Besides the headlines with their droll puns, heirbnb and scarebnb, there is the recent piece in The Sun about the purchase of new property in Portugal by Prince Harry and his in every respect charming American wife, Markle, presumably to let out…

The money comes, remarkably enough, as an inheritance from his great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, née Bowes-Lyon. Here is how it came about.

The Queen Mother, matriarch of the British monarchy, died in 2002, a very short time before her 102nd birthday. So why was her legacy handed over twenty-two years later? In order to spare her heirs the burdensome inheritance tax, the Queen Mother set up a trust fund and placed in it capital that was to be distributed among her grandchildren and great-grandchildren at the appointed hour (not all of them, as I shall explain below).

In 1994, the 94-year-old Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, mother of the reigning queen, established a special trust fund and placed £19 million in it. Under its terms, her grandchildren and great-grandchildren were to receive funds from their departed granny, and twice over: when they turned 21 and again at 40. Until then the capital was left to work and multiply.

The first instalment for each recipient came to £6 million, the second to £8 million. It is not entirely clear whether the sums really were identical; there is a view that Harry ended up receiving more than his elder brother. A curious thing, given that it is generally acknowledged that in the old lady's lifetime the favourite was nonetheless William, the future heir to the crown. Between Princess Diana and the Queen Mother there were even disagreements on this account: Diana voiced her displeasure at the Queen Mother's patently unequal treatment of William and Harry. But the grandmother, nicknamed the iron fist in a velvet glove, cared little for her daughter-in-law's displeasure. Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon might, for example, invite Prince William to tea and Harry not, and this happened constantly.

Besides Prince William and Prince Harry, the Queen Mother's millions were shared among Princess Anne's children, Zara and Peter Phillips, the daughters of the disgraced Prince Andrew, Beatrice and Eugenie, as well as Princess Margaret's son, Viscount Linley, and her daughter, Lady Sarah Chatto. As far as I am aware, the children of Sarah Chatto and all the Queen Mother's great-grandchildren born after her death, notably the children of Prince Edward, the youngest son of Queen Elizabeth II, are not included among the recipients of the trust.