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Prince Philip's Will To Remain Private, New Ruling Declares

After a U.K. newspaper challenged the ruling that the media wouldn't have access to the details of Prince Philip's will, the judges have hit back.

The details of Prince Philip's will won't be revealed to the public anytime soon. Last year, a judge ruled that the late royal's will would be kept private for at least 90 years, but U.K.-based newspaper The Guardian challenged the ruling, insisting the media should have been allowed access to the hearing that made that decision.

On Friday, July 29, three judges turned down their challenge, explaining that the "exceptional" circumstances of the situation call for privacy.

"The hearing was at a hugely sensitive time for the Sovereign and her family, and those interests would not have been protected if there had been protracted hearings reported in the press rather than a single occasion on which full reasons for what had been decided were published," the new ruling read, via a report.

While wills in the U.K. are usually accessible to the public, the royal family has always been an exception.

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"It is true that the law applies equally to the Royal family, but that does not mean that the law produces the same outcomes in all situations," the judges noted. "These circumstances are, as we have said, exceptional."

The Duke of Edinburgh passed away at age 99 in April 2021. About a year after a traditional funeral, the monarchy held a memorial service in his honor, which was attended by everyone in the royal family, including Queen Elizabeth's disgraced son Prince Andrew.

However, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stayed put in California.

On the one-year anniversary of Philip's death, the matriarch shared a poem on social media called "The Patriarchs – An Elegy."

"The weather in the window this morning is snow, unseasonal singular flakes, a slow winter's final shiver," the work began. "On such an occasion to presume to eulogise one man is to pipe up for a whole generation - that crew whose survival was always the stuff of minor miracle, who came ashore in orange-crate coracles, fought ingenious wars, finagled triumphs at sea with flaming decoy boats, and side-stepped torpedoes."

"Husbands to duty, they unrolled their plans across billiard tables and vehicle bonnets, regrouped at breakfast. What their secrets were was everyone's guess and nobody's business. Great-grandfathers from birth, in time they became both inner core and outer case in a family heirloom of nesting dolls," the poem continued. "Like evidence of early man their boot-prints stand in the hardened earth of rose-beds and borders. They were sons of a zodiac out of sync with the solar year, but turned their minds to the day's big science and heavy questions."

To read the rest of the tribute, click here.

The Telegraph was amongst the first to give an update on the will.

For more on the royal family's trials and tribulations, tune into the new podcast "The Firm: Blood, Lies and Royal Succession." Listen below!

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