Lesser-known British royals: Net worth, earnings and what they actually do

British royals are wealthy, but not everyone in the family has the high net worth that the Sovereign, the heir to the throne and those on the upper levels of the line of succession command. These British royals are ‘lesser-known’ because they are not always in the media spotlight as King Charles, his children and grandchildren.

Some of them are ‘working royals’ – a term used for those who undertake royal duties on behalf of the Sovereign, while others are not.

King Charles III is certainly the richest British royal, by virtue of the vast landholdings he oversees as the sovereign and his inheritances from his mother – the late Queen Elizabeth II.

His son, William, Prince of Wales, the first in line to the throne, had a net worth of just about USD 40 million before his father ascended the throne. In a single day after the death of his grandmother, the net worth of Prince William went past the USD 1-billion mark.

And even though Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are certainly not on good terms with the family, they are making their own money through deals with Spotify and a USD 100 million deal with Netflix. Prince Harry is also ready to bare it all with his memoir, Spare, which is set for release on 10 January 2023.

But who are the lesser-known royals of the British monarchy and what are their net worths? Below, we take a look at the the lesser-known royals, from the late Queen’s siblings and her cousins, to her other children and their children.

A look at how rich the lesser-known British royals are and their net worths

Anne, Princess Royal

Anne, Princess Royal is the only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II and the only sister of King Charles III. She has been a very active member of the royal family since the age of 18, and is one of the most visible faces when it comes to performing royal duties and is involved with over 300 charities, organisations and military regiments in the UK and outside.

As a senior member of the royal family, the Princess Royal received an annual stipend from Queen Elizabeth II’s Sovereign Grant. She will continue to receive the same from King Charles III, who is the current monarch. Her share in the Sovereign Grant goes into meeting the expenses connected to her royal duties.

But the most significant part of Princess Royal’s net worth is her Gatcombe Park estate. Located in Gloucestershire, the estate is held privately by the Princess Royal.

The 2.8-sq-km estate has a nine-bedroom main house. It was received by the Princess Royal as a gift from Queen Elizabeth II in 1976, after her marriage to her first husband, Captain Mark Phillips. The estate reportedly cost somewhere between USD 500,000 and USD 750,000.

Unlike many other British royal residences and properties, the Gatcombe Park estate doesn’t require funds from the Crown Estate for its upkeep. The Princess Royal converted the estate into a working farm. It has cattle and undertakes horse breeding.

According to Hello!, the Princess Royal once told Countryfile that farming was necessary for the maintenance of the estate.

“It’s really nice to come back and just be yourself in an area like this. Being able to take on a place like this – for me, I’ve got to make it work. This is not something that comes free, this has got to pay its way, otherwise I can’t stay here,” she said.

Since the Princess Royal is herself an accomplished equestrian having participated in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, the Gatcombe Park estate also hosts equestrian events such as the Festival of British Eventing.

There is no clear estimate of how much the British royal’s total net worth is, but according to consultancy firm Wealth-X, which tracks high net-worth individuals, she was worth USD 30 million in 2012.

In 2022, LadBible reported that she has donated around USD 28 million in the last 10 years and her current net worth is around the same figure. According to the publication, her wealth includes USD 7 million in jewellery too.

Prince Andrew

In January 2022, Prince Andrew was stripped off all his royal patronages and military affiliations over a sexual assault allegation against him. He was also ousted from the royal family.

In February 2022, Prince Andrew reportedly reached a settlement with his accuser, Virginia Giuffre, paying her around USD 15 million to drop the lawsuit.

But because of the lawsuit, much of Prince Andrew’s income came to light.

According to Bloomberg, the disgraced royal’s net worth was estimated to be around USD 6.5 million by his private bank, Luxembourg’s Banque Havilland SA, in 2017. As such, he was not in a position to pay Giuffre the substantial amount. Citing British media, the Bloomberg report says that Queen Elizabeth II helped Prince Andrew pay the settlement.

