Prince Andrew in ‘despair’ that King Charles has not shared £650m inheritance

Prince Andrew. Photo: John Phillips

Martha McHardy

March 12 2023 08:38 PM

Prince Andrew is “in despair” that King Charles has not shared out their mother’s inheritence, according to reports.

Charles was the sole beneficiary of the Queen Elizabeth’s £650m estate, under a 1993 agreement meaning no inheritance tax was owed.

The king’s siblings Princess Anne (72) and Prince Edward (59), as well as Prince Andrew (63), inherited nothing from the queen, and are said to share “some resentment” because of this.

However, as working royals, both Princess Anne and Prince Edward receive handouts from the Sovereign Grant to cover costs, unlike Prince Andrew, who is reliant on his brother’s generosity.

A friend of the Duke of York told the Mail on Sunday: “What’s he meant to do? Go cap in hand to his older brother to keep a roof over his head? It’s a disaster.”

A Buckingham Palace source said the queen’s fortune had passed directly “from monarch to monarch” because that was the most “tax efficient” way to transfer it, and that the queen had “supported her children during her lifetime and had made provision for them already”.

It comes after Prince Andrew is reported to have been approached by two American broadcasters with offers to take part in a new, tell-all interview in the UK.

According to a new report, the disgraced Duke of York is considering “telling his side” in the hope of a chance of redemption, more than three years after his interview with Emily Maitlis about his ties to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was broadcast on the BBC’s Newsnight.

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The duke was also accused of sexually assaulting Virginia Guiffre, one of Epstein’s victims, when she was underage in the US. He has consistently and vehemently denied the accusations.

Andrew was stripped of his military titles and was asked to step down as a working royal last year, after he paid Ms Guiffre a multimillion-pound settlement to stop the case going to court.

Earlier this month, it was reported that Andrew was “resisting” King Charles’s suggestion that he move out of the 30-room Royal Lodge and into Frogmore Cottage, where the Duke and Duchess of Sussex used to reside.

Andrew has lived at Royal Lodge in Windsor Park with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson since 2004.

Buckingham Palace declined to comment.