The “duchy” has raked in more than £60 million in such funds over the last decade, which it has claimed was being donated to charity. But “internal duchy documents” (yes, this is a real thing) show that much of the funds are actually being used to renovate the king’s real-estate holdings, some of which are then rented out for his own profit
Apparently, Queen Elizabeth II approved using these bona vacantia funds for upgrades in 1987 and again in 2019. Such renovations include double-glazed windows (nice!), log burners, and new roofs. In one case, an old farmhouse was renovated partially using these so-called bona vacantia funds, only to be rented out as a four-bedroom home for £1,450 per month.
The feudal-era practice was signed into law by the Parliament in 1925 but, as The Guardian reports, “why this was done is not known.” Meanwhile, it has helped King Charles, a landlord, amass a private fortune that is estimated to be worth £1.8 billion.
A bit late on this, but no one else has mentioned it, he made a pair of videos called “Americapox” where he uses Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel” as his only real source and uses it to talk about how the reason the native Americans were “at the bottom of the tech tree” (paraphrased) was because they didn’t have superior European animals and metalsmithing. He basically calls them primitive savages, just using video game terminology.
Jared Diamond’s pop history book has come under intense scrutiny by historians, as it claims incredibly racist things like the Incas being too “primitive” to know what an ambush is. He blames this “primitiveness” on their lack of metalworking and domesticated animals, but it is just recycled 19th century rhetoric cleaned up for a late 20th century audience. And Grey used it all completely uncritically.
And when Grey was called out on this terrible source, he did the usual internet shitbag thing of pretend it was all just a prank bro, and people shouldn’t take him so seriously. Weirdly enough, he only says this when people call him out, he never tells people who believe his nonsense that he’s just messing around.