SerpApi.Org
This past September, Katharine, the Duchess of Kent, passed away at age 92. Less than a year later, details of her will have been made public. Probate records, seen by The Telegraph, reported that the late Duchess left the bulk of her £1.4 million estate (about $1.8 million in today’s exchange rate) to her husband, Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, and their three children, George, Earl of St Andrews, Lady Helen Taylor, and Lord Nicholas Windsor. She left her personal items, including jewelry and furniture, to her husband to “distribute...in accordance with her wishes.”
Notably, she left £10,000 in her will to Future Talent, a charity she co-founded in 2004. The organization aimed “to remove barriers and offer musically gifted young people from low-income households the support they need to flourish musically.” The Duchess of Kent spent over a decade quietly teaching as a music teacher at a primary school in East Hull. “I was just known as Mrs Kent,” she said in a 2022 interview. “Only the head knew who I was. The parents didn’t know and the pupils didn’t know. No one ever noticed. There was no publicity about it at all—it just seemed to work.”
She also left £5,000 each to her nine godchildren Catherine Cameron, Tania Astor, Clare Kerr, Amabel Kerr, Emma Scott, Christopher Morrell, Edward Marsh, Andrew Burley, and George Anandraj. And, she left her interest in a property in Edwardes Square, Kensington to her eldest grandson Edward Windsor, Lord Downpatrick. (He is second in line to the Dukedom of Kent after his father, George Windsor, Earl of St Andrews.)
The will was drawn up on October 5, 2022, a little less than a month after the death of Queen Elizabeth, and signed “Katherine Kent.” It’s rare for the public to learn details of the wills of senior members of the royal family; Prince Philip’s will, for example, was sealed for 90 years. Per the Telegraph, “The details of the will have been made public less than a month after the King, who has instructed aides to open up royal finances to unprecedented scrutiny, made his personal tax bill public for the first time. In June, a palace source confirmed it was the monarch’s ‘clear wish and instruction” that the complicated royal finances be made more transparent.”
The Duchess of Kent’s will was reportedly made public as she stepped down from royal duties in 2002.
