Elizabeth II

He can, and will, be King upon the death of Queen Elizabeth. Or if Queen Elizabeth abdicates the throne then Charles will become King. That's the simple answer, although there are many opinions on why Charles should not inherit the throne.

More information

Charles will not become the King of England - this title has not existed since 1707.

If he becomes King it he will be King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Charles will NOT become king, although the throne will passed to one of his sons.

The Queen - Elizabeth Windsor - has a personal fortune of around £1.9 billion. This fluctuates up and down with each year that passes. She personally owns Balmoral castle and Sandringham palace - neither the state nor the 'Crown' owns them.

The Crown owns other palaces such as Buckingham and St James'. However these are reserved for the exclusive use of the queen and her family, and so in effect are her private property for the duration of her life or until she abdicates. She is not allowed to sell them, however (Boo hoo).

The Crown owns a vast area of the UK called the Duchy of Lancaster. This generates an income of about £20 million a year which is the private property of Queen Elizabeth Windsor to do with as she wishes (so long as she remains the Sovereign). If this country were a republic, this income would belong to the state.

Similarly, her son Prince Charles personally owns the £16.5 million income from the Duchy of Cornwall. In a republic this income would also belong to the state.

The Queen also personally owns a wide range of investments and other assets which generate a further income of millions of pounds a year.

The Queen is paid £7.9 million a year by the state to do her job. A lot of this money is spent on paying her staff's wages at her various palaces and offices. £350,000 of this is paid to her husband as an annual salary for doing his essential work of walking around, shaking hands, and making racist jokes. The rest she spends on herself and her daily or official activities in one way or another, or on food and other such expenses.

Under new arrangements brought in by the Tories the above payment will be proportionately linked to the profits of the Crown Estate, rather than capped at a certain sum. Profits from the Estate are predicted to double or triple in future years due to investments in offshore wind power (The entire seabed around the UK belongs to the Crown Estate). Thus the queen's payments will similarly increase.

The state also gives the queen about £30 million a year (through two 'gifts in aid') to pay for the maintenance of her palaces and to cover her travel expenses, just to make sure that she doesn't have to dip into her own pockets for such things.

Furthermore the state spends an estimated £100 million a year on policing and security for the Queen and the royal family.

On top of all these payments, the state also pays for the expenses of Prince Charles, Prince Andrew and other royals in their various official capacities. Prince Andrew also holds a separate position as a trade envoy for the UK. In 2011 he spent £620,000 of taxpayer's money in this capacity.

Princes William (28) and Harry (26) already have personal fortunes of £43 million each. They will in future inherit the incomes of the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, etc.

Adding all of the above payments together, one reaches a sum of approximately £176 million per year (comprised of money both spent by the state, and of lost income that would otherwise belong to the state), dedicated to maintaining the Queen and her immediate family.

Taken as a whole, the resources spent on maintaining the monarchy in its current form totally eclipse the sums spent on the presidents and ceremonial heads of state of republican nations. France, Italy, and the USA have greater incomes generated by tourism than the UK, despite having no ruling monarchs. The argument for the monarchy in this respect is therefore demonstrably invalid.

Verdict: the UK monarchy is a rip off, and should either be thoroughly reformulated or else done away with altogether.

The above answer is very misleading and misinformed as well.

20 million and 16.5 million from Lancaster and Cornwall is peanuts. If that money were put into the treasury it would be like a drop in the ocean. Personally, I'd prefer to keep the Royal Family for this kind of money, rather than see it disappear by putting it back into the treasury. Where your argument is flawed is that there are thousands of people directly employed by the Crown, who earn a salary and pay tax on that. There are also thousands of people not directly employed by the Crown, but whose livelihoods depend on the Crown. People may think the Royal Family is anachronistic, but would you really rather sweep away thousands of years of history and replace them with some historical footnote like Obama, Sarcozy or Berlusconi? Puh-leeez !! For less than a penny a day per person, I'd rather keep the Royal Family thank you very much. Having travelled around the world extensively, i find that different people know so much about the Queen. Much more than they know about say, the presidents of Canada or Australia..........do YOU know who they are without using Google? Thought not ! The argument about how many tourists come to England BECAUSE of the Royal Family is flawed, though difficult to prove either way without asking each and every tourist. Current figures show that the newly created Chinese middle class are flocking to England. Exactly how many are coming for the pomp of the changing of the guards, a Harrods carrier bag or a discounted Burberry coat is almost impossible to assess.

Queen Elizabeth I's mother was Anne Boleyn, the second of King Henry VIII's six wives. Henry had killed Anne Boleyn because they were expecting a boy and was mad when he heard it was not a boy and Anne Boleyn was beheaded. After the birth of Elizabeth and the miscarriage of a son, King Henry tired of Anne and began spending his time with other women. In 1536 Elizabeth's mother was beheaded on charges of adultery; thought to have been by fabricated by Henry to make way for a third wife.

After Anne Boleyn's death, Queen Elizabeth I had four stepmothers - Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr.
The mother of Elizabeth I was Anne Boleyn, the 2nd wife of Henry VIII.

this answer was made by a really imature person let me change it I would ask Queen Elizabeth what color her poop was

I would ask her how big her boobs are n can i suck them all day n all niqht

it is shocking i fought she would have owned more house's ,

i found out at school cause we are learning about it and other

children were shocked to how ever she owned four house's.

Emmie Crossland , Year 5 , Our Lady's RC Primary school ,horook close

It's because the English came and took over Australia along with the Aboriginals and by that I mean the Aboriginals were kicked off the land and most of them were killed because they refused. Also Australia was colonized by the English. There for we are part of the UK and have adopted a similar form of government and choose to remain part of the UK.

The English hardly "took over" Australia - they had no idea how large it was. They did establish colonies in Australia. You offer no evidence that Aboriginals were "kicked off the land" (Into the ocean?) and that most of them were killed because they refused, and this isn't relevant to the question anyway.

The previous answer makes sense beginning with Also, except

Australia is part of the Commonwealth, not exactly part of the UK.