Sarah Ferguson Inherits Millions from Ex-Fiancé Paddy McNally

The Duchess of York is set to receive part of a 600-million-pound estate from the businessman and former racing driver who died earlier this month. The bequest comes after she and Prince Andrew were evicted from Royal Lodge

Sarah Ferguson is in line to inherit a portion of the substantial estate left by Paddy McNally, the businessman and former racing driver who died earlier this month at the age of 88 after a long illness. McNally’s fortune is estimated at 600 million pounds, roughly 700 million euros.

McNally and Ferguson had a relationship in the 1980s, before she married Prince Andrew. He owned Warneford Place in Wiltshire, the former residence of James Bond creator Ian Fleming, and Buckland House in Oxfordshire. According to reports, McNally had hosted the Duchess of York in his 15-million-pound Swiss chalet after she and Andrew were removed from Royal Lodge earlier this year.

The news of the inheritance casts a different light on the public image Ferguson cultivated over decades with her former husband. Forty years ago, on July 23, 1986, she married Andrew at Westminster Abbey, a venue usually reserved for heirs to the throne and major state ceremonies. At the time, Andrew was the charismatic son of Queen Elizabeth II and the most popular member of the royal family after his military service in the Falklands. Ferguson was a young commercial director at a graphic arts company and the daughter of one of Prince Charles’s polo coaches.

The marriage produced two daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, but began to crack in 1992. Photographs surfaced showing Ferguson in an intimate moment with John Bryan, a man believed to be her financial adviser, while she was staying at Balmoral Castle. The scandal reportedly led Prince Philip to ban her from living under the same roof again. The couple divorced in 1996, the same year as Charles and Diana, yet they never treated the separation as a true rupture.

Over the following decades, Ferguson and Andrew built what they called the myth of the “ideal exes.” They shared vacations, family celebrations, and a bond that appeared unbreakable. In interviews, Ferguson repeatedly called them “the happiest divorced couple in the world” and described Andrew as “the best man” she knew. She insisted that family was “the most important thing” and that the Yorks were “a family that defends each other.” These declarations came even as Andrew was negotiating a settlement to avoid legal testimony related to the Epstein case, and as Ferguson and their daughters publicly supported him.

Royal expert Andrew Lownie has since described that image as a “convenient cover.” He argues that Ferguson distanced herself from Andrew after the Epstein scandal broke, revealing that the portrayal of domestic harmony served to bolster both of their public standing and protect them in an increasingly hostile environment. Andrew needed family support to cushion his public collapse, while Ferguson needed proximity to the royal family to keep her own projects afloat.

In 2010, Ferguson was caught in a separate scandal when the News of the World published a video showing her accepting a briefcase containing 57,000 dollars in cash, an installment on 720,000 dollars she was requesting from a journalist posing as a businessman. The payment was in exchange for arranging a meeting with Andrew, then the United Kingdom’s Special Representative for Trade and Investment.

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