Queen Elizabeth II’s will, if the community can see it, will provide rare insights about the wealth of final monarch, but unlike ordinary British citizens will be sealed and locked in a safe for at least 90 years.
The practice of sealing the will of Royals who died came from 1910 and Prince Francis Teck which was rarely remembered, whose will was one of more than 30 stored in a safe at a secret location in London, under the care of a judge.
With the convention, after a royal senior died, the implementing their will applies to the Head of the London High Court Family Division for the will to be sealed. The judge in succession in that position always agreed.
The details are unknown to the wider world until after death in April 2021 from Ratu’s husband, Prince Philip, when it fell to Judge Andrew McFarlane to handle the application to seal her will.
The judge decided that the will must indeed be sealed, but decided to issue his decision to give the public some understanding of what was happening and why.
“The most likely level of publicity will be very broad and fully contrary to the purpose of maintaining the dignity of sovereignty,” he wrote, adding that this is needed for the king to fulfill his constitutional role.
The judge revealed the existence of a safe containing a royal will and that, as president of the current family division, he was responsible for that even though he had no knowledge about the contents of the sealed document.
The deceased’s will, when stored in a safe with her husband, will join her mother Elizabeth and sister of Princess Margaret, who both died in 2002.
Margaret’s will is the subject of the 2007 legal challenges by Robert Brown, who claimed to be a daughter’s invalid son and who wanted to see him to submit his claim. The court rejected his belief as “irrational” and he was not given access.
Prince Francis of Tck, whose will is the earliest stored in the safe, died in 1910 aged 40. She was the younger brother of Queen Mary, the wife of King George V and the grandmother of the late Ratu.