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The multibillion-dollar royal real estate portfolio is a tangled web of different residences, technically owned by differing entities. Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle<\/a>, the Palace of Holyroodhouse<\/a>, St. James\u2019s Palace, Kensington Palace<\/a>, and Clarence House<\/a> are owned by the king, in right of the crown. Others like Balmoral<\/a> and Sandringham are privately owned by the king, while some, like Adelaide Cottage<\/a> and Frogmore Cottage<\/a>, are owned by the Crown Estate. Overall, King Charles<\/a> is estimated to control around 100 grace-and-favor residences.<\/p>\n Kings and queens have always been charged with housing their family, courtiers, servants, and the odd illegitimate child. But the idea of \u201cgrace and favor\u201d residences, per Historia Magazine<\/a>,<\/em> seems to have cemented in the 1700s, when King George II abandoned the rundown Hampton Court Palace, 12 miles away from central London. Putting the massive palace to use, he gifted suites to lesser family members and those who had been of service to the crown.<\/p>\n \u201cMany of them were aristocratic widows in straitened circumstances, who were offered free accommodation in return for their husbands\u2019 services to the monarch,\u201d the website for Historic Royal Palaces notes<\/a>. \u201cThe various apartments, although extremely grand, were not always the most comfortable places to live. Residents regularly complained that the palace was \u2018perishingly cold\u2019 and damp, and some had no access to hot water.\u201d<\/p>\n Nicknamed a \u201cquality poorhouse<\/a>,\u201d the Victorian-era Hampton Court Palace boasted roughly<\/a> 100 residents, and double the amount of servants, with a reported waitlist of up to 20 years, per Historia Magazine.<\/em> The apartments were awkwardly laid<\/a> out and accessed by several flights of treacherous staircases. Dignified matrons could be seen heaving heavy luggage up with a rope and pulley<\/a>. Housekeeping was provided, and there were small plots allotted to garden clubs<\/a> and lawn tennis and croquet clubs, and afternoon teas.<\/p>\n The residents included everyone from minor royals to military widows. They included suffragette princesses Bamba, Sophia, and Catherine, the daughters of the deposed Maharaja Duleep Singh; Lady Emily, widow of explorer Ernest Shackleton; and Olave, Lady Baden-Powell, leader of the Girl Guides and widow of the founder of the Boy Scouts.<\/p>\n Important royal family members would never have to live in the down-market Hampton Court Palace (the last leases were issued in the 1960s). But what to do with so many relations became a headache for many monarchs. And mistakes often happened. At one point, Amelie, favored mistress of George II, was given a \u201cdamp\u201d and \u201cunwholesome\u201d apartment in a nearly deserted Kensington Palace.<\/p>\n