There are a lot of rules and regulations that come with being a member of the royal family – like where to go, what to wear and even what to say – but there’s a surprising rule that Queen Elizabeth II maintained behind closed doors. According to reports, the royals are banned from playing the popular board game, Monopoly.
As cited in a 2008 article in The Telegraph, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, revealed all during a visit to Leeds Building Society. The royal was given the board game to celebrate his visit to the Albion Street headquarters, but on receiving it, he said: “We’re not allowed to play Monopoly at home. It gets too vicious.”
William’s love of board games
Prince William has disregarded the family rule, though, and has previously admitted that Monopoly is a firm favourite in the Wales household with his three children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis. In 2021, William was interviewed on the Royal Marsden London Hospital’s radio station, and the chat included a boy called Henry asking: “What is your favourite board game?”
“We’re playing board games with the children quite a lot,” the royal said. Adding: “We love Monopoly, that’s good, and Risk. Have you played Risk before? That’s a good game, goes on for hours and usually everyone gets very cross because they lose. But that’s what I like playing.”
Queen Elizabeth II’s other royal rules
According to former royal chef Darren McGrady, who wrote about his time working for the British royal family in his book, Eating Royally: Recipes and Remembrances from a Palace Kitchen, the late Queen requested that her beloved corgis be treated with the utmost respect.
Darren explained he was forbidden from pushing them away from the kitchen sides: “The dining room was right next to the kitchen, and we knew when the Queen was coming through for lunch because the door was always open and the dogs would be herded into the kitchen.”
© Getty“I could feel as many as twelve in the royal dining room and six in the staff room, all the while navigating around the dogs, which were jumping for tidbits,” the chef continued. “You couldn’t push the dogs away, for the Queen would hear them yelp in the next room and know what was going on.”
Another animal-related rule imposed by the late Queen was the ban on cats at Sandringham. The estate has many properties which can be rented out, but people are forbidden from bringing cats. It is believed to be to protect local wildlife like pheasants, but could also perhaps show Her Majesty’s preference for pooches over felines!
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