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What She Owns. Elizabeth is one of the world's wealthiest individuals. Although a monarch's private holdings (and will) are unpublished, the crown jewels are estimated at up to $140 million, and Buckingham Palace's gold dinner service at $10 million. It is impossible to price-tag the private estates at Balmoral and Sandringham, the library of Windsor Castle and the art treasures of Buckingham Palace. The Queen owns 600 of the Thames River's 800 swans, all sturgeons and whales caught in home waters, the land around the perimeter of the islands between high and low tide, all gold and silver mines in Britain (there are none to speak of), all treasure trove in Britain, and the exclusive right to search for oil in the United Kingdom.
She is entitled to an annual ground rent of one snowball from the Munros of Foulis, and a white rose from the Duke of Atholl. The royal real-estate holdings are enormous: estates in Dorset, Wiltshire and Somerset, beaches in Cornwall and Devon, 100,000 acres of farmland, immensely valuable land in London (the south side of Piccadilly Circus, both sides of Regent Street, two theaters, three restaurants and the Carlton Hotel). But Elizabeth "owns" these properties only nominally. They are administered by Crown Commissioners for the benefit of Parliament, under a bargain struck with George III in 1760. In return, Parliament will vote Elizabeth the Civil List, under which her father received $1,148,000 a year. This may be increased for Elizabeth. Whether her husband will get a separate allowance is still to be decided. Elizabeth will also get the revenue from the 50,000-acre Duchy of Lancaster (about $280,000 last year). As Queen, she pays no income tax.
* And in whose courts she cannot be sued or arraigned for any crime, including murder.