Edward VIII gave up the throne, sold Sandringham and Balmoral to his brother, and hid how much money he had

Edward VIII abdicated on 11 December 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcée. Sandringham and Balmoral were private property, and his father had left him a life interest in them. In a deal negotiated at Fort Belvedere, George VI agreed to pay Edward an annual allowance in exchange for those rights^†. During the talks Edward said he was poor. George VI later learned that his brother had about £1 million of his own from the Duchy of Cornwall^†. Relations between the brothers broke down, and in 1937 letters patent denied Wallis the style Her Royal Highness. The couple lived in a house in the Bois de Boulogne leased from the City of Paris. Edward died in 1972. Wallis left her estate to the Pasteur Institute. Her jewellery, much of it gifts from Edward, sold at Sotheby's in Geneva in April 1987 for about $50 million, with the proceeds going to the institute^†. Mohamed Al-Fayed took over the Paris house in 1986 and sold its contents at auction in 1998^†.