Royal Legacy: How the royal family have made, spent and passed on their wealth

by McClure, David

  The rest of the will concerns another testamentary vehicle commonly employed by both royalty and the rich - the trust. In clause four, Helena Victoria instructs that all her remaining property be sold and the proceeds placed under the control of the two named trustees. Once the funeral expenses and debts had been paid, all the trust income was to be divided equally between Alexander Arthur Ramsay and Prince Michael of Kent.

  As a commoner, Ramsay might be regarded a strange choice. He was the only son of Lady Patricia Ramsay who was Helena Victoria's cousin and whose loss of a royal title mirrored that of the two sisters. She was born Princess Patricia of Connaught, the daughter of Prince Arthur, the Duke of Connaught and Strathearn and the third son of Queen Victoria. Her mother was Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia. With such a royal pedigree and statuesque good looks, everyone expected her to marry into one of the great European families. Her name was linked to Grand Duke Michael of Russia as well as to the future kings of Spain and Portugal. To the horror of crustier courtiers in the House of Windsor, she chose a commoner, Alexander Ramsay, a naval commander and one of her father's aides-de-camp. This was – as The Times diplomatically put it - a complete break with tradition. She had to get special permission to wed from King George V and before the ceremony it was announced that she had relinquished the title of royal highness and taken up the style of Lady Patricia. So, like Helena Victoria, she became technically a non-royal but also like her cousin, she was in de facto terms treated like a member of the royal family being invited to attend all the set-piece royal events like weddings and coronations.

  As patron of one of London's leading interwar salons, Helena Victoria would have been naturally drawn to Lady Patricia for artistic reasons. “Patsy" was an honorary member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours on account of being a gifted semi-professional artist who painted in the advanced style of Gaugin and Van Gogh and who Marie Louise described in her memoirs with a whiff of disapproval as altogether very modern. As patron of various nursing and wartime charities, Helena Victoria would also have taken an interest in the military career of her cousin's only son. After being commissioned into the Grenadier Guards, he fought in the North African campaign during World War Two and was severely injured in a tank assault in Tunisia, losing his right leg. The injury occurred in 1943 at around the time when Helena Victoria was drawing up her will. So, the most likely explanation why she left half of her "royal" wealth to a commoner is that as a naturally caring person with a professional track record of looking after the casualties of war, she would have wanted to help a war casualty in need.

  So, why did she leave the other half of her residuary estate to a full-blooded royal? HRH Prince Michael George Charles Franklin was the second son of her cousin Prince George, the Duke of Kent, and Princess Marina. Michael was born on the Coppins family estate in Buckinghamshire on July 4, 1942 - six weeks before the air crash that killed his father and reduced his mother to selling the family silver.

  So, the selection by Helena Victoria in her will of Prince Michael as a beneficiary is not really that surprising. It follows the same logic as the choice of her other relative Alexander Ramsay. Both were casualties of the Second World War and both were in need of financial help. When Helena Victoria signed her will on 23 June 1943, baby Michael was less than a year old and his mother was preparing for the auction a few months later to help pay for his upbringing. As the younger son, he would not inherit the title of Duke of Kent (and with it the Coppins estate) and with no family fortune to buttress a royal lifestyle, he would be beset by financial tribulations until well into adulthood with his business ventures. In crude terms, he could do with the cash.

  * * *

  As for Princess Marie Louise, she led an altogether more demure life. After the death of her sister, she relinquished any claim to live at Schomberg House and the contents of their home were sold at auction. She took over many of the charitable duties of her sister becoming president of the Canning Town Docklands Settlement and vice president of the YMCA. Despite the absence of a royal title, she was treated like the grand dame of the royal family with the young princess Elizabeth often quizzing her for her memories of past sovereigns.9 In 1953 she was invited to Elizabeth's coronation - her fourth coronation in all - and photographers captured her almost regal wave from one of the horse-drawn carriages, an image reinforced later in the year in a more staged portrait by Cecil Beaton which shows in the old-fashioned Queen Mary-type pose her wearing a tiara, pearl necklace and fur stool. In 1956 she published her memoirs - "My Memories of Six Reigns" - which soon went into a second edition being lapped up by a public hungry after the coronation for more royal pomp and circumstance.

