Lady Gabriella Windsor’s husband found dead aged 45
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Thomas Kingston, the husband of Lady Gabriella Windsor, has died aged 45, Buckingham Palace has announced.
Lady Gabriella, the daughter of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, paid tribute to the financier, who she wed in 2019, saying he was “an exceptional man who lit up the lives of all who knew him”. She said his death had come as a “great shock to the whole family”.
A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: “The King and The Queen have been informed of Thomas’s death and join Prince and Princess Michael of Kent and all those who knew him in grieving a much-loved member of the family. In particular, Their Majesties send their most heartfelt thoughts and prayers to Gabriella and to all the Kingston family.”
Mr Kingston, a committed Christian who once worked as a hostage negotiator in Baghdad, was found dead at an address in Gloucestershire on Sunday evening. Emergency services were called to the scene shortly after 6pm.
A police spokesman said: “The death is not being treated as suspicious and a file will be prepared for the coroner.”
Prince and Michael of Kent and Princess Michael both attended a memorial service on Tuesday for King Constantine of Greece.
The service was held at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, where Lady Gabriella and Mr Kingston married in May 2019 before an array of senior royals including Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.
The bride was pictured bending down to clasp the late Queen’s hand as they exchanged a few words ahead of the wedding breakfast at Frogmore House.
The Prince of Wales’s absence from Tuesday’s memorial service was not connected to Mr Kingston’s death, The Telegraph understands.
A statement issued on behalf of Lady Gabriella, Mr Kingston’s parents Martin and Jill Kingston, and his sisters, Joanna Connolly and Emma Murray, at 6pm Tuesday said: “It is with the deepest sorrow that we announce the death of Thomas Kingston, our beloved husband, son and brother. Tom was an exceptional man who lit up the lives of all who knew him. His death has come as a great shock to the whole family and we ask you to respect our privacy as we mourn his passing.”
Lady Gabriella, known as Ella, and her elder brother, Lord Frederick Windsor, grew up in an apartment in Kensington Palace. Currently 56th in line to the throne, Lady Gabriella studied comparative literature and Hispanic studies at Brown University in Rhode Island, in the United States before returning to the UK to continue her education at Oxford University, earning a master’s in social anthropology in 2012.
A talented singer, she released two songs in 2020 to raise money for the Playing for Change Foundation, a charity that promotes positive change through music. Mr Kingston, who was born on June 22, 1978, came from more humble beginnings. His father, Martin, was educated at a secondary modern before enjoying a hugely successful career as a KC, specialising in planning law. The barrister, who lives in Kemble, Glos, announced his retirement from No5 Chambers in January 2020.
Mr Kingston Snr was elected to the General Synod in 2016. His wife, Jill, is also heavily involved in the church, and is a trustee of the Harnhill Centre of Christian Healing. Mrs Kingston also runs the Nadezhda Charitable Trust, which supports “a wide range of projects but with a particular emphasis on Zimbabwe”. She has written of being very involved in Russia and Ukraine, making church links and working with Christian drug rehabilitation centres, as well as running conferences for women in Ethiopia.
Lady Gabriella’s engagement to Mr Kingston was announced by the palace in September 2018. The couple maintained a relatively low profile, although they were no strangers to the society pages of glossy magazines.
The couple were last pictured together on Feb 14, when they joined the Queen at Grosvenor House for an event celebrating the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s first folio.
Mr Kingston, known as Tom, read economic history at Bristol University before his work as a hostage negotiator in Baghdad, where he is said to have cheated death in a suicide bombing that killed 22 people in 2004.
The Rev Canon Andrew White, who was based in Baghdad at the same time, described him as “an exceptional young man”. He told the Daily Mail in 2019: “Tom is one of the most remarkable people I have ever worked with and I would have him back at my side tomorrow, if he would come.”
Mr Kingston was seconded as a project manager for the International Centre for Reconciliation, based at Coventry Cathedral, to mediate in disputes between political, religious and tribal leaders and negotiate hostage releases. Like his parents, he had a strong faith and helped Canon White maintain the church in Baghdad.
“Tom has a fierce determination to make things succeed and great insight into what makes humans tick, both good and bad,” Canon White said. “He uses those to see beyond the impossible and get through to the other side.
“We built up a huge following, hundreds of whom I baptised as children and who have relocated to Jordan. Tom helped me.”
In a twist of fate, Canon White said that while Mr Kingston was in Baghdad, before he met Lady Gabriella, they helped Prince Michael of Kent locate a relative’s grave on the Mount of Olives and ensured it was properly tended.
After three years in Iraq, Mr Kingston returned to the UK to work for Schroders, the global asset management firm, as an equity analyst before becoming managing director of Voltan Capital Management and later, a director of Devonport Capital, specialising in frontier market investment.
He is said to have dated Pippa Middleton in 2011 and appears to have remained close to the family. Both he and Lady Gabriella attended Ms Middleton’s wedding to James Matthews in 2017 and Pippa, Carole and Michael Middleton attended his own wedding in Windsor two years later. Mr Kingston proposed on the Channel Island of Sark, where his parents have a holiday home.
On their wedding day, Lady Gabriella, a first cousin once removed to the late Queen, wore a pale-pink-hued dress by Italian couturier Luisa Beccaria. She told Hello! magazine that she had feared her tiara would fall off in front of their guests.
She said: “Suddenly I could feel my tiara start to pull back and in those few unnerving moments I thought it would come crashing down with an almighty clunk … Fortunately my hairdresser had pinned the tiara in place and it stood firm.”
