When Prince Philip was just a kid, he ended up coming to the UK to be looked after by Lord Mountbatten, in between being shuffled around to various other relatives. He was called the “pauper prince” because he had to rely on the kindness and financial backing of his extended family. I would imagine that Lord Mountbatten left him money, and maybe Philip received inheritances from other relatives over the years. But I have no idea how Philip apparently accumulated a personal estate worth £30 million? Seriously, how? After his naval career, he never drew a salary. He didn’t have a personal art collection or anything like that? Anyway, the Mail says that his will splits up his personal fortune among his widow, kids, grandkids and loyal aides.
Prince Philip left financial gifts to three senior aides in his estimated £30million will before his death aged 99 six weeks ago, a royal source claimed today. The Duke of Edinburgh is thought to have rewarded his private secretary Brigadier Archie Miller-Bakewell and pages William Henderson and Stephen Niedojadlo. The trio were among a group of six aides who walked behind senior Royal Family members and Philip’s coffin for his funeral procession at Windsor Castle on April 17. But none of the men could attend the service itself inside St George’s Chapel because national Covid-19 restrictions limited the number of mourners to 30.
Most of Philip’s estate is thought to have gone to the Queen – while money to his grandchildren would have been ‘sorted out quite a while ago’, it was reported. It means Prince Harry could be set to receive some cash despite launching a series of fierce attacks on the Royal Family in his ‘truth bomb’ interviews in recent months.
A source close to Buckingham Palace told the Sun: ‘Unlike some other royals, Prince Philip will be generous to the three men who looked after him. These include his private secretary Brigadier Archie Miller Bakewell, his page William Henderson and Stephen Niedojadlo.’
They added: ‘Philip was not the sort of character to punish a grandson [Harry] for misbehaving. He was a very fair, even-handed and lovely man. Never held a grudge.’
The source also said that Philip’s children – Charles, Anne, Edward and Andrew – were told they can ‘take what they want’ from his library of 13,000 books at the palace.
Brigadier Miller-Bakewell headed a small team of loyal staff that followed Philip’s coffin last month, in recognition of his years of devotion.
The fact that Philip would leave money to his personal aides isn’t surprising – that’s what many wealthy people do, it’s that noblesse oblige thing of wanting to “reward” peasants for decades of service. I have no idea why the Mail is making such a big deal about that, especially given that we have no idea how Philip accrued roughly $42 million over his lifetime! As for the idea that he would leave some money to his grandkids… the way they make it sound, it’s like he possibly set up trusts for his grandkids when they were born. That’s just my assumption, I have nothing to back that up. But “sorted out quite a while ago” makes me think that he set up those trusts years ago. And that he probably didn’t leave much to his great-grandkids. Now I want to know who gets all of those UFO books.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
How indeed did he accumulate 30 million? Man it pays to be a royal.
That is the £30 million pound question.
Especially since royals apparently aren’t allowed to commercialize and do business with their titles remember?
Another senior royal trading on his title to make money?
Also, why leave millions to one of the richest women on earth?
It was probably her Maj’s money to begin with. She must have gifted him some spending money along the way, so it makes sense to bequeath it back to her.
Maybe he got a sizeable inheritance in the millions, he was 99 years old, that’s a lot of time to accumulate wealth through interest and investments. You don’t get to 30mil on salary alone.
Investments. It was pretty easy to make money during his lifetime, as a person of his status, if he had any kind of decent financial advisor.
ETA: plus he had so many of his expenses paid for (by the public, through the Queen etc). So what else did he have to do w/ his personal funds except invest? Compound interest adds up quickly in a well diversified portfolio.
Agreed. It’s hard to imagine now, but, for example, something as simple as CDs (US) were paying sky high rates in the 1980’s (when Philip was in his 60s). A relative, who knew nothing much else about investing, got a 10 year CD at 10% during this time. That wasn’t uncommon and Bankrate shows rates didn’t dip below 7% for most of the decade. You could still get CDs at 5% for much of the 90’s.
Then there was the tech boom, and all the IPOs. Remember Jean Stapleton’s line to Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail (1998)? If you need money, ask me, “I’m very rich. I bought Intel at 6.” And someone in Philip’s position would likely get preferential opportunities. As you say, what other expenses did he have that weren’t being covered by the public purse via TQ?
