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Newly released probate records reveal that the Duchess of Kent, who passed away aged 92, left an estate valued at more than £1.4 million, with the majority of her wealth directed to her three children.
The Duchess, who was married to the Duke of Kent, a cousin of the late Queen, for 64 years, left a gross estate of £1,433,696, which was reduced to a net figure of £1,433,206 once liabilities had been settled.
Senior royals' wills are typically sealed and kept confidential for a minimum of 90 years.
However, the Duchess's will is believed to have entered the public domain because she had withdrawn from official royal duties in 2002, having sought Queen Elizabeth's permission to step back from public life.
Among the specific bequests, the Duchess directed that her interest in a property at Edwardes Square in Kensington, west London, should pass to her grandson Edward Edmund Maximilian George Windsor, Baron Downpatrick.
She also left £10,000 to Future Talent Musicians, a charity she co-founded in 2004 to support gifted young musicians from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Nine godchildren — Catherine Cameron, Tania Astor, Clare Kerr, Amabel Kerr, Emma Scott, Christopher Morrell, Edward Marsh, Andrew Burley and George Anandraj — each received legacies of £5,000.
Her personal chattels, encompassing jewellery, furniture and household contents, were bequeathed to the Duke of Kent, with the stipulation that he should distribute individual items according to any written wishes she may have left behind.
The Duchess's family trust, known as the Worsley Settlement, was structured so that income from it would flow to the Duke of Kent for the remainder of his lifetime.
After that, the will specified that half of the remaining capital and income should go to her eldest son, George Windsor, the Earl of St Andrews, aged 64, with a third allocated to her younger son Lord Nicholas Windsor, 55, and a one-sixth share reserved for her daughter Lady Helen Taylor, 62.
Should any of her children have died before her, their portion would have passed to their own offspring.
The residue of the estate was placed in trust for all three children once legal and funeral costs had been met.
The document was prepared on October 5 2022 and signed as simply "Katharine Kent," with a personal assistant and an occupational therapist serving as witnesses.
Born Katharine Worsley in 1933, she was the youngest daughter of Sir William Worsley, a Yorkshire landowner who had captained the county cricket team in the 1920s and was a descendant of Oliver Cromwell.
She met Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, in 1956 and married him five years later, becoming the first woman without a title to wed into the Windsor family in over a century.
A pianist of concert standard, she became closely associated with Wimbledon over three decades and publicly embraced Catholicism in 1993 — the first senior royal to do so since the 1701 Act of Settlement.
After leaving royal life, she spent 13 years teaching music anonymously at a state primary school in Hull.
The Duchess died peacefully on September 4 last year at Wren Cottage, her home within Kensington Palace, surrounded by family.
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