The purpose of the royals? To show us money doesn’t make you happy

Like many people, I have a complex relationship with money. A recent survey by the American Psychiatric Association has confirmed that “lack of money” is once again the leading cause of anxiety for Americans. Apparently, Covid briefly overtook financial concerns as the leading cause of anxiety, but that was only for two years, and after that money took back the place on the podium that it had held for decades.

Other pieces of research have shown between 95% and 100% of people (so basically everyone in the world except that guy named Gary who doesn’t own a phone) think that they would be happier if they had more money. And these people might not be entirely wrong because, for genuinely poor people, being given more money does make them happier. But for people who aren’t in real economic need, it has been shown that increases in wealth do not increase levels of happiness. Yet many of us think they do.

That’s where the Royal Family comes in. 

King Charles’s coronation has highlighted just how wealthy the Windsor family is. Charles is allegedly worth over £2 billion. That’s an awful lot of racehorses, castles, paintings, stamps and surprisingly life-like solid gold Corgis. The rest of his family are similarly loaded. William, for example, makes around £23 million a year in revenue from the Duchy of Cornwall — which is considerably more even than my cousin Kevin makes from his dental practice. 

However, as Charles’s £100 million coronation will demonstrate, while this money is very good at buying things such as watches that are also racing cars or small countries that one can use as hunting estates, it is less good at buying happiness. 

Prince Andrew does not seem very happy, even though he should be constantly over the bloody moon about the fact that he is not in jail. William and Harry seem to be miserable about everything. Charles looks pretty depressed about the fact that 50% of his sons hate him. Prince Phillip looked pissed off about many things, only some of which were immigrants. The queen never looked very happy, although being married to Prince Phillip might have had something to do with that. And Diana was really, really good at being super unhappy.

In fact it seems that, over the past two decades, there hasn’t been a single story emanating from Windsor Castle that hasn’t involved adultery, betrayal, bitterness, anger, death, divorce and unsavoury incidents resulting in weird stains on the curtains.

So, even though most of us are convinced (I know I am) that, if we had the kind of money the Windsors have, we would be pretty goddamn happy, the reality is that we are probably totally wrong. 

Some argue that the Royal Family’s role is to generate tourism, others say that it is to provide a tangible link with our past, others suggest that it is to provide Windsor Castle as a conveniently situated landing area for the lizard alien space ships when they visit. But I disagree, I think that during the coronation, we will see them doing their real, and genuinely important job — reminding us that money does not necessarily make you happy. 

Thanks for your service, guys.