Queen and probably Queen-adjacent entities didn’t pay tax on investments for decades, only started paying tax (or so they say, things are hidden for the royals which are public record for everbody else) quite recently. They’ve also made extensive use of tax havens.
Nobody reall knows if the RF pays taxes as nobody knows how much they own or earn. The Queen still has secret bank accounts which British taxpayer office isn’t allowed to look into. It is time to end that.
I know this shouldn’t bother me but in recent years how exactly has Harry ‘misbehaved’??? Do tell.
Now, his behaviour when he was younger is a whole other matter although I have every confidence that Phillip and the rest heartily approved of that for all sorts of reasons.
He married a black woman. In their books, there is no greater sin. I’m sure Harry will tell them to keep the change.
Absolutely, they should donate his inheritance to a racial justice organization in Phil’s honor and wait for the explosion
@Liz version 700, that would be amazing. Like all those folks donating to Planned Parenthood on Mike Pence’s behalf.
She isn’t just black, but also an American AND and actress, quelle horreur!
Liz Version – you want Phillip to turn in his grave? A brilliant idea though, I would love to see Phillip’s money going to some Black charity group. Let’s wait until Lilibet passes though. Otherwise she might cut Harry out of her will.
Hmmm I wonder if any of the RR will dig around to find out how Philip enriched himself to this degree??
Queen Jersey tax haven doesn’t need any more money.
Yeah, I agree he probably set up trusts for them ages ago. Make you wonder how much the initial value has increased with interests and investments over the past 30+ years. Each of them could be getting a pretty tidy sum.
Which makes me wonder, would it be enough for the grandchildren that want to break free from The Firm to do so. Like Eugenie and Beatrice. They might be able to buy their own damn houses and not try to live off of an allowance from Charles (who’s dying to cut them off) or Bulliam in the future who would probably be even more brutal.
The thought of Baldilocks holding the purse strings must have been one of the motivators for the Sussexes to flee that family.
It’s kinda pointless to leave something for your widow who happens to be the queen and doesn’t need it.
QEII does not pay inheritance tax on anything she received from her husband or another monarch (ie..her mother)
HRH Tax Shelter
Dontcha know? Blue blood just creates wealth from thin air
There must be so much $$$$ for access that they were never caught out on.
Also lots of little perks like pocketing the estates of anybody who dies intestate in Duchy of Cornwall (Charles) and Duchy of Lancaster (Her Maj).
I don’t believe for a moment that there aren’t kickbacks on the Royal Warrant system either.
Why would he leave any cash to Petty Betty? She’s way richer than he was. She doesn’t need more money. He could have left more money to the grandkids or charities.
I wonder how much Penny got.
The million dollar question!
That’s what I wanna know!
whatever he gave to Penny ,i am guessing he gave it to her while he was alive. doubt he will write Penny in his Will. Penny was his companion,mind you the only female companion he spend most of his free time and retired time with . he was with her for years after he retired. which not many knew,well i never read it before,till after Phillips death.
If Prince Harry is “misbehaving” by talking about his upbringing, what was Charles when he said essentially the exact same things about his parents, the Queen and Prince Phillip?
“As reported at the time by the Independent, Charles “blames his father for sending him to Gordonstoun, the Scottish public school, where he was beaten up, bullied and abused, and he accuses Prince Philip of forcing him into marriage with a woman he scarcely knew and never loved.””
https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/1436242/prince-charles-news-distant-parents-prince-harry-queen-prince-philip-royal-family-spt
How quickly they forget.
Before they made civil list reforms in the 1970s (I believe), Philip was able to take the surplus of his civil list money and invest it. It was only after the reforms that all the money had to spent on running his office (paying staff, etc.)
Ah, that clears up a lot. So up until that point it in the 70s would have at least 20 years of surplus civil list money constantly being added to his investments. And then after that another 50 years of that money being invested. Even if he couldn’t afford to keep adding money like he did when he able to use the surplus, it would still add up.
So I’ve been googling this trust issue off and on for the past few weeks (not obsessively, lol, just once in a while when it comes up) and if he set the trusts for the grandkids up early enough, they wouldnt be taxed when he died. i think its 7 or 10 years? So my guess is IF he did leave anything to them, it was set up years ago.
It’s been rumored that the QM did that for all her grandkids, including Harry, but a spokesperson for Harry said in March that he did not receive an inheritance from her, so either she left him out for some reason or she just never set up those trusts and did leave everything to her daughter.
