The Duke of Sussex turned 40 last week and whilst it’s not known what gifts his nearest and dearest showered him with, reports seemed to indicate that he would be receiving an incredible gift all the way from England – a large sum of money his great-grandmother, the late Queen Mother, had left him in a Trust Fund set up back in 1994.
The original report about the Trust Fund was first published by The Guardian in April 2002, and it revealed that Prince William and Harry would both collect £8m upon reaching the age of 40.
© GettyAt the time, estimates put the Queen Mother’s overall worth at nearly £70m.
“This money has come largely from shrewd investments which include paintings, a valuable Faberge egg collection, china and jewellery, though most of this will be passed to the Queen as it is part of the royal collection,” the BBC reported at the time.
In 1994, according to reports, she put aside two-thirds of her money into a trust fund for her great-grandchildren, which at the time, William and Harry aside, included Princess Anne‘s children Zara and Peter Phillips and Prince Andrew’s daughters Beatrice and Eugenie together with Princess Margaret’s children Viscount Linley and Lady Sarah Chatto.
© GettyIn a new episode of A Right Royal Podcast, which you can listen to below, hosts Andrea Caamano, Emmy Griffiths and Emily Nash talk to royal author and broadcaster Victoria Murphy about Harry’s big birthday payout, with Victoria sharing her confusion about the whole story and its origin.
“There’s no independently available information about this trust fund. We wouldn’t expect there to be because it’s private money belonging to the royals, not public money,” she says, before adding: “To make things even more confusing, as the story has travelled through the Internet, it’s become he is getting 8 million, when the original story said that was a share.”
Elsewhere in the episode, Victoria reveals her thoughts on the royal family’s congratulatory posts on social media for Harry.
© WPA Pool“You could look at it as a sign that relations are thawing. That some of the sting has gone out of the animosity of the last few years. And I think that can be true.”
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