If anyone was curious about the contents of Prince Philip‘s will, well, you are going to have to time travel 90 years ahead. That’s when the document is allowed to be unsealed after a thorough review, according to the President of the Family Division of the High Court, Sir Andrew McFarlane, who holds all of the deceased royal family’s secrets (even though he can’t even open them), including the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret.
“I have held that, because of the constitutional position of the Sovereign, it is appropriate to have a special practice in relation to royal wills,” McFarlane explained in his ruling on Thursday, per the BBC. “There is a need to enhance the protection afforded to truly private aspects of the lives of this limited group of individuals in order to maintain the dignity of the Sovereign and close members of her family.” For anyone thinking this is an unusual step, it’s not. In Britain, wills are typically public domain, but in the interest of protecting the royal family, the courts normally seal the palace wills to keep them away from prying eyes.
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McFarlane understands that there is a “public curiosity” about what Philip might have left his wife and the rest of the family, but he believes “there is no true public interest in the public knowing this wholly private information,” via AP News. After the Queen’s husband passed away in April at the age of 99, Celebrity Net Worth estimated his fortune to be somewhere around $30 million. Some of his fortune, was inherited from his parents, Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg and he also received an annual $500,000 royal allowance before he retired from his senior role. In addition, the Duke of Edinburgh “maintained access to funds earned by a private portfolio of properties, lands, and assets set up by the Duchy of Lancaster in 1399,” per Stylecaster.
So there is a lot of money at stake and we won’t ever know how it was divided up in our lifetime, but the royal family does deserve privacy in this matter. Of course, that doesn’t mean we still aren’t dying to find out those royal family secrets.
Before you go, click here to see the best photos of Prince Philip’s remarkable life.
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