HM’s beloved legacy to her oldest child
ABELOVED friend and cousin of the Queen, Margaret Rhodes, has caused intrigue with her will.
I can disclose that Rhodes, who died in November at the age of 91, changed her will to remove a legacy she had left her elder son, Simon.
She originally left him £15,000 as well as a quarter of her estate, but in a codicil made in May 2000, she removed the legacy.
In a second codicil that year, she left £25,000 to her other children Michael, Annabel and Victoria, but there was no reference to Simon, 59.
Three of her children will receive £25,000 each and then a quarter share of the residual estate of approximately £50,000.
Simon, a former company director who lives on a farm in Perth, is expected to receive around £12,500 from his mother’s estate.
Figures released by the probate office in Bristol show that Mrs Rhodes, who was one of the Queen’s bridesmaids, left a gross estate of up to £325,000.
After her outstanding affairs were settled, this produced a net figure of £132,000.
Mrs Rhodes was just ten months older than the Queen, who had visited her regularly at her grace-andfavour home in Windsor during the
illness that claimed her life. The pair were close friends since childhood and spent holidays together.
During World War II, Mrs Rhodes lived with the Royal Family at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.
Following secretarial school, she worked for M16 as a secretary, before marrying the writer Denys Rhodes in 1950. When Mr Rhodes developed cancer, the Queen provided the couple with the Garden House in Windsor Great Park so he could be near a hospital for treatment. His wife stayed there after his death in 1981.
Mrs Rhodes wrote an autobiography that told of how the Queen slipped out of Buckingham Palace on Ve Day to celebrate with the crowds, and later did the conga in the palace.