If you are a member of the royal family who did not have a title, would "your" family become middle-class

Question

For example, Peter and Zara Phillips. They have to work for a living and do not do any official work for the Queen to get paid for. Will their families, say, in two or three generations eventually become "working-class" or will the monarchy always sustain those family members?

Answer 1

They will probably remain upper class, you don't have to have a title to be upper class, just to belong to the right sort of family.

Answer 2

One needn't have a tltle to be upper class. The status of Princess Anne's descendants will depend on what they do with their lives, including how wisely they handle their money and whom they marry.

Answer 3

Rich people don't have to have titles. Untitled members of the royal family generally get the better-paying jobs.Businesses like having untitled and titled members of the royal family on their boards because it's prestigious.David Linley doesn't have the HRH designation but he has managed to found and run a successful business of his own.Lady Helen Taylor helps her husband run his art gallery and has a job as consultant with the fashion house of Armani.

It's entirely up to the particular member on what the future may bring;but bear in mind,these scion of the royals may also come into inherited money as well. When Anne dies,her children will inherit her estate.

Answer 4

no doubt they will become simple workers,

Answer 5

Every few months someone asks a similar question about royal descent.  Because of property taxes,  inherited wealth isn't what it use to be.  Nevertheless, although the slide towards the working class probably won't be that fast, without a title, within two generations, being a great, great granddaughter or grandson of Queen Elizabeth probably won't get them a cup of coffee.

According to an oft-published article in "The Washington Post" linking actress Brooke Shields to all manner of personages, a noted genealogist suggests that "millions of people have provable descent from medieval monarchs .  . . The number of people with unprovable descent must be massive."  The Post then goes on to list some of the documented descendants of Edward III, a medieval English king who fathered nine children who survived to adulthood:  George W. Bush, George Herbert Walker Bush, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Zachary Taylor, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jane Austen, George Gordan, Lord Byron, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert E. Lee, Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, and Brooke Shields--as well as most probably 80 percent of England's current population.

Answer 6

This is the problem with terminology. By definition, members of royal families are royalty and royalty has titles. Therefore, Peter and Zara are not formally royal although they are a member of the Queen's family.

In two or three generations yes, their family will probably be working class unless their children marry into the peerage or into royalty. However, as long as there is royalty in their near ancestry they will always have a certain element of social prestige.

I wonder who is down voting this ;-)