I was also reading somewhere that Philip did receive a salary as a working member of the royal family (I don’t know, their finances confuse me, lol) and he obviously would never have needed to have spent that. But even so, 30 million is a lot to have accumulated without having family wealth of your own and without having an officially high paying job.
Princess Margaret had something like seven or 10 million pounds at the time of her death (not including the property on Mustique) but I think she’s the only royal whose will has been made public in the past century.
Its curious that these royals manage to make so much money of their own without doing “business” so to speak. As for the inheritance of the queen, wouldn’t she need to die first for her grandchildren to receive that money?
They are referring to the Queen Mother.
Sorry, I said “grandkids” but meant great – referring to the Queen Mother who passed in 2002. At the time, and even since then, it has been widely assumed that she established trusts for all her great-grandkids in the early 90s, and if she set them up early enough before she died they wouldn’t be taxed (so had she died in 1995, they would have been taxed.) But this is all what is “reported” and “thought” when you actually read the stories about it, never confirmed. So after the Oprah interview people were saying “Well Harry had money from the QM” and his spokesperson apparently came out and confirmed he did not receive money from her.
Yeah, that was my first suspicion: that he still was paid to be a royal or to be on some board of directors somewhere, and he just socked all that money away since he never needed to spend a penny. He lived a long life, so I’m sure it’s quite a chunk of money, and at some point, it probably also started accruing sizable interest. Even as an average person, if I could put away all my modest earnings for a few years without having to pay for mortgage, bills, insurances, and everything else that life throws at you, my God, it would make such a difference to my quality of life – I could safe for my kids’ college, probably save enough to pay for a house with cash, etc.
@Larisa, Right, it is easier to accumulate wealth when there are all sorts of different sources paying for your expenses. I know there’s been questions about exactly what their deal with Land Rover is. The Royal Family driving LR’s does generate a lot of publicity and they probably don’t have to pay for repairs like regular people do. Zara might be the only who is known to receive compensation for the deal she has/had with them.
I think he got something like $500,000 a year, but that would be most recently and I don’t know if it stopped when he retired. There were a lot of joint investments with Elizabeth that would have generated income, and income from various estates here and there. It’s really not a crazy amount of money considering how long he lived.
This is from March 2018 and your number of$500k is about right.
https://money.com/royal-family-net-worth/
I did not know about a Duchy of Lancaster.
Becks1, it could be the inheritance from the Queen Mum had an age limit on it. Meaning he may not have inherited it yet. The inheritance from Diana was broken in to two allotments, one at 30 (previously 25) and one at 40.
Someone with ties to the Nazi party has mysterious wealth? We need answers.
I’m not sure about this story. It’s long been reported that Harry got money from the queen mother only for that story to be debunked in Forbes a few months ago. It does beg the question how did Philip manage to accrue so much money if he came into the family with none.
“Never held a grudge”? The same dude that famously refused to be in the same room as Fergie for decades? 😂😂😂😂😂
30 millions pound?!!! I thought Phillip was super poor when he married the queen!!
When Harry and Meghan first stepped back from the royal family, people kept going on about HoW wIlL tHeY pAy FoR sTuFf??
This. Rich, royal people just have money. Generations of money. Centuries of money. Where does it come from? Who knows. How is it earned? Who can say. Dead rich people give their millions in property, investments, art, jewels, and cash to their children and grandchildren and the cycle continues.
We know a lot of how it was “earned” by the English — by invading, conquering, and looting throughout Africa, Asia, and Australia.
Exactly, the Royals don’t earn money, they steal it
I have my suspicions here. Seems a bit fast to already know the size of his Estate and as far as we know he didn’t own any property.
Oh, it’s the Daily Fail reporting
Yeah, they say ‘estimated’ 30 mill. Who estimated? The Fail?
Any estate he might have would include person items potentially worth a fair amount. I’m not sure how much cash he would actually have, even with a ‘salary’ as a working royal and no need to actually spend anything to support himself. And if he did leave anything to TQ, it likely wouldn’t be cash (I mean, why?) but personal items.
So who are these “like some other Royals”. Who dont look after their inner circle when they died? Who was miserly, QM?
So happy that the queen got the money. I was afraid she didn’t have enough to retire. (Jk, obviously)
The royals don’t need to earn much if they have an interest earning portfolio. If Philip put $1,000,000 into a retirement account 40 years ago, and put a minimal $10,000 per year into it, even at a low interest rate he would have approx. $30,000,000.