“It seems highly likely that his mother will have to bail him out again to pay this enormous settlement. We should have transparency on where the money is coming from,” Bloomberg quoted former UK government minister Norman Baker as saying.

Until he was forced out of the family, Prince Andrew received around USD 325,000 annually from the sovereign as his share of allowance. He was also a helicopter pilot in the Royal Navy and had flown missions during the Falklands War. He earns an estimated pension of around USD 26,000 for his Royal Navy service.

Prince Andrew resides at the Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park. The Royal Lodge is a Crown Estate property and was given to the prince in August 2003 as part of a 75-year lease agreement for a one-off premium of around USD 1.6 million.

The prince resides at the property with his former wife, Sarah, Duchess of York. Their two daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, grew up at the residence, which has 30 rooms. They also celebrated their wedding receptions at the property. The Royal Lodge would reportedly be worth around USD 35 million if placed in the open market.

Prince Edward and Sophie

Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex and Forfar is the youngest son of Queen Elizabeth II.

The British royal had a net worth of USD 45 million as per the 2012 Wealth-X report. There are no official statistics about his current net worth, but LadBible, citing data from celebritynetworth.com, says that the combined approximate net worth of both Prince Edward and his wife, Sophie, Countess of Wessex and Forfar is USD 20 million.

Both Prince Edward and Sophie had independent careers before they took up royal roles full time in 2002.

The Prince was active in theatre and had his own TV production company, Ardent Productions. He gave up his company when he took up royal duties. Founded in 1993, the company itself wound up in 2009 after suffering losses every year barring one.

On the other hand, Sophie, who was born Sophie Helen Rhys-Jones, worked with PR firms and even founded her own PR agency, R-J H, with business partner Murray Harkin in 1996. Sophie, too, left the agency in 2002.

The royal couple get a share of the Sovereign Grant to carry on their official royal duties, particularly around The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.

But Express.co.uk reports that their day-to-day costs are not met by public funds. These expenses are paid for from the Duchy of Lancaster, which is administered by the reigning monarch.

‘They are not funded by the taxpayer save for travel for official duties and security, but by the Queen’s private income from the Duchy of Lancaster,” royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams told Express.co.uk.

And in 2002, when they were made full-time working royals, the couple received a one-off payment of around USD 375,000.

The couple reside at the Bagshot Park estate spanning 206,390 square metres, a royal residence held by the Crown Estate which they acquired under a 50-year lease agreement. The costs for the maintenance of the property, which comes to around USD 250,000 per year, is met by the reigning monarch.

Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie

Estimates suggest that British royals Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, the daughters of  Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and Sarah, Duchess of York, have a combined net worth of around USD 2 million.

Both are members of the royal family and, therefore, are entitled to some of the privileges that come with the status. But because they are placed far in the line of succession and are not ‘working royals,’ the sisters don’t have a share in the Sovereign Grant.

But both have their share in the trust fund set up by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, in 1994 for her great-grandchildren. The fund, when it was set up, was worth around USD 30 million and was two-thirds of the Queen Mother’s wealth. In the three decades since, the fund is estimated to have grown by many more millions.

Though Prince William and Prince Harry got the largest share of the fund, the rest of the great-grandchildren, including the two princesses, would be entitled to millions, too.

Another source of income for both sisters is the trust fund set up when their parents divorced in the mid-1990s. As per the terms of the settlement, a trust was formed for the two sisters from the settlement amount handed by the British royal family. Around USD 2 million of that amount was used to form the trust for the sisters.

Apart from the joint share in the two trusts, the sisters have their own careers and respective family wealth.

Princess Eugenie is married to businessman Jack Brooksbank. According to a 2018 report by E! News, their combined net worth at the time was around USD 4.7 million.

Princess Beatrice, on the other hand, is married to Edoardo Mozzi, who is a property tycoon. It is not known how much they are worth together, but the figure is likely to be very high given their individual standings and the fact that Mozzi was reportedly a multi-millionaire even before his marriage.

