£187m of Windsor family wealth hidden in secret royal wills

theguardian.com:

Generations of the royal family have concealed details of assets worth more than £180m through a series of legal applications that have been granted in total secrecy.

The assets are outlined in 33 wills that were drawn up by members of the Windsor family over more than a century.

The family have been able to keep secret the contents of the wills by securing a special carve-out from a law that normally requires British wills to be published.

The sealing of the wills has enabled the Windsors to avoid the public seeing what kinds of assets – such as property, jewels and cash – have been accumulated by members of the royal family and how these were then distributed to, for example, relatives, friends or staff.

However, the Guardian has been able to calculate the overall size of the wealth passed down by many members of the family, as the value of their estates has been published in public registers and declassified government files.

This shows that the Windsor family, whose wealth is opaque, have been able to keep secret wills that contain assets totalling – at today’s figures – £187m. Because the contents remain secret, some assets may have appeared in multiple wills and been counted more than once.

At the top of the league is the Duke of Fife, who married Princess Louise, a daughter of King Edward VII. When the duke died in 1912, he left behind a fortune that is worth the equivalent today of £79m.

Nine other wills contain assets worth between £5m and £11.7m if translated into today’s figures. They include Princess Margaret, the Queen’s sister, who left £7.7m (£11.5m at today’s prices) when she died in 2002.

Wills drawn up by a succession of minor royals including grandchildren of Queen Victoria have been kept secret. One of the