What happens when the queen dies?

[Bibs2014]

I know that. Harley's becomes king etc but what happens to the others? Will they be left money/homes/? Do they inherit anything? Is the queen allowed to leave them royal 'stuff'?

Might be a bit random but I just thought of it

But if Edward had married someone other than Wallis, he might have had children.

Yes he might have done. Although he preferred older women who mothered him so this was less likely. But he could have picked, oh lets say, a 19 year old virgin to give him a couple of sons, and carried on with his mistresses anyway. However he didn't seem too worried about doing that because Bertie had two DDs whom his father George V doted on, the oldest of which would clearly make a good Queen. It wasn't as if he had no heir, he had an heir - his niece (assuming his brother wouldn't live much longer than himself, of course in fact he dies before him).

For centuries Kings have done all sorts of unscrupulous things to ensure that their own personal line continues at all costs - wars, having wives beheaded, killing brothers etc etc. Edward VIII just wanted to be happy with the woman he loved, he didn't want to deceive any poor young wife.

I am not defending him, I think he clearly was weak and a bit thick. However there is a hypocrisy in one minute "the Queen has given up her whole life for this role of unrelenting duty" and "Edward VIII lumbered her with all this" and then the next "Edward gave up the throne so he must have loved Wallis so much" plus the centuries of bloodshed as people tried to get their hands on said throne.

Of course Camilla is divorced and they have been very quiet about what will happen when Charles is King, and fudged the issue by not letting her be the Princess of Wales. But the truth is that she will be Queen - the wife of the King is the Queen and that's that. Times have changed and thank goodness they have.

Margaret chose her position in the succession and the money and the status and the glamour (oh sorry I meant her "duty") over Group Captain Townsend so that says a lot about how much she loved him.

Destiny Trump on Twitter: "She was a very very great queen. We were very good friends. We talked to each other every day . Charlie will be a great king, very great."

I completely agree with you Balloonslayer Edward was very, very wealthy when he gave up the throne, but not as wealthy as he would have been if he was King. he was the only one willing to give it all up for the woman he loved. And selfish, narcissistic and greedy as they were, they were happily married until his death. Charles caved in and married basically a teenager when he was in his mid 30's, which was a disaster for all concerned for the sake of the continuation of the line. Margaret, faced with the choice of being a navy wife in Brussels or a Princess married the first bloke who came along and divorced soon after. They could all give it up or slim the family down and give up some duties in return for giving some palaces to the State if it was too onerous a duty for them, but they don't.

I have some sympathy with Margaret. Peter Townsend was a lot older than her and worked for her dad whilst she was still a girl. She was 23 when he first got divorced and they waited until she was 25, (he went and worked away), then she decided not to marry him. Lots of us didn't marry our first serious boyfriends either!

She would have still been royal but he and their children wouldn't.

I don't know if Charles would have married Camilla if Diana hadn't died. As his ex wife was dead, his remarriage was less of an issue. Of course, the c of e stance on remarriage also changed.

It's only relatively recently that marrying a catholic doesn't debar you from the line of succession too!

Charles already has legitimate children who will inherit so his marriage causes less issues than Edward who could have gone on to have children with Wallis. She was 40 when they married so it still was a possibility. The child's claim to the throne could have been challenged.

A morganatic marriage was a possibility put forward by Edward but the cabinet wouldn't agree to it. I think that Edward's Nazi sympathies meant that some people were quite relieved to see him go.

I expect that had Edward VIII staye King he would have ended up as anti-NazI as everyone else in Britain.

Don't forget the pictures of the Queen and Queen Mother doing the Nazi salute! They turned out to be on the right side in the end. No one really knew at that poimy on history how dreadful things were going to be - it's easy to judge with the benefit if hindsight.

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor were prime targets to be charmed by Hitler as they were outcasts from the UK and had their noses out of joint. Had they been king and queen i doubt they would have fallen for any of it because their egos would have been sufficiently massaged by thEuropean subjects.

"Their own subjects "
Bloody phone

River, there's actually quite a bit of evidence that Edward didn't actually want to be King and thought the monarchy was doomed. The abdication was only 18 years after the Russian revolution and there was a powerful republican movement in the U.K.; Edward wrote letters which indicated he didn't think the monarchy would last long and also indicated that he would be prepared to return as president if his brother as king and the whole monarchy was scrapped. He was a selfish lazy man who didn't really fancy the restrictions being King would place on him or the work he would have to do just as much as he loved Wallis.

He was actually wealthier than he would have been as King too if you disallow the crown properties which can't be sold. He'd saved up the equivalent of £25 million in today's money from the Duchess of Cornwall as PoW. This was traditionally money which would be taken by the new monarch into their new role so not having that made George VI poorer than the usual King anyway. But added to that, Edward actually lied and pretended he didn't have that money when he abdicated to try and extract more money, also using the fact he had privately inherited Balmoral and Sandringham as leverage. He was promised a 'salary' equivalent to £625,000 tax free in today's money via the civil list. But when it was uncovered that he actually had the £25 million he couldn't get it through the civil list because there would have been public outcry. So George VI had to pay it out of his own pocket, and using Balmoral and Sandringham he had it levered up to well in excess of a million. And he had no running costs of the monarchy to bear out of that.