Compound interest is magical.
Exactly. He probably never spent a penny of his “salary” and saved it all.
Yup! That is part of the reason that those with access to wealth get richer. If he inherited any money from his wealthier relations and invested it- boom, there you go.
30 million is a pretty sum. For a man who was practically broke when he married his wife, it is surprising.
But then again, he was a working royal for 70 years so he probably did get a cheque here and there (either under or over the table) for some things and invested it.
But unless an actual will is seen we have no idea how much he’s worth.
It’s interesting that Harry is scapegoated as the “disgrace” yet nothing about Andrew and his friendship with Epstein and Maxwell. Apparently no grudges against Andrew.
Philip when young was supported and sent to school by the Mountbattens (Louis and his brother George (Milford Haven). I wonder if he got some sort of bequest by them in addition.
Would not surprise if the queen mother left money to Elizabeth, Charles and William. The three people who needs it the least.
Phillip had 60+ years to invest in real estate and stocks. Real estate in London and surrounding area alone has gone up substantially. If he purchased Apple stock at the initial offering ….
I WANT ALL THOSE UFO BOOKS!!!!
13,000 books. Ohmygod I would be content with that. An endless supply of coffee, all of the cats and a comfy chair and blanket and GO AWAY I’m honoring grandpa.
“He was a very fair, even-handed and lovely man. Never held a grudge.” – I think Fergie might disagree? 😀
Exactly. He was supposedly vile to her. Thing is, Fergie hung in there. Not just for her daughters’ sake, but for the fame by association. This is a woman with a constant eye on the next financial bail out, hence her happy acceptance of Epstein’s cash.
Well I hope Harry does get a nice chunk of change. Hazard pay for all the mental abuse particularly if that old witch the Queen Mother didn’t leave him anything. Better Harry and is little family benefit than Fat Andy the paedo.
Er, Daily Mail, are you absolutely certain that you want to draw people’s attention to the royal family’s vast accumulated wealth? Like, really really sure that’s worth the little dig at Harry?
Even if Harry inherits he needs to make sure the money’s clean.
I bet his loyal aides in reality got very little. The Queen gives her staff a book token or pot plant for Christmas.
It’s funny. I always assume Philip received gifts of money/investments from the Queen over 70 years of marriage. He was a proud man, managed the family and all of her estates. She gifted him the Prince title years after their marriage as an acknowledgment of his standing, why not also share her personal wealth? Not difficult with good advice, as others have said, to turn those gifts into sizeable investments. Of course I have no idea.
A couple things to consider regarding Philip’s fortune: Philip was notorious for flying under the radar. In his younger years, he’d fly over to Denmark, spend the day over there and be back in England by supper and no one would be the wiser about how he spent his day. Did he conduct business clandestinely in Denmark or other parts of Europe?
That said, I think people forget he was at one point the most eligible bachelor in all of Europe. Even though he was poor for a royal, I think Philip went into the marriage with an estimate of £1 million. If one is conservative with their assets, and allowed interest and stock to build over time, £42 million sounds about right. Where did he have £1 million to begin with? I think his pedo “Uncle” Dickie hid assets with him from India.
i think most of the royals invest/do business under another name. i remember sarah saying how much money she wants for someone to meet Andrew. i think a lot of these things happens, if business people or any rich person wants to brag they met a certain royal ,it can be done. they have to pay money . but some also make a huge donation to one of their charities,don’t know how they do it, but in some way that money gets back to the royal who ask for the donation. think that’s how Prince Micheal of kent made money , he met a lot of business people that paid to meet him at these dinners and such. wonder what he charged for a handshake and a pic. .i think Andrew is still making money , its just he is the secret partner. all his meetings is happening by zoom calls. so no one sees him getting on a plane to anywhere , he is working from home. guess cause of the Pandemic,no invitations or dinners is happening .so that side of business is not active for the time being.
So basically everyone will receive at least $1 million and we’re still going to hear about how they can’t afford this or that. That includes Harry.
In other words the bulk of the estate is in a trust except for Prince Philip’s ex-employees. There is no way to access that information so the Fail wrote an article and put Prince Harry’s name in the title to get clicks.
Harry needs to take that money and put more bathrooms in his house. Invite Architectural Digest in and show how he named each of his toilets….piers….tominey….the bidet is named lady colin….