Back to the Stuarts calendar
To give you some idea how things were changing, it was in this year that Parliament, now the real power,
fixed the amount of money that the sovereign, in this case William III could spend on performing his duties. This would include staff salaries, public
engagements, state visits to other countries and the general upkeep of the Royal household. The cost of security and transport was not included nor the
cost of maintaining buildings. It was set at £700,000.
The civil list continued until 2011 when it was replaced by the Sovereign Grant. In the time of our current monarch, Elizabeth II, it was only
her husband, The Duke of Edinburgh, her mother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother who died in 2002, and the Queen herself who received direct money from the
civil List.
The new Sovereign Grant not only replaced the civil list but also three other grants given for travel, communications and maintaining the royal
palaces. This grant is more permanent and will not change when a new monarch succeeds to the throne. It is reviewed every five years. Part of the grant actually
comes from income from the royal estates. In other words when you pay to go to see Buckingham Palace which you can do most summers, some of that money pays for
the Sovereign Grant.
And with that complicated piece of information, we head into a new century.
