King Charles and the late Queen Elizabeth II have earned the equivalent of more than £1 billion from their two lands and properties, yet Britons have no access to information about how that money is spent. Investigation Guardian set out the full amount of income received by members of the royal family in the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, who own vast portfolios of land and property across England, despite generations of MPs demanding that the duchies’ profits go into the public purse. .

The Duchies operate as professionally managed property empires, managing farmland, hotels, medieval castles, offices, shops and some of London’s most important luxury properties. They also have significant investment portfolios but pay no corporate tax or capital gains tax.

Duchy accounts held in the Parliamentary and State Archives show how the Queen and her first son, as the Duke of Cornwall, received huge increases in income from the duchies during their seventy-year reign.

Last year, their combined income from ducats was more than £1.2 billion.

Income from the Duchy of Lancaster, which consists of 18,481 hectares of rural land, automatically passes to whoever sits on the throne. The real estate itself is valued at 652 million pounds.

The Duchy of Cornwall, which covers 52,450 hectares, is worth more than £1 billion. His profits automatically pass only to the male heir to the throne.

When Charles, 74, became king last year, the Duchy of Cornwall automatically passed to his son, Prince William, 40, making him on paper a billionaire and one of England’s biggest landowners. At least £20 million a year can be expected.

The royal family claimed income from the duchies as the country was divided into medieval fiefdoms.

The treasure ordinary Brits don’t know how it’s spent because the royal family says it’s “private” income

The royal family insists that ducat income is “private” and that the government treats it as completely separate from the Sovereign Grant, the annual payment the royal family receives from the government to cover its official expenses. These have skyrocketed recently and are costing taxpayers £86m a year.

Buckingham Palace declined to comment on figures provided to The Guardian on ducat revenue, which it described as “speculative”.

The palace has long said that income from both duchies is mostly spent on official family duties or charitable purposes.

However, the royals have never released details of how money from the estates is spent, describing it as “private financial arrangements”.

However, since the advent of parliamentary democracy, generations of parliamentarians have demanded that revenues from ducats go to the public good. Parliamentary debates often coincided with the arrival of a new monarch.

The history of the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall and the “struggle” of the British with the kings

The origins of the Duchy of Lancaster date back to 1265, when Henry III seized the land after a failed rebellion by feudal lords who wanted to limit the king’s powers and gain some representation. The king gave the land to his son Edmund.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, two other kings – Henry IV and Henry VII – issued charters confirming their claim that the Duchy of Lancaster would always remain in the private hands of whoever was on the throne.

Meanwhile, the Duchy of Cornwall was created in 1337 by King Edward III to provide an income for his son. In a royal charter, he stipulated that the estate would always belong to the male heir to the throne, who would take the title of Duke of Cornwall.

Both duchies were confiscated by Oliver Cromwell in 1649 after the Civil War and briefly belonged to the state. But 11 years later, with the restoration of the monarchy, the duchies were returned to the new king Charles II.

Monarchists argue that these royal charters provide a legal basis for the sovereign and heir to claim that the income from the duchies belongs to them and should be treated as private income. This statement has been disputed many times.

Queen Victoria’s claim to the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster was hotly debated in the House of Commons in the 1830s, with many arguing that it should be public money. The same thing happened in the 1900s, when Edward VII and George V defeated attempts by government ministers to force them to give up the Duchy’s income.

In 1936, when Edward VIII ascended the throne, Clement Attlee, the opposition Labor leader, suggested that the royal family hand over the duchies because they “can in no way be regarded as private property”. In 1972, 100 deputies supported a bill to nationalize the duchies, but without success.

In 2005, Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee asked the government to investigate whether the Queen and Charles were getting too much money from the duchies, concluding: “The current arrangements date back to the 14th century and the resulting income is, to this extent, a fluke of history.”

Read the full story at The Guardian.