  Its final chapter entitled "The Royal Task" offers an insight into her true character - or at least how she wanted to be perceived in the public imagination - and perhaps also a clue as to why she might have resisted pressure to seal her sister's will. She regarded the royal family and its members not just as some form of figurehead but as servants of the public who through their work could contribute something definite to the nation.10 This explains why she and her sister devoted their lives to charitable work and also perhaps why when her sister died and left the bulk of her estate to two needy casualties of war she felt no compulsion to hide the fact.

  Not all executors of royal estates shared her sense of duty or desire for transparency. When she died in December 1956 she left behind an estate valued at £107,644 11s. It is believed that she bequeathed a pearl and honeycomb bracelet to Queen Elizabeth and a diamond brooch to the Queen Mother11 as well as a diamond tiara, a collection of ornate fans and a set of candlesticks to the Duke of Gloucester (who liked to send her fresh produce from his farm) but we do not know where the rest of her assets went as her will was sealed. All the official calendar at the Principal Registry records is that the executors were Coutts & co and Augustus Sindon, a retired bank official.

  Marie Louise's funeral was a relatively low key affair at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor with the congregation including not the cream of European royalty but three pearly queens and a pearly king from Finsbury who wanted to pay tribute to their patron. As a "princess of nothing," she did not merit a full state ceremony. There would be none of the pomp and pageantry that had been accorded the funeral of her more famous cousin, King George, four years earlier but perhaps at the end of the day that better suited her modest character.

  6.GEORGE AND MARY'S LEGACY - 1952-1953

  "We have lost the rock in our family"

  Anonymous member of the royal family on the death of Queen Mary

  The weather was as grim as the faces of the mourners thronging the London streets as the cortege carrying the coffin of George VI wound its way through the heavy rain from Westminster Hall to its final destination at Windsor Castle. As the procession crawled into the Mall, Queen Mary's stern profile appeared at the window of Marlborough House. She whispered a last farewell and clasped tightly the hand of her friend Mabell Airlie.1 The eighty-four-year-old queen watched the rest of the journey ending in her son’s internment at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle from the comfort of her home in front of the television set.

  Although she had not felt strong enough to go to the funeral on that wet afternoon of February 15 1952, she had earlier attended his lying-in-state as the coffin was placed on the catafalque in the centre of Westminster Hall. A dramatic photograph captured her heavily veiled face, next to those of her mother and daughter: three queens bound together by their grief in a black shroud. For the third time in her life, the mother of the nation had found herself in the unnatural position of having to bury a son - first John, then George and now "Bertie". Queen Mary never recovered from this last blow. Just as in early 2002 the Queen Mother would only outlive her daughter Princess Margaret by a few weeks, so in 1952 Mary only survived her son by a matter of thirteen months.

  Like her grandmother, Princess Margaret took the news badly. "He died as he was getting better" was reportedly her initial sho
cked response. She had been particularly close to her father - the apple of his eye - deeply loved and dreadfully spoiled. While Elizabeth was shy and young for her age, Margaret was extrovert and precocious. She liked to be centre stage with the family or "us four" as the king called them. A few days after his death she wrote to Queen Mary enclosing all of her and her father’s customary Christmas cards, presumably in an attempt to keep her in the bosom of the family, and for months after, all her letters were bordered in mourning black.2 Many believe that the loss of her father triggered the explosion of her affair with Peter Townsend, a man sixteen years her senior and a former equerry to the king.

