Chapter 12 The Queen’s Interview

Ahead of the "Golden Jubilee Celebrations", Barron was summoned by Her Majesty the Queen.

This is not the first time Barron has come to Buckingham Palace. To be precise, in his memory, he accompanied his father several times during some royal celebrations. However, he was personally received by the Queen. This is definitely It's the first time.

In other words, if Barron was not the only heir left in the Devonshire Duke family, it would be difficult for him to be summoned by Her Majesty the Queen before he was officially awarded the title of Duke.

Although he had already expected it, when the reality was faced by Barron, he still couldn't help but sigh.

The fact is that the queen did not summon him for long, she just showed up and chatted for a few words.

The content of the chat, on the one hand, was to express regret for the recent events that happened to the Duke of Devonshire family. The Queen said that she had originally planned to attend their family's funeral in person, but she was really busy, so she sent the Prince of Wales. Your Majesty, the crown prince, is going.

In Barron's view, the reason for this may be that it is the Golden Jubilee celebration of the Queen's 50th year on the throne, so not only herself, but also people around her certainly do not support the Queen attending such a funeral - more What's more, although the Queen looks energetic, she is already 76 years old after all...

She specifically mentioned the old lady of the Duke of Devonshire family——

"I heard her name when I was younger and later talked to her at several gatherings. It's really sad to hear about her passing after so many years."

In addition, the Queen also stated that she will personally award Barron the title of Duke during the ceremony.

As for the rest, there is none.

The implication of this is obvious, that is, she also knows the situation of the Duke of Devonshire family at this time. If the family can survive this crisis, they will deserve nothing less.

But if Barron's can't survive this crisis, there's probably nothing they can do to help.

Barron did not have too many illusions about this. After all, it was obvious that since World War II, the most obvious point of successive British governments was that they continued to restrict and restrict the nobility. Even in the new century, they have This weakening began to be directed at the royal family.

Under such circumstances, in order to maintain the relationship with the government, the royal family could not support the nobles too obviously.

And having said that, after World War I and World War II, and until now, countless British noble families have been submerged in the long river of history. In view of this situation, the royal family is not willing to get involved.

After all, if I helped you this time, will other noble families help you next time? Although there are only more than twenty non-royal duke families, there are so many others including marquis, earls, viscounts, etc. If we really intervene this time, I am afraid there will be no peaceful life in the future.

Therefore, I felt sorry for the Duke of Devonshire family, but they still stood on the sidelines.

…

This time the Queen's reception is just a process before the "Golden Jubilee Celebration" officially starts tomorrow. In addition to Barron representing the Duke of Devonshire family, there are many other nobles, celebrities and dignitaries who have also been received by the Queen. .

It is better to seek help from others than to ask for yourself. Barron had already realized this, so after returning to the apartment, he immediately began to study the next bet.

He did not place a bet on today's game. After all, the World Cup will last for a month, and it is impossible for him to place a bet on every game. In that case, it would be too obvious and high-profile.

And it's not that he can still remember the results of all the games. The ones that left a deep impression on him only accounted for about one-fifth of them.

However, he still has some impressions of tomorrow's game, because there are Argentina and England in those games.

The Asahi World Cup is one of the few World Cups in which Argentina did not appear in the group stage. Group F they are in has four teams: Nigeria, England, Sweden and Argentina.

Nigeria, the African Eagle, is a traditional strong team in Africa; England is also a traditional strong team in Europe; the Swedish team is not weak, and coupled with the Campas Eagle and Argentina, this group can be said to be a dead group.

In the end, Argentina had one win, one draw and one loss, with four points, and was jointly eliminated by the other two teams, England and Sweden, which also had one win and two draws...

In tomorrow's game, Argentina will defeat Nigeria, and England will draw with Sweden. These two games, especially the latter one, can be bet...

…

Although the last meeting could be said to have ended on bad terms, after Barron was received by the Queen, Yulia visited him again.

After hearing from him the process of the Queen's reception of him today and asking for some details, Yulia sighed:

"Even if they can come out and say hello to those banks, that's how it is now. Everyone always has a duty to the nobles, so the royal family is very cautious in this regard."

"What's the attitude of those banks now?"

Hearing Barron's question, Yulia shrugged:

"Fortunately, we still have time. The fastest loan maturity is only two months from now. However, within this year, a total of more than 15 million pounds of loans will mature. If the losses cannot be solved well before, The problem, well, at least give the other party some confidence, I’m afraid even if you want to extend the loan, it won’t be that easy.”

"How much funding will we need in two months?"

"The loan of 2 million pounds from Barclays Bank is about to expire in two months. This money was part of our assets in London that were mortgaged at the time, so we either have to give up these assets, or we have to find a way, or sell some other assets. Assets are used to raise funds, but during this period, many real estate properties cannot be sold at high prices, and real estate in London has even fallen a lot in the past six months.”

It can be said that the Internet bubble crisis that broke out on a large scale last year had an impact on the global economy. After all, the American stock market was deeply affected. The Nasdaq index fell nearly 80% from its peak, and it is still continuing to this day. In the doldrums.

As the most important part of the world's finance, the crisis in the United States spread to the world and started the decline of the European economy.

"Of course, my lord, the first thing for you now is to find a way to pay the inheritance tax and complete the inheritance procedures for the family title and assets."

Before leaving, Yulia said:

"Also, London will be very lively during this period, but you still need to be extremely careful, especially at night, and don't appear in nightclubs or other carnival parties... Once you are spotted by those gossip tabloids, you will be If the report comes out, I'm afraid the negative impact will be very big..."

The joy of suffering is precisely because of the huge losses of the family trust fund, so for Barron, the inheritance tax required to inherit these assets has been reduced a lot...

Because of the tax-free nature of the trust fund, after calculation, the inheritance tax he needs to pay at this time is even less than 2 million pounds.

You must know that more than half a century ago, his grandfather faced inheritance taxes of up to 7 million pounds...

This can also be seen from one aspect the decline of the Duke of Devonshire family at this time.