digital marketing consultant John Pannell. He also got a lot of snaps at the event in 2022.

Pannell’s shot of the Princess of Wales in a landau with her sons. Princess Charlotte is either obscured or out-of-frame throughout the album.

Neither Garter Day nor Ascot usually get covered by government photographers so free-licence photographs of those events are restricted to the occasional shots by amateurs who release their own work. Of course, in the case of Garter Day it is only the procession which can be photographed at all while the rest takes place inside the castle, though on this occasion we did get a verbal account from the Since Attlee & Churchill podcast.

It is worth mentioning that though the Buckingham Palace Flickr account quietly stopped posting back in 2018, there is a separate feed from Kensington Palace with albums for three of these four events. Of course, these are also All Rights Reserved and thus out of bounds for Wikimedia.

Early Summer Heraldic News

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10th June is International Heraldry Day. It’s not a widely-known occasion, of course, and I don’t have any particular way of celebrating it, but it felt like the occasion to post some updates.

Humphrey Lyttelton

Over the last few months I have been listening obsessively to the archives of the classic panel show I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Clue (which, incidentally, is back for a new series this week). Among the hundreds of hours of babble and bickering, I picked up on a couple of heraldic references in Humphrey Lyttelton’s introductory monologues:

William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633, was born in broad street where WH Smith stands, which is evidenced by the Laud family crest of a crossed pen and pencil set Argent topped by readers’ wives rampant.

(S37E1, 28th May 2001)

 

The story of Darlington’s history is neatly encompassed in its coat of arms. The Cross of St Cuthbert represents the town’s resistance to Viking raids, a bull’s head signifies the local breeding of fine cattle, and white chevrons with black lines indicate no overtaking on an urban freeway.

(S41E1, 26th May 2003)

If I manage to find enough of these, I could create a new armorial page called Humph’s Heraldry or I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Crest.

Humph himself would be no stranger to heraldry, coming as he did from the aristocratic Lyttelton family. Humph was the only son of Hon. George William Lyttelton, himself the second son of Charles George Lyttelton, 8th Viscount Cobham. He was too far removed from the peerage to gain any style or honorific from it, but he still would have been an esquire by some of the traditional definitions, and of course that would make him an armiger too.

Lord Cobham’s arms were Argent a chevron between three escallops Sable and his crest was a Moor’s head in profile couped at the shoulders Proper wreathed about the temples Argent and Sable. Humph would have presumably displayed these with a crescent for difference, if following the rules of cadency.

The mention of William Laud prompted me to look for his actual heraldic bearings. The blazon I uncovered for his shield was Sable on a chevron between three estoiles Or three crosses pattee fitchy Gules. I cannot find the blazon for his crest, though as a clergyman he obviously would not have used one. That means I cannot explicitly disprove Humph’s suggestion, though as Laud died over a century before the establishment of the WH Smith company I suspect a direct homage is unlikely.

Anglican Archbishops

I was surprised to find that Laud’s personal arms, and those of several other Anglican bishops, were listed on Heraldry of the World, which normally only carries corporate arms. I then went about adding as many blazons as were available to their owners’ Wikipedia pages. When I got to William Temple I discovered that the arms were already cited, and the link was to the book The Blazon of Episcopacy by William Bedford, 1897. I don’t know how I missed this before. I have long been frustrated by the fact that Burke’s and Debrett’s only list the Lords Spiritual by the corporate arms of their sees instead of the personal arms of the incumbents, so this book was a revelation, if you’ll pardon the pun. This has given the the opportunity to start illustrating arms en masse again, having run low on material in the last few years. It also pushed my edit count past 24000, allowing me to upgrade my user rank to Senior Editor or Labutnum.

I have now set about creating an Armorial of the Archbishops of Canterbury, and after that will probably do so for all the other bishoprics in Bedford’s book too. Five years ago I created one for the Bishops of Chester because there was already a website which collated them, but did not have the necessary resources to go any further.

Articles on Other Sites

Yesterday The Atlantic published an article by British journalist Helen Lewis about the phenomenon of Americans applying to the College of Arms in London for honorary grants. Despite the timing, no mention is made of IHD and the article is clearly intended more as part of the commemorations for the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It includes snippets of interviews from several American armigers, as well as Dominic Ingram (Chester Herald) and an account of Lewis’s own visit to the College’s headquarters. Ingram makes a comment about his heart sinking when a client asks for lions due to their overuse. David White, now Garter, made the same comment a while back.