  George VI’s early death was both a great shock and highly predictable. On February 5 he had gone out shooting rabbits on the Sandringham estate bagging a hare running at full pelt with his last shot of the day. After a relaxing evening with Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, he retired to bed at 10.30. When his valet entered the bedroom at 7.30 the next morning, he found the king dead. A blood clot had stopped his heart sometime during the night. He was just fifty-six.

  But for some time the king had, in Churchill’s words, “been walking with death." Having survived the strains of the Second World War - with the support of too many cigarettes - he was diagnosed in 1948 with arteriosclerosis and then in 1951 with lung cancer. In September of that year his left lung had to be removed following the discovery of a malignant tumour. After that, there was little more his doctors could do.

  After the car crash of the previous succession in 1936, wheels were set in motion for a less bumpy ride. It would be a smooth, Rolls Royce handover aided by an experienced driver in the shape of General Sir Frederick Browning, a decorated soldier in two world wars who acted as Princess Elizabeth’s personal advisor in much the same way as today Sir David Manning counsels Prince William on affairs of state. The young princess was allowed to see state papers and she began to take on some of the ceremonial duties of her ailing father. She rode in his place at Trooping the Colour, attended meetings of the Privy Council and welcomed visiting dignitaries. When in October 1951 she flew off on a state visit to Canada, it was significant that hidden under the seat of her private secretary, Martin Charteris, were the historic accession documents.3 This time, nothing was left to chance.

  As was the case with all recent sovereigns, George VI's will was sealed from public view. There was no probate to be granted nor death duties to be paid. The Royal Rich Report gives a figure of £20 million for his estate but offers no indication of how they came by this estimate. If at all accurate, it seems remarkably low - even allowing for the fact that this sum would not include all the inalienable Crown property: the official palaces, the Royal Collection and the Crown Jewels. But some sources close to the palace suggest that George VI was not as cash rich as many suspected. They point out that since he was never Prince of Wales, he was in stark contrast to Edward VII and Edward VIII unable to build up a financial nest egg from the Duchy of Cornwall revenues which go to the heir to the throne. Andrew Roberts, the historian and erstwhile luncheon guest of royals, has written that the Queen Mother regarded herself as relatively badly off. She told him at one of Woodrow Wyatt's lunches that "the King had to buy out the Duke of Windsor at the time of the abdication…. It left us terribly short but otherwise we couldn’t have had Balmoral and Sandringham."4 This is given credence by a royal courtier who is quoted by his biographer Sarah Bradford as saying that the pay-off had left them with virtually nothing.5 Roberts goes on to suggest that Queen Elizabeth "inherited relatively little cash from her father in 1952." This could well be true in terms of a liquid or cash bequest although it should be remembered that the king had in the thirties set up a trust fund for both his daughters from savings made from the Civil List. As part of the post-abdication settlement he was also exempted from paying income tax.6

  King George VI could afford to put money aside for his children because he shunned a lavish lifestyle. His one indulgence was shooting on his beloved Sandringham marshes or out on the grouse moors near Balmoral castle. With little interest in the arts, he showed no desire to add to his collection of paintings (he did collect stamps but not on the same scale as his father who amassed one of the greatest collections of Commonwealth stamps). He was – in the view of one biographer – at heart a “private shy man” who was reliant on his immediate family for “happiness and support."7 Some accused him of lacking imagination and being slow-witted but it is possible that he saw how his two brothers had wrecked their lives through high living and decided instead to tread a simpler path. At the end of the day, the most valuable thing he bequeathed Queen Elizabeth may have been his frugality.

  Today the Queen is known for her down to earth approach to jewellery, wearing the same family jewels repeatedly and unlike her grandmother, buying very few new items. Nevertheless she did receive from her father an immensely valuable collection of private jewels. Some would have come through his estate (of which we know little) but others were gifted to her well before his death (of which there is some limited record). As photographs clearly show, the nine-month-old princess was given a string of pink coral pearls by her parents just before they departed on a long royal tour of Australia and New Zealand. Twenty years later, on her wedding day they gave her a double string of pearls as well as a pair of chandelier diamond earrings.8 It should be remembered that the king also gifted Princess Margaret many valuable jewels at similar rites of passage dates in her early life.

