This Bizarre Royal Rule Means That Prince Charles Could Reap Millions From People In This Region

It’s fair to say that Britain’s royals aren’t short of money. Forbes magazine estimated their net worth to be about $88 billion in 2017, with Queen Elizabeth II personally worth around $530 million, according to the 2020 “Rich List” published in U.K. newspaper The Sunday Times. The Queen’s eldest son and heir apparent, Prince Charles, isn’t far behind his mother either: his personal wealth is estimated at roughly $420 million. So how is it that the heir to the throne, with millions to his name, benefits financially from the assets of non-wealthy Britons? Let’s find out…

Charles Philip Arthur George was born to Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip at Buckingham Palace in London, on November 14, 1948. He became heir apparent in 1952 and at the age of three, when his grandfather, King George VI died and Charles’s mother ascended the throne to become Queen Elizabeth II.

The young prince must have been wide-eyed with awe at the pomp and circumstance – not to mention the press frenzy – surrounding the Queen’s official coronation at London’s Westminster Abbey the following year. At the tender age of four, he had the media spotlight and world’s attention upon him as he sat between his now-widowed grandmother, the Queen Mother, and his aunt, Princess Margaret, for the ceremony.

Due to a tradition established by King Edward III in 1337, Prince Charles had already been bestowed the title of Duke of Cornwall – Edward’s charter ruling that any future eldest son of the monarch and heir to the throne would inherit the title. Then in 1958 when the Duke of Cornwall was still just nine years old, the Queen bestowed upon him the new titles of Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester.

After attending a number of prestigious U.K. schools during his formative years, Prince Charles went on to study archaeology and anthropology at Cambridge University in 1967. Two years later, he was officially invested as the Prince of Wales by the Queen, in a grand ceremony that took place at Caernarfon Castle. The Prince had previously spent a term at the University College of Wales, learning the lingo in readiness for the occasion.