R61 - I think you need to take a look at several other European monarchies, a couple of which are allegedly richer than the Windsors: the House of Orange (The Netherlands) which made its money off Royal Dutch Petroleum and then sold it, and whose jewellery dwarfs even that of QEII, and the Lichtensteins, who are allegedly the richest royals in Europe - richer than the Windsors and the Orange-Nassaus. The Danish royal family isn't too badly off, and we haven't even gotten to the House of Saud and the Gulf sultans . . .
What makes you think they operate any differently from the Windsors? How do the Windsors come out as the greatest welfare family on earth in company like that? The only reason their "lines of succession" don't bother you, is that you can't see them - but they're there, filled with minor and adjacent royals.
It's the way the thing works.
You seen to believe in your delirium spasm of hate that the Windsors invented this.
They didn't. They just happen to be the planet's most visible exemplar.
Japan's royal court forced the wife of the younger brother of Crown Prince Naruhito to have another baby, although said younger brother was perfectly happy with his two lovely daughters, because the Crown Princess had "only" given birth to a wretched girl, and didn't look like having a second.
So the younger brother's wife "agreed" and the made sure via in vitro that this time it was a male embryo, and presto! Crown Prince Naruhito's daughter was pushed aside, and his nephew is the heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne.
Because it takes balls to wave to crowds, take photo ops, and jaunt off to other royal weddings and coronations. No mere girl could handle THAT.
So, really, you need to get out more and realise that the Windsors are playing a very old game whose complexities of succession caused civil wars and a great deal of bloodshed.
The Tudors persecuted the remaining branches of the Yorks for another 200 years after Henry VII married Elizabeth of York, Edward IV's daughter, to heal the breach between the two families.
But the Tudors, who knew that the Yorks had the better claim, made sure none were left who could have another go at it.
Bullshit, you say?