What does the King ‘Own’?
Introduction: Private, State, and Somewhere in-between?
King Charles III inherited the Lancastrian Estates and Buckingham Palace from Queen Elizabeth II in 2022. Whether he owns these properties is a different question. In modern England, there is a clear, legal separation between property owned by the monarch as a private individual and that by the government. The Lancastrian Estates are King Charles’ private property. The category that Buckingham Palace falls under, however, is neither. Independent of both private and government ownership, it is part of the Crown Estate, which refers to the property owned by the monarch “in right of the Crown” but not as an individual. The monarch cannot sell the property, nor can they claim revenue from it. The distinction between property privately belonging to the Royal Family and that which is simply made available to the Head of State is not apparent, as they both pass through the same lineage.
Shakespeare’s Richard II and the Lancastrian Estate
This, however, has not always been the case. Debates about what it means to own property as a monarch date back to the Early Modern period, famously exemplified by William Shakespeare’s Richard II which stages the decline of a medieval king overthrown by a popular nobleman. This political conflict originates from a legal dispute over property, specifically that belonging to John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, to whom the lineage of all English monarchs after Richard II can be traced. In the play, King Richard attempts to seize the Lancastrian Estate upon John of Gaunt’s death, which prompts Henry Bolingbroke to return from exile and reclaim his father’s property. This eventually led to Bolingbroke’s ascension to the throne as King Henry IV, which sparked Early Modern debates about the implications of the King’s legal status as a property owner. When a feudal lord acquires the title of ‘King,’ is one’s private property automatically absorbed into the property of the crown?
The King’s ‘Two Bodies’ and Property Ownership
Trials over this issue surrounding the Lancastrian lands were held during Queen Elizabeth I’s reign. The property continued to be owned privately rather than as the property of the Crown, which presented a legal complication when King Edward VI leased out these lands to tenants. The jurists involved in this trial concluded that dealing with any property, even that which was acquired before one was king, should be considered a “King’s act,” and is, therefore, both politically and legally liable. The theory of the King’s Two Bodies, a dominant political philosophy of the time, justified this ruling. The theory conceptualises the monarch as possessing two ‘bodies,’ a Body Natural and a Body Politic. The Body Natural refers to the physical body of the king as an individual, while the Body Politic refers to the idea of a king as a public figure. By citing a legal principle that “the worthier draws to itself the less worthy” (“quia magis dignum trahit ad se minus dignum” in Latin), the jurists claimed that one’s public identity of kingship effectively absorbed one’s private identity as an individual, and with it one’s legal rights to independent property ownership.
Conclusion: What the King owns
In contrast to Early Modern ruling, the Duchy of Lancaster is now considered the private property of the monarch and has been passed down as such. It claims a rich history of an “ancient inheritance” created in 1265, which predates the reign of the first Lancastrian King Henry IV. Unlike Buckingham Palace or other properties under the Crown Estate, it can be sold or transferred at the individual will of the monarch. Staged in Shakespeare’s Richard II, the private identity of the Lancastrian family became intertwined with the same line of inheritance as the crown when King Henry IV ascended to the throne. This union of the two otherwise distinct titles, the Duke of Lancaster and the Sovereign Monarch of England, caused legal controversy regarding what it means to own property as a monarch. Throughout history, the understanding of monarchical property rights has evolved, especially from the Early Modern notion that the crown overshadows one’s dukedom. These historical tensions have laid the foundations for how a monarch’s property is managed in modern England.
By Isabella Jeong
