Essay On The Royal Family

For more than 1000 years, England has had a Royal Family, the family group made up of relatives of the King or Queen. King Alfred the Great is widely considered to be the first ever King of England in the late 9th century. Queen Elizabeth II, who is the 32nd great-granddaughter of Alfred the Great, is the current head of state, and has reigned for over 62 years (Royal Family History). The Royal Family plays many different roles in modern British culture, and many of these roles have been affecting the argument of whether or not the Royal Family is a positive aspect of the United Kingdom.
There are no written laws of who is part of the Royal Family, but typically the people in the Royal Family are the people addressed as His or Her Majesty (HM) or His or Her Royal Highness (HRH). The key members of the current Royal Family consist of: Queen Elizabeth II, the constitutional monarch

The Queen and her relatives live in luxurious palaces and indulge in only the finest goods. Their total reserves “stand at £14.2m - £11.8m of which comes from property, plant and equipment.” Many of the things are also perhaps not a necessity; for example, there is “£400,000 worth of wine and spirits” in the royal inventory (The Guardian). Their expenditures completely outweigh the money they bring in to the country. In 2013 the total expenditure was more than £35 million, which was also a £2 million increase from 2012. Payroll and utility costs are two categories that have increased significantly. As shown in an article from the Guardian, the utility bill now costs £1.9 million and the “average energy bill in the UK is £1,267 meaning that the royal bill is the equivalent of around 2,288 British households.” Food and drink also cost around £1.4 million. All these expenditures are paid for by taxpayers’ money and could instead be invested in different ways, such as education or healthcare, to improve the