Princess Beatrice is also a businesswoman. According to the Daily Express, she started making her own money working as a sales assistant at Selfridges in 2008. She has also worked for the press office of the Foreign Office.

According to her LinkedIn profile, she worked as the International Production Analyst for Sony Pictures Entertainment for a year in 2014 before spending close to two years at Sandbridge Capital LLC as an Associate.

In November 2016, she started working for American software company Afiniti. The profile says she is currently the Vice President, Partnerships & Strategy at the company.

Afiniti’s Vice President of Partnerships and Strategy, Beatrice York, and our Canadian General Manager, Tim Nixon, joined @Avaya at #theconnectedworld in Toronto to discus how #ai is transforming business #machinelearning #AvayaCanada pic.twitter.com/uSUXpyBThF

— Afiniti (@afiniti) June 5, 2018

What about her properties? Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, The Sun reported in November 2022 that Princess Beatrice and her husband would be moving out of St. James Palace in Westminster to their own manor home in the Cotswolds. The manor home was bought by the couple for a reported amount of around USD 4.3 million in 2021, and has six bedrooms, a swimming pool and a tennis court.

Princess Eugenie started working for auction firm Paddle8 in New York City in 2013, a year after graduating from Newcastle University. She then became the associate director at Hauser & Wirth art gallery in London in 2015 and, two years later, was made its director.

Princess Eugenie lives with her husband and son in Frogmore Cottage.

Prince Edward, Duke of Kent

The 86-year-old Duke of Kent is the cousin of Queen Elizabeth II and a working member of the Royal family. He is one of the busiest royals, involved with over 140 different charities, organisations and professional bodies.

He made headlines in 2021, when he stepped down as president of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, the venue of the prestigious Wimbledon tennis tournament. He had assumed the position in 1969 following his mother’s death.

It is not clear exactly how much he is worth, but some estimates suggest it could be around USD 10 million. As a working royal, he received grants from the late Queen till she was alive. It is not clear how his finances will work out following the coronation of King Charles III, but he continues to carry out his duties as a royal.

The Duke of Kent is nowhere as rich as other senior royals. He and his siblings, Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy and Prince Michael of Kent, had to struggle a bit following their father’s death in 1942.

Prince Edward’s primary income for a long time was the salary he received as a serving officer in the British Army. Unable to maintain his Buckinghamshire manor house, named Coppins, the Duke of Kent sold it in 1974.

He and his wife, Katharine, Duchess of Kent, share the Kensington Palace residence with some other members of the royal family.

They live in the Wren House on the palace grounds. The two-storey, cottage-style property is very modest in appearance. It reportedly has five bedrooms and five reception rooms and is located in such a way that it overlooks the walled garden of the palace.

Prince Michael of Kent

The younger brother of the Duke of Kent sold his Gloucestershire residence, Nether Lypiatt, in 2006.

Though he has carried out royal engagements with about 100 charities and organisations, he is technically classed as a non-working royal. As such, he does not receive an allowance from the Sovereign.

But despite being a non-working royal, he lives rent-free at Kensington Palace. Following criticism, the palace explained that the Queen paid the rent on behalf of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent at “a commercial rate of £120,000 annually, from her own private funds.” (The figure would be around USD 145,000). In 2010, it was announced that the Prince and the Princess will pay their own rent.

Citing various reports, the Daily Mirror says that Prince Michael has an estimated net worth of USD 40 million. The figure is quite huge for a lesser-known British royal. According to the report, the Prince has his own company, Cantium Services, involved in businesses related to education, property and new technologies.

He also acts as a consultant for business clients and is a qualified Russian interpreter.

Princess Michael is herself a celebrity. She is an author of numerous successful books about European royalty, has her own interior design company and was on the Board of the Victoria & Albert Museum for 13 years.  She is currently president of Partridge Fine Art.

Her earnings, as per Daily Mirror’s information from various sites, is around USD 8 million over the years.

(Hero and featured image credit: Leon Neal / Staff/Getty Images)

Most Popular