Wills drawn up by a succession of minor royals including grandchildren of Queen Victoria have been kept secret. One of the more remote relatives was a member of the Danish royal family, Prince George Valdemar Carl Axel, who was born in Denmark and was a second cousin to Prince Philip. He lived in Britain and married a viscountess who was a distant relative of the royal family.
His will was sealed in London after his death in 1986. His estate was valued at £785,000 (£1.8m at today’s prices).
So he owned a 3 bed semi in Wimbledon, did he?
And if you look at the lists of who had how much they’re pretty standard to higher upper middle class amounts actually. Couple of grand aristocratic fortunes in there but those come from the aristocracy part of a marriage, not the royal. Yes, I know, a couple of million here, several there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money. But estates of the value of a couple of million to a few really just are not that unusual.
One of the really interesting things about the British royal family is actually how poor it has historically been when compared with the surrounding aristocracy. Or even the bankers and brewers.
Of the 33 they list I’ve got the handful not known, 23 had estates smaller than Polly Toynbee’s is going to be (that house in Clapham is worth a lot) and 5 or 6 are arguable as to whether larger or smaller than Polly’s.
Massive wealth, eh?
That’s only the estate for inheritance tax purposes. Presumably with careful estate planning, he was able to leave much larger sums to his heirs and avoid the tax.
One of the present families: I think it’s the Gloucesters, are as poor as church mice and rely on living in one of HM’s palaces when in London.
HMQ and PoW are rich in their own right – she’s a shrewd businesswoman and he has the income from the Duchy. But in many cases the supposed wealth of members of the extended royal family doesn’t really belong to them, they are just the custodians.
An awful lot of wealth is, of course, tied up in Trusts. The father of one of my clients (an actual Lord doncha know). Trust owns everything c50m and yes, dad and son are beneficiaries and get a lot of income from the Trust, but they pay tax on that in the usual way.
It’s something of a myth that Trusts are used to avoid tax. Income that the Trust receives is taxed on the Trust and every 10 years there’s the imaginatively named 10 year charge is actually an IHT charge. Broadly, on each 10 year anniversary the trust is taxed on the value of the trust less the nil rate band available to the trust. The rate they pay on this excess is 6%. The Trust has the same reliefs available such as Business Property Relief or Agricultural Property Relief that would be available to an individual so a Trust wouldn’t pay tax on something an individual wouldn’t be charged IHT on.
Trusts are mainly used to stop one generation from squandering the family’s wealth for the next generation. Particularly apt with my client as he can squandering like buggery.
Jesus if that how little royalty own, I’m not surprised they use tupperware!
I’ve never seen a diamond in the flesh.
There are quite a lot of the firm. . . Maybe Royal state aid should be capped at universal credit levels for non workers. Buckingham palace is really just a posh council estate.
“Generations of the Royal Family” is a reach. Many of them are royal grandchildren who married into other royal families.
The Duke’s of Fife’s fortune was not acquired from the Royal family, it was family money and probably includes some of the money that Princess Alexandra Victoria Alberta Edwina Louise, Princess Arthur of Connaught, Duchess of Fife (his daughter) left in her will.
The Danish Prince was married to the daughter of the Queen Mother’s brother. Therefore, whilst a relative of the Queen (a first cousin), she was not a member of the British Royal family and neither was her husband. They were members of the Danish Royal family.
“One of the really interesting things about the British royal family is actually how poor it has historically been when compared with the surrounding aristocracy.”
Deliberate Parliamentary policy. It spent decades, if not centuries, making sure the royals have no independent income. A rich king is a powerful king.
One reason the Yanks asking for tax-raising powers was so awkward was the fear that the king could play their legislatures off against Parliament to raise cash, potentially undoing everything that had been achieved since the Civil War. Losing the colonies was preferable to an independently wealthy monarch.
Sam, wasn’t it George III who handed over the family’s wealth in return for receiving the annual Civil List payment?
Anyhoo, that article appeared in the Guardian which normally reports the Royal Family as being rich beyond the dreams of avarice simply by attributing to them every asset owned by any arm of the British state.
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