  When it comes to landed property, we know for certain that King George bequeathed to Elizabeth his two private estates of Balmoral and Sandringham. Their precise value in 1952 is not known but given that they were valued at £300,000 in 1937 the figure is likely to have been well in advance of half a million pounds. It is probable that he bequeathed the bulk of his wealth to the future queen (including his father's stamp collection worth several millions pounds), although he would have been expected to pass on a few family heirlooms to Princess Margaret and his widow, Queen Elizabeth.

  It is unlikely, however, that King George would have bequeathed any valuable heirlooms to his mother, Queen Mary who at the time of his death was eighty-five years old and in deteriorating health. After his funeral, she spoke for almost the first time of her own mortality, admitting to a close friend that she must compel herself to keep on going to the bitter end.9 She put her last weeks to good use by doing everything in her power to ensure a smooth succession.

  One urgent thing she needed to do was rewrite her will. She had done this twice before - after the death of her husband, George V, in January 1936, and after the abdication of her eldest son, Edward VIII, in December 1936. Now, she had to decide who was to replace her Bertie as the beneficiary of what she termed her interesting things. Highly practical to the end and without any hint of morbidity, she set aside days in March and April of 1953 to work on the catalogues of her many possessions and trace different family connections. She was determined that her death should leave behind it no remnant of ambiguity or confusion.10

  "Mama” tough but failing was how the Duke of Windsor characterised his mother at his brother's funeral and over the next twelve months her health steadily declined.11 She fell ill in April and was consigned to her bed for five weeks. By the summer she was well enough to go to Sandringham but by the time she returned there in winter her days were numbered. She told her friends she did not want to go on living as an old crock. In February she began suffering severe abdominal pains and for the next three weeks took to her bed in Marlborough House where she managed to hang on in considerable pain and barely conscious. She finally died on 24 March 1953, aged eighty-five.

  Her passing marked the end of an era. Some compared it to the disappearance of a national monument, while her biographer described the nation as mourning the unique.12 To the diarist Chips Channon she was “above politics, a kind of Olympian Goddess…her appearance was formidable, her manner - well, it was like talking to St. Paul’s Cathedral”13 but within the House of Windsor, t
he overriding mood was best summed up by one unnamed relative: they had lost the rock in the family.14

  Queen Mary, of course, always had a soft spot for rocks. Uncharitable voices suggested she showed more passion for her jewellery collection than her close family. A simple hobby turned into an obsession that dominated her life. It was estimated that she had assembled at the time “a greater collection of priceless jewellery than any previous queen of England."15 Yet in her early years her family was on its uppers and she lived from hand to mouth due to the generosity of her fellow minor European royals.

  So, how did an impecunious and imperfectly royal princess come to possess one of the richest jewel boxes in history?

  From the outset it is important to point out that the vast majority of her valuable jewels came to her relatively late in life and not from her immediate family. Her father, his Serene Highness Prince Franz, Duke of Teck, had neither wealth nor pure royal blood. He may have married the granddaughter of George III and first cousin of Queen Victoria, the statuesque (not to say monumental) fifteen-stone Princess Marie Adelaide of Cambridge, but his personal royal credentials were tainted by the morganatic marriage of his father to a Hungarian countess. As a result he lost any claim to be heir to the principality of Wuerttemberg - and with it any inheritance. This did not stop him from aspiring to a royal lifestyle. He kept residences at Kensington Palace and at White Lodge in Richmond Park and ran up large bills catering to the expensive tastes of his wife and growing family. On many occasions he had to be bailed out by his in-laws, the Cambridge family, but when the debts reached astronomical heights, royal generosity began to ebb away. Even Queen Victoria decided enough was enough.