Tragedy of the nicest Royal couple: As inquest hears shotgun was found near body of Lady Gabriella Windsor’s dashing husband Thomas, heartbroken friends are still reeling in disbelief. RICHARD KAY and SAM GREENHILL report

They left the church arm in arm, their smiles radiating affection and warmth — the bride in a classy Italian couture gown that hugged her slim figure and the handsome groom unleashing that devastating grin that made him a ‘debs delight’ on the social circuit.

As they stood on the steps of St George’s Chapel, acknowledging a crowd of cheering well-wishers and on the threshold of a life together, Lady Gabriella Windsor and her new husband Thomas Kingston seemed blissfully happy.

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Tragic final photograph of Thomas Kingston with Lady Gabriella Windsor
‘She was very pretty and he looked proud,’ one guest remembers. ‘They had that steady gaze of supreme contentment. My wife whispered to me: “This is a couple who will never be parted.”’

No one could imagine that 12 weeks short of their fifth wedding anniversary, Tom would take a family shotgun and remove himself forever from her side.

Yesterday, an inquest heard how the 45-year-old son-in-law of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent was found dead next to the gun with a catastrophic head wound in an outbuilding in the grounds of his parents’ £3million mansion in Kemble, Gloucestershire.

Top Stories
by Daily Mail
00:24
01:00
Tragic final photograph of Thomas Kingston with Lady Gabriella Windsor
‘She was very pretty and he looked proud,’ one guest remembers. ‘They had that steady gaze of supreme contentment. My wife whispered to me: “This is a couple who will never be parted.”’

No one could imagine that 12 weeks short of their fifth wedding anniversary, Tom would take a family shotgun and remove himself forever from her side.

Yesterday, an inquest heard how the 45-year-old son-in-law of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent was found dead next to the gun with a catastrophic head wound in an outbuilding in the grounds of his parents’ £3million mansion in Kemble, Gloucestershire.

Lady Gabriella Windsor marries husband Thomas Kingston
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Lady Gabriella Windsor and her new husband Thomas Kingston seemed blissfully happy on their wedding day in May 2019
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Lady Gabriella Windsor and her new husband Thomas Kingston seemed blissfully happy on their wedding day in May 2019
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Details of the final hours that lead up to this devastating tragedy last Sunday were sketchy and almost workaday. He’d had lunch with his parents, Martin and Jill, at the family home, a 15-minute drive from King Charles’s rural retreat Highgrove House.

Following the lunch, Tom’s lawyer father had taken the family dogs out for a walk. When he returned to the house, where the couple have lived since 1996, his son was no longer there.

Thirty minutes or so went by and his mother went out to look for him. Soon after that, her husband, unable to raise a reply, forced open the locked door of an outbuilding.

Inside, he found their son with a fatal injury.

No other parties were believed to be involved. Gloucestershire Police previously said officers were called to the scene by an ambulance crew just before 6.30pm. According to a post mortem, cause of death was confirmed to be a traumatic wound to the head.

Opening the inquest, which lasted barely five minutes, Katy Skerrett, the senior Gloucester coroner, confined her remarks to the briefest outline of what occurred. ‘Mr Kingston’, she said, ‘was visiting his parents’ home in the Cotswolds. His father went out to walk the dogs.

On his return, Mr Kingston was not in the house. His father forced entry on a locked outbuilding when no reply could be gained. He found Mr Kingston deceased with a catastrophic head injury. A gun was present at the scene. Emergency services were called. Police are satisfied the death is not suspicious.’

Just what drove this apparently happy man in the prime of life with an adoring wife to an act of desperation is now likely to be the subject of intense inquiries.

Is Harry and Meghan’s US schmooze offensive stalling?
Tragedy of the nicest Royal couple: As inquest hears shotgun was found near body of Lady Gabriella Windsor’s dashing husband Thomas, heartbroken friends are still reeling in disbelief. RICHARD KAY and SAM GREENHILL report
By Richard Kay and Sam Greenhill
02:13 GMT 02 Mar 2024 , updated 12:13 GMT 02 Mar 2024

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What happened to the his apparently happy man in the prime of life with an adoring wife? RICHARD KAY’S exclusive report
They left the church arm in arm, their smiles radiating affection and warmth — the bride in a classy Italian couture gown that hugged her slim figure and the handsome groom unleashing that devastating grin that made him a ‘debs delight’ on the social circuit.

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As they stood on the steps of St George’s Chapel, acknowledging a crowd of cheering well-wishers and on the threshold of a life together, Lady Gabriella Windsor and her new husband Thomas Kingston seemed blissfully happy.

Top Stories
by Daily Mail
00:24
01:00
Tragic final photograph of Thomas Kingston with Lady Gabriella Windsor
‘She was very pretty and he looked proud,’ one guest remembers. ‘They had that steady gaze of supreme contentment. My wife whispered to me: “This is a couple who will never be parted.”’

No one could imagine that 12 weeks short of their fifth wedding anniversary, Tom would take a family shotgun and remove himself forever from her side.

Yesterday, an inquest heard how the 45-year-old son-in-law of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent was found dead next to the gun with a catastrophic head wound in an outbuilding in the grounds of his parents’ £3million mansion in Kemble, Gloucestershire.

Lady Gabriella Windsor marries husband Thomas Kingston
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Lady Gabriella Windsor and her new husband Thomas Kingston seemed blissfully happy on their wedding day in May 2019
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Lady Gabriella Windsor and her new husband Thomas Kingston seemed blissfully happy on their wedding day in May 2019
TRENDING

Prince William and Prince Anne take the reins as Camilla takes break
146.9k viewing now

Exhausted Camilla, 76, takes a week off from royal duties
125k viewing now

Is Harry and Meghan’s US schmooze offensive stalling?
107.8k viewing now
Details of the final hours that lead up to this devastating tragedy last Sunday were sketchy and almost workaday. He’d had lunch with his parents, Martin and Jill, at the family home, a 15-minute drive from King Charles’s rural retreat Highgrove House.

Following the lunch, Tom’s lawyer father had taken the family dogs out for a walk. When he returned to the house, where the couple have lived since 1996, his son was no longer there.

Thirty minutes or so went by and his mother went out to look for him. Soon after that, her husband, unable to raise a reply, forced open the locked door of an outbuilding.

Inside, he found their son with a fatal injury.

No other parties were believed to be involved. Gloucestershire Police previously said officers were called to the scene by an ambulance crew just before 6.30pm. According to a post mortem, cause of death was confirmed to be a traumatic wound to the head.

Opening the inquest, which lasted barely five minutes, Katy Skerrett, the senior Gloucester coroner, confined her remarks to the briefest outline of what occurred. ‘Mr Kingston’, she said, ‘was visiