The late husband of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent’s daughter Girl Gabriella Kingston died from a catastrophic head damage at his mother and father’ £3 million dwelling within the Cotswolds, aged 45, with a gun discovered close to his physique.
In the course of the inquest into his loss of life, Katy Skerrett, the senior coroner for Gloucestershire, mentioned Kingston had lunch together with his mother and father earlier than the couple went on a stroll, and Kingston was not current upon their return. His physique was found by his father in an outbuilding.
On the time, those that knew Kingston had been fully shocked. One shut good friend advised The Telegraph: “You do marvel how one thing like this occurs. He was so match and so mentally steady. He wasn’t a depressed particular person.” One other good friend added: “He’s a type of guys who could be fairly enigmatic and doesn’t let you know what he’s pondering.”
It has now grow to be clear that Kingston was fighting despair and had lately stopped taking the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) he was prescribed as anti-depressants. Kingston’s mother and father, Martin and Jill Kingston, at the moment are calling for a change in how sufferers are prescribed these SSRIs, with Martin Kingston telling Radio 4’s In the present day programme that sufferers ought to be advised extra explicitly concerning the potential unintended effects of the medicine, together with what can occur in the event that they cease taking it.
To many, Kingston wouldn’t have been instantly apparent as a key participant within the royal household. He married Girl Gabriella Windsor, the 43-year-old non-working royal 56th in line to the throne, and has stayed comparatively faraway from frontline royal life.
Girl Gabriella Windsor and Thomas Kingston on their marriage ceremony day
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However there may be rather more to Kingston than is extensively recognized: the College of Bristol graduate had hyperlinks to the royal household lengthy earlier than Girl Gabriella, having allegedly dated Pippa Middleton across the time of Kate and William’s marriage ceremony in 2011, in addition to certainly one of Prince William’s rumoured ex-girlfriends. And whereas he’s a financier by commerce, Kingston additionally spent a time period working in hostage negotiation and battle decision in Iraq throughout the conflict.
Right here’s every thing we all know concerning the royal’s storied previous.
Kingston moved in royal circles from an early age
Thomas Kingston and Pippa Middleton in 2013
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As with most individuals who come to marry royals, Kingston was well-acquainted with friends-of-friends of the household lengthy earlier than he truly married into The Agency. Born in Evesham, Worcestershire to William Martin Kingston and Jill Mary Kingston (née Bache), he wasn’t precisely British the Aristocracy. Bache is the granddaughter of Sir William Joseph Pearman-Smith of Park Corridor, the previous Mayor of Walsall, and Kingston is a “self made man” who was educated at a secondary-modern state faculty, earlier than occurring to grow to be a profitable barrister specialising in planning regulation. Kingston too was state educated, and his household is regarded as descendant from Cheshire butchers and farmers.
However it was in Gloucestershire the place Kingston would discover himself within the outer circle of the royals. At one level, he met fellow Bristol College graduate Natalie Hicks-Lobbecke and the pair are rumoured to have dated for a time period. Because it occurs, Hicks-Lobbecke was additionally a part of the Gloucestershire-based ‘Beaufort Polo Membership set’ together with Prince William and Harry. She and William sparked relationship rumours round July 2000, when Hicks-Lobbecke and the younger Prince had been photographed laughing with one another at a polo match, although each denied the connection rumours on the time.
Then got here Kingston’s second brush with near-royal romance in 2011, when he was mentioned to be relationship Pippa Middleton proper across the time of Kate and William’s royal marriage ceremony. Removed from the usual post-split animosity, he and Pippa have remained shut mates. Each events attended every others’ weddings — Kingston was at Middleton’s nuptials to James Matthews in 2017, and Middleton was in attendance at Kingston’s royal marriage ceremony to Girl Gabriella in 2019 — and have been photographed having fun with every others’ firm many occasions over time.
Hostage negotiator turned financier who ‘survived a suicide bombing’
Girl Gabriella Kingston/Buckingham Palace
Kingston left Bristol College with a level in financial historical past, which he put to good use in his some 17 years of labor as a chartered monetary analyst, fairness analyst and director of the capital corporations. Nevertheless, he took an attention-grabbing segue after commencement, the place he labored throughout the diplomatic missions unit of the International Workplace in Iraq.
On this function, Kingston was primarily based in Baghdad, and gained expertise in hostage negotiation and battle decision. Based on The Occasions, he utilised his “relentless optimism” to assist negotiate the discharge of hostages and adjudicate disputes between the Iraq’s warring ethnic, non secular, and tribal leaders.
In 2004, he narrowly escaped a brush with loss of life when a a suicide-bombing claimed the lives of twenty-two folks on the solely Anglican church in Iraq. Reverend Canon Andrew White, who was referred to as the “Vicar of Baghdad” due to his ten years presiding over the Anglican church in Iraq and in addition survived the bombing, mentioned beforehand that Kingston was an “an distinctive younger man” who “makes issues occur.” Kingston’s pivot to this line of labor makes extra sense to people who knew him properly, who described him as a “very, very, very” dedicated Christian. At uni, he was even referred to as “Christian Tom.”
“Tom is without doubt one of the most exceptional folks I’ve ever labored with and I’d have him again at my facet tomorrow, if he would come,” Canon Andrew mentioned of Kingston whereas he was nonetheless alive. “Tom has a fierce willpower to make issues succeed and nice perception into what makes people tick, each good and dangerous. He makes use of these to see past the not possible and get by to the opposite facet.”
In gentle of his tragic loss of life, Canon Andrew advised The Telegraph: “We survived a number of suicide bomb assaults […] We had been commonly caught up in IED [improvised explosive device] assaults. Automobiles would blow up in entrance of us and we might simply transfer on. We had been all the time collectively and had 35 armed guards always,” recalled Canon White.
“The factor about Tom was he was by no means scared. No matter I requested him to do he would do it with a giant smile on his face in the midst of a conflict zone.”
Following on from his time on the International Workplace, Kingston joined the Iraqi Institute of Peace as a undertaking officer from 2003 to 2006. The Occasions experiences that Kingston “developed a status as a gifted younger diplomat and a religious Christian” throughout his time there, and labored tirelessly to assist Iraqi Christians rebuild their lives within the wake of Sadam Hussein’s reign of terror.
Kingston then veered again into the calmer world of finance, first working as an fairness analyst for Schroders, the worldwide asset administration agency, then because the managing director of Voltan Capital Administration till 2017. Kingston later grew to become a managing director at Devonport Capital, a monetary agency based by former Metropolis lawyer Paul Bailey, who had beforehand run a “boutique funding agency” in Iraq. The enterprise, for which Kingston was a co-owner on the time of his loss of life, proved profitable and was not recognized to be in any financial bother.
His entry into the royal household
Kingston’s widow, Girl Gabriella, is the daughter of Queen Elizabeth’s first cousin, Prince Michael of Kent, and his spouse Princess Michael of Kent. Whereas this makes them comparatively minor royals, Prince Michael’s first cousin-status additionally supplied an indelible hyperlink to Queen Elizabeth, and so the Michaels had been saved within the public eye — even once they want they weren’t.
Prince Michael of Kent and Princess Michael of Kent (Kirsty O’Connor/PA)
PA Wire
Referred to as “Princess Pushy”, Princess Michael has suffered her justifiable share of gaffes throughout her years within the royal household, together with the notorious “racist” brooch incident. This occurred when Princess Michael met Meghan Markle for brunch, all of the whereas outfitted with a “blackamoor” brooch that options the bust of a human with black pores and skin. Princess Michael apologised, with a spokesperson saying she was “very sorry and distressed that it has induced offence”.
And Girl Gabriella was not devoid of scandal, both. In 2018, the 12 months earlier than Kingston wed into the household, Girl Gabriella’s ex-boyfriend, Aatish Taseer, penned a bombshell article for Vainness Truthful that, amongst different issues, claimed they’d taken MDMA in royal residences and swam bare within the Queen’s pool in Buckingham Palace. The article additionally alleged additional racially-insensitive actions from Princess Michael, worsening her public profile. He referred to an article printed within the New York Publish with the headline ‘Royal Bigot’. The story claimed that Princess Michael had advised some noisy clients (and other people of color) at Da Silvano, an Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village, to return to the colonies. She denied it, saying: “I’d by no means have mentioned that.”
Michael and Carole Middleton, James Matthews, Pippa Middleton and James Middleton arrive at Thomas Kingston and Girl Gabriella’s marriage ceremony
POOL/AFP through Getty Photos
However Kingston didn’t care. He was thrust into public life in 2019 when the information of his proposal to Girl Gabriella, which happened on the Isle of Sark, within the Channel Islands, the place his household has a vacation dwelling, made the information in 2018. The pair had already been an merchandise since 2015, having been launched by mutual mates.
He wed Girl Gabriella in a ceremony at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Fortress in Might 2019, and the pair regarded an image of wedded bliss. The Queen, Prince Philip and Prince Harry had been all in attendance, regardless of Harry changing into a father to Prince Archie simply weeks beforehand. Additionally in attendance had been Pippa Middleton, Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, Girl Frederick Windsor (aka Sophie Winkleman, Claudia Winkleman’s sister). The one notable absence was Prince William, who was busy together with his function as President of the Soccer Affiliation, presenting the trophy on the FA cup closing. Publish-nuptial celebrations had been held in Frogmore Cottage, the identical location as Harry and Meghan’s marriage ceremony reception.
Girl Gabriella Kingston and Thomas Kingston attend the non-public view of “Gabrielle Chanel. Vogue Manifesto” at The V&A in September 2023
Gareth Cattermole/Getty Photos
Within the years since their marriage, the Kingstons have appeared glad and properly at quite a few public features. Their final public look was in February 2024, the identical month Kingston died, at a a celebration of Shakespeare’s work on the Grosvenor Home Park Lane Lodge in London. Shut mates of the couple advised the MailOnline they appeared completely glad. “They appeared glad and constructive as ever,” the shut good friend mentioned. “Ella was significantly chatty.” One other good friend mentioned: “It is totally surprising. None of us noticed it coming. I can’t perceive it.”
‘One of many final true English gentleman’ dies within the countryside
The invention of Kingston’s physique at his dad or mum’s Gloucestershire dwelling despatched shockwaves round his household and the broader group. The Telegraph reported that Girl Gabriella’s brother, Lord Frederick Windsor, is who knowledgeable Kingston’s closest mates of his loss of life, together with the three greatest males at his marriage ceremony.
One shut acquaintance advised the newspaper on the time: “We’re so upset concerning the information, all people cherished him. He was form, charming and completely respectable and one of many final true English gents. It’s past tragic and so exhausting to get one’s head round.”
In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s In the present day programme this morning, Kingston’s mother and father Martin and Jill Kingston paid a transferring tribute to their son publicly for the primary time.
“I would love him to be remembered as somebody with a giant smile on his face, whereas serving to folks to do tough issues,” Martin Kingston mentioned.
Additionally they described the day of his loss of life, with Jill Kingston explaining how they shared a “beautiful lunch” with their son, who appeared “regular”, earlier than spending the day enjoyable, studying and sitting by the hearth. “He was enjoyable. We had been laughing about varied issues,” she mentioned.
Thomas Kingston in a photograph supplied by his household
Household Handout
Recalling the second she and her husband discovered their son’s physique, Kingston mentioned: “There was a room close by the place he would have put all his stuff so we knew he’d gone up there, in order that’s the place I went to search for him.
“Once I went up it was all quiet and he clearly wasn’t up there so I went again to the home and checked his room and all his luggage had been all prepared for going again to London, so I went again up and that is once I observed the locked door.”
Martin Kingston then defined: “When Gill could not discover Tom and realised one of many rooms within the outbuilding was locked and that was, yeah… I needed to break the door down […] I’d have problem explaining what it was like with out crying.”
Since Kingston’s suicide, the inquest into his loss of life has decided that the 45-year-old had lately come off antidepressants. His mother and father at the moment are calling for elevated protections across the prescription of those drugs.
The couple desires sufferers to signal a doc confirming they’ve been advised concerning the difficulties of occurring and coming off the medicine, together with telling the affected person that this might result in suicide.
“We would actually wish to see that an individual, a partner, a companion, a dad or mum, an in depth good friend, any individual, was going to stroll with them by it. Perhaps they need to be at that signing time,” Jill Kingston mentioned.
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