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This was a neat solution that raised the necessary funds to repair the extensive damage to the castle and allowed greater public access to famous buildings. By 1997 the cost of repairs had been met. But here was a handy income stream for the Queen (and yes, it went to her rather than the government), so, naturally, the sale of tickets did not stop when the restoration had been paid for. Instead, it was announced that the income was to be allocated to the Royal Collection Trust.

Fire rages at Windsor Castle in 1997

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Royal antiques rescued from the blaze

DAN TOWERS/NEWS GROUP NEWSPAPERS

Between 2006-07 and 2019-20, the trust returned a combined profit of £68.939 million. The latest figures, from 2024-25, show a net profit of £13.9 million, a record for one year. The income for the trust is only likely to increase, not least with plans announced in February 2025 to add St James’s Palace to the list of properties the public can visit — provided, of course, they have deep pockets. The ticket price has been set at £85.

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I had a chance to see the inside of the building when, in my capacity as a privy counsellor, I attended the Accession Council that formally saw Charles become King. Members of the public will have had a glimpse of the inside if they watched the proceedings on television.

Charles is formally declared King

JONATHAN BRADY/PA

As well as income from ticket sales, the trust rakes in cash from the sale of trinkets and other memorabilia. For the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022, for example, the fastest-selling item was a £120 limited edition set of champagne glasses suitably engraved with a royal symbol. Or you could have picked up a jubilee pillbox clock, a snip at £125.

Platinum Jubilee champagne saucers and pillbox clock, below

The collection is certainly very extensive, with more than one million objects, including about 7,000 paintings and 30,000 watercolour and drawings, some of which are very valuable, not least some 550 drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, valued at £3.22 billion as far back as 2002. By comparison, the British Museum holds about eight million items. Some of the items in the collection can be seen by the public, at locations such as Buckingham Palace and Hampton Court Palace. In addition, the trust notes that over 280,000 items are viewable online.

Sophie Lawrenson of the Royal Collection Trust with an anatomical drawing by Leonardo da Vinci

SUNDAY TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JAMES GLOSSOP

Then there are the tens of thousands of precious stones, including 6,000 diamonds in one crown alone. The 530-carat Great Star of Africa, was valued at £80 million in the early 1990s is now thought to have an approximate value of £1.5 billion. The diamond was a gift to Edward VII in 1907 from the Legislative Council of the Transvaal, a British colony at the time.

It is very difficult to assess accurately the value of the collection, not least as we do not have a complete list of its contents. Experts have suggested a figure of at least £10 billion. So large, yes, valuable, undoubtedly, but “private”?

The Cullinan I diamond, also known as the Great Star of Africa, is part of the sovereign’s sceptre used at coronations

ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST/PA

HUGO BURNAND/ROYAL HOUSEHOLD/PA

Over a million items are held “in right of the Crown”. Clarifying this obscure phrase, the trust told me, in an email on February 3, 2025, that “objects from the Royal Collection cannot be sold as they are held in trust by the sovereign for his successors and the nation”. For his successors and the nation.

Well, which is it? Back in 1995, the cabinet minister then responsible for national heritage, Iain Sproat, told the Commons that the sale of objects from the collection was “entirely a matter for the Queen”. That would also seem to have been the view of Prince Philip, who in 2000 said the Queen was “perfectly at liberty to sell them” and presumably keep the money.

Moreover, back in 1971, the lord chamberlain, Cameron Cobbold, indicated that some items had indeed been sold to enable the purchase of acquisitions, suggesting that retention is not inviolate.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that there are also numerous artworks which are deemed to be owned by the King as an individual, and which therefore can be sold. The Royal Collection Trust is adamant that there is no connection between these artworks and those in the collection itself. A spokesperson told me: “Objects that are the private property of His Majesty or members of the royal family are not part of the Royal Collection.”

The truth is rather more nuanced than this statement suggests. Back in June 2000 while an MP, I asked the chancellor, Gordon Brown, “if an inventory exists to distinguish assets held by the Queen a) as sovereign and b) as a private individual”. His reply: “There is a computerised inventory of the Royal Collection which identifies assets held by the Queen as sovereign and as a private individual.”

Plan of Imola by da Vinci in 1502

ALAMY

That is as it should be, but the trust refuses to publish this inventory, even the part that relates to items held for the nation, and gives no reason for this refusal. The collection is held for us, but we are not allowed to know what is in it.

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On the face of it, there might be sympathy for the idea that the public have no right to see a list of those pieces owned privately by the royal family, but the reality is that the two categories have been so intertwined throughout their history that it is important that the contents of both are published so we can see what has been allocated to which category.

Da Vinci anatomical drawing

SUNDAY TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JAMES GLOSSOP

Official gifts to members of the royal family, given to them while they represent this country, are rightly required now to be added to the collection rather than seen as personal gifts. This practice, however, has not always been the case, and indeed this clear rule dates only from 1995. Go back in history and monarchs regularly bought items to add to the collection. George III, for example, added many Venetian paintings, including 40 Canalettos, as well as numerous Old Master drawings.

It seems unlikely that a succession of monarchs were so altruistic on behalf of the nation that they voluntarily paid for additions to the collection for public benefit. Rather, it suggests that they saw the collection as their own personal property, the view that Prince Philip, as quoted above, seemed to be espousing.

This also suggests that items that would today be regarded as official gifts were taken to be personal gifts, and here is one way that the private wealth of the royal family was built up. We know, for example, that Queen Elizabeth II inherited from the Queen Mother a huge and valuable collection of art, including works by Fabergé, Monet and Nash. The trust confirmed to me that “the collection of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother remains the private property of the sovereign”. It has now been inherited by Charles, free of inheritance tax.

A Claude Monet study of rocks, 1889

ALAMY

Where did all these fabulous and hugely valuable works of art come from? To take one example, the Royal Collection Trust website notes: “Almost all the Fabergé pieces in the Royal Collection were acquired as gifts, exchanged by the Russian, Danish and British royal families.” Were they gifts from nation to nation, or personal gifts, given there was a good deal of intermarriage between royal houses before the First World War?

Fabergé basket of flowers egg from 1901, which belonged to the Russian royal family and was acquired by Queen Mary in 1933

ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST

Publication of the full Royal Collection inventory would enable a judgment to be made as to whether items classified as private should actually belong to the category of “held in trust for the nation”. Even if publication were achieved, however, that does not provide clarity as to who actually owns the collection. It is “held in trust for his successors and the nation”. Yes, but when the chips are down, is it his successors or the nation?

Clarity can come with a straight answer to the following question: in the event that Britain abolishes its monarchy and becomes a republic, does the “private” Royal Collection stay with the deposed royals or transfer to the new republic? Such a transfer, by the way, is what has happened in other European countries which have moved from monarchy to republic.

Meanwhile, in the absence of a clear answer to that question, let us take the trust at its word when it says that the collection is held for the nation, and rename it as the National Collection. But do we really need to continue augmenting this huge collection, already worth north of £10 billion? If just 1 per cent of that were realised from sales each year, that could eliminate the call upon the public purse of vast sums to hand over to the monarchy annually. As things stand, we are effectively allowing money that could be used to support public services instead to be spent on art that the public have little chance of ever seeing.

© Norman Baker 2025. Extracted from Royal Mint, National Debt: The Shocking Truth About the Royals’ Finances by Norman Baker, to be published by Biteback on November 25 at £22