He was also notoriously tight (except for with Wallis) and would leave long serving loyal staff and their families without pensions or support when they retired/died and George VI had to provide for them as a result. And he was a notorious ponce living high on the hog through the wealth of wealthy businessmen (often with Nazi connections. The result was that he was just as wealthy (if not more so) than if he had been King, but the monarchy under George VI was impoverished by paying out to him that politicians described it as 'not having a bean'.

It wasn't until post war when George VI's monarchy was secure and Edward was thoroughly discredited that they began to claw some of the money back for pensions etc and he quibbled over and complained about every penny. And much of that was for his share of pensions for staff that his significantly poorer younger brothers (and later one of their very young widows with small children) supported without complaint.

Although people like to romance the love said he was a very unpleasant dishonest man and had bad qualities which Wallis hugely magnified. She very much brought out the worst in him.

balloon I don't think he would. The Queen was a fairly small child and that film was taken just after the Nazis took power. It's the equivalent of a child today watching a video about North Korea and copying the silly walk.

Edward however was visiting Germany at Hitler's personal invitation and organised by Von Ribbentrop not long before the start of the war when it was very, very much a possibility. Moseley's blackshirt's publicly supported him during the abdication crisis and he stayed with a Nazi supporter at his Austrian castle for several months between the abdication and his wedding to Wallis. His Nazis sympathies are too strong to be dismissed.

Were too strong, sorry.

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor were prime targets to be charmed by Hitler as they were outcasts from the UK

Wasn't there some rumour at the time that if Hitler won the war, he'd install Edward as Governor of the UK?

I am sure you are right, Bill I haven't done all that much research. I was just speculating that as all sorts of people "met with Hitler" before the war (including Lloyd George, I learned this week) it didn't definitely mean he was a bad guy. But seems he was! Although I still think he would have become an enemy of Hitler had he stayed king.

Yeah, he was engaged in Nazi propaganda during his visit too though. It was ostensibly to 'research the conditions of the working class = say how great life is for the masses under the Nazis.

Let's hope that when the Queen does die the BBC isn't caught by surprise as it was last time, when it just played solemn music for what seemed days on end.

Yeah, he [Lloyd George] was engaged in Nazi propaganda during his visit too though. It was ostensibly to 'research the conditions of the working class = say how great life is for the masses under the Nazis.

I'm not a particular fan of LG, but that's not entirely fair. Before the First World War, Germany was ahead of the UK in social reform. LG went, learned, and put into practice some of what he learned when held government office. It's not unreasonable that he should have had a continuing interest in social policy and conditions in Germany.

Anyone might have met Hitler before the war. Churchill might have done at one point. He was in Germany researching a book and he and Hitler happened to be visiting the same town, IIRC. Someone offered to try to arrange a meeting. Churchill was interested, but Hitler declined the meeting.

Not RTFT but just wanted to note that although a monarch taking on a different name when crowned may have been normal in the old days, I think in modern times with the monarchy being celebrities in their own right, constant media coverage etc, it would be extremely difficult for them to change their name.

Think of the Duchess of Cambridge. How many people still know her as Kate Middleton?

Imagine having to call Charles King George. Would just be weird.

wank can you add a couple of exclamation marks too? He loves them.

Otherwise, creepily spot on.

Harriet, I was talking about Edward the VIII, not Lloyd George.

William doesn't automatically become PoW, Charles wasn't PoW until he was about 20.

Charles was created Prince of Wales when he was nine. He was invested when he was 20.

Let's hope that when the Queen does die the BBC isn't caught by surprise as it was last time, when it just played solemn music for what seemed days on end.

No ... they'll rely on the usual pointless rolling news coverage - reporters hanging round outside Buckingham Palace endlessly waiting for something to happen, and filling the time by interviewing members of the crowd about 'what the Queen's death means to them'.

Can I just point out that nonplussed means 'stunned, lost for words' and therefore is the opposite of what Gimmee means, if I have understood her posts correctly. I'm not saying this to be snippy or pedantic. I think it's caused genuine confusion.

Also, re how much of the world will be stunned when the Queen dies - I'd say it will have a massive impact. She is one of the longest serving heads of state in the world. I wouldn't be surprised if it gave a net boost to the economy because the BBC will be able to sell the funeral coverage all over the world.

Always feel a bit sorry for Wallis after reading this book. It seems if you play with fire, you get burnt.

www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2011/08/royal-roundup-wallis-never-wanted-to-marry-edward-author-says

The Prince of Wales will most probably be about 80 when his mother dies. I would not be surprised if he abdicates in favour of Prince William and never becomes King.

Someone up thread asked "Will money with the Queen's head on stop being legal tender?" No, it will remain legal tender for as long as that design and denomination of coin remains valid. When I was growing up, before decimalisation, there were coins in circulation with all the previous monarchs before our present Queen. The most numerous were George VI, but there were plenty of coins with images of George V, Edward VII and Queen Victoria still in circulation until February 1971. Even after that time, we still kept the sixpence and the shilling for quite a few years, so coins have only been totally "Elizabethan" since the 1980s.

I don't think he will abdicate, as I think he will want to allow PW a few more years with his young family before taking the throne, however I don't think Charles will have a particularly long reign - maybe 15 years or so.

I would not be surprised if he abdicates in favour of Prince William and never becomes King.

I wouldn't be surprised if he never becomes King, but I would be extremely surprised if he abdicated. He's waited his entire life for his turn at the top job and I don't think he will turn that down.

I think there's a chance his mother may outlive him though.