On 1st April the retired rector Ian Gomersall posted about receiving his letters patent, and even included some photographs of the artistic process. Four days ago Ian Leslie posted a long article which included a paragraph about William Shakespeare’s quest for heraldry, something which I have also discussed before.

Miscellaneous

In less exciting news, it has now been an entire year since the College posted a new edition of its own newsletter. The message in the sidebar still insists that the letter is produced every three months, but that has not been true for quite a while now.

On a quasi-related note, today would also have been the 105th birthday of the late Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (he was eighteen days younger than Humph). Recently I inherited a copy of H.R.H. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: A Portrait by his Valet. The book was curiously undated, but Google Books tells me it was published in 1954. That feels remarkably early to be writing a biography like this, given that he would go on to live until 2021. The use of “Prince” in the title is also interesting, given that this book came out after he relinquished his Greek & Danish princely title but before he was granted his British one. Of course, I will have to get around to actually reading the book before I can make further judgement.

UPDATE (13th June)

The King’s Birthday Honours were published late last night. David Vines White, Garter since 2021, has been appointed a KCVO. This is routine for holders of his office, though it is interesting that he got it at what must be about the halfway point of his tenure, whereas his predecessors Woodcock and Gwynne-Jones didn’t get theirs until very near the end.

UPDATE (16th June)

Birkbeck College has published an interview with Timothy Noad, exploring the creative process behind the creation of the new royal cypher.

Reap-peer-ances

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Two weeks after the publication of the list, the life peerages promised to expelled hereditary peers have begun to actually take effect. In line with the resolution I mentioned in my previous post, these peers are simply taking the oath and resuming their seats without the full introduction ceremony.

One downside to this approach is that we do not hear the letters patent being read out, so the only evidence of the member’s new title apart from when they say it themselves upon taking the oath. Life peerages under the 1958 Act are always baronies — the lowest degree — and these ones are obviously later created than the ones their recipients had before, so they are subsidiary to the titles by which these peers were already known. Both Hansard and Parliament.UK refer to a peer only by his highest title even if it is not the one by which he sits, to to know the full spelling of the life peerage, and its territorial designation, one has to wait for the notice to be published in the Gazette. As usual, there is a few days’ delay before this happens.

Those whose full titles have been availed thus far are:

  • Charles Wellesley, 9th Duke of Wellington as Baron Wellington of Stratfield Saye (of Stratfield Saye in the County of Hampshire and of Colomnell in the County of Ayrshire)
  • Godfrey Bewicke-Copley, 7th Baron Cromwell as Baron Cromwell of Tattershall (of Misterton in the County of Leicestershire)
  • Sebastian Grigg, 4th Baron Altrincham as Baron Altrincham of Islington (of Holland Park in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea)
  • Edward Howard, 8th Earl of Effingham as Baron Effingham of Bookham Commons (of Effingham in the County of Surrey)
  • Stephen Benn, 3rd Viscount Stansgate as Baron Stansgate of Holland Park (of Stansgate in the County of Essex)
  • Thomas Galbraith, 2nd Baron Strathclyde as Baron Strathclyde of Barskimming (of Barskimming in the County of Ayr)
  • Colin Moynihan, 4th Baron Moynihan as Baron Moynihan of Purbeck (of Leeds in the County of York)
  • Nicholas Trench, 9th Earl of Clancarty as Baron Clancarty of the Hangers (of Petersfield in the County of Hampshire)

These titles and their territorial designations are, quite literally, all over the place. In six out of eight cases the peer’s main title is a place name instead of his surname*, and in all six of these cases the life peerage ignores the surname in favour of repeating the main title followed by an unrelated second place name, then having a territorial designation which is different yet again.

Altrincham, for example, is actually a town in Greater Manchester (though originally in Cheshire). It is nowhere near the London Boroughs of Islington or Kensington, and to make matters worse the territorial designation of the hereditary barony is “of Tomarton in the County of Gloucester”, which is wrong again! Purbeck isn’t in Leeds, either, and I’m not sure why the County of Ayr has a “shire” on the end of it for Wellesley’s peerage but not for Galbraith’s.

This doesn’t matter much in practice as the new titles will never actually be used to refer to their holders in everyday practice, but the odd constructions indicate to me that the present Garter King of Arms has a quite idiosyncratic sense of Britain’s geography.

In Cromwell’s case it’s someone else’s surname, as the barony was created by writ and descended to his grandfather through the female line after four centuries’ abeyance.