When King Charles III inherited the throne from Queen Elizabeth II back in 2022, he quite famously received the right to claim ownership of any unmarked mute swans found in open water on public land. It turns out, however, that’s far from the only curiously animal-related part of his inheritance – sea creatures make an appearance too.
To find out what we’re on about, jump in our handy time machine and travel back with us to 14th-century England – specifically, the year 1322, during the reign of King Edward II. While this time is primarily marked by conflict amongst the English nobles (not unusual), it also gives rise to a (very unusual) law that still stands to this day.
According to English Heritage, the statute, known as Prerogativa Regis, reads: “The King shall have throughout the Realm, Whales and great Sturgeons taken in the Sea or elsewhere within the Realm.”
At the time, whales and sturgeons made quite the valuable catch, and well, the King couldn’t have just anyone getting hold of one.
As such, any catches of so-called “Royal Fish” had to be offered up to the King – the punishment for not doing so is unknown, but given this is Medieval England we’re talking about, we can’t imagine it was particularly pleasant.
The law still stands today, with Royal Fish taken to be all whales, porpoises, dolphins, and sturgeons found in the United Kingdom’s waters. So yes, technically King Charles III does have the right to claim ownership of any of those creatures. That being said, although King Charles III technically holds a historical claim to these marine animals, in reality, they are protected by conservation laws and are not regarded as the personal property of the monarch.
Furthermore, it doesn’t seem to be a statute that’s likely to be taken particularly seriously by today’s royals (though attempts to repeal it have been unsuccessful), if an incident back in 2004, when Queen Elizabeth II was on the throne, is anything to go by.
As reported at the time by BBC News, a fisher who caught a sturgeon off the coast of Wales ended up being investigated by the police, after it transpired that the fish was sold at an auction for £650 ($853) – despite being protected under UK law.
That was the true issue at hand in this case – the Crown didn’t seem too fussed about the other, medieval law that had been broken. “A fax was sent to Buckingham Palace and fairly quickly a return fax came saying the fisherman was free to dispose of it as he wished,” said a spokeswoman for Swansea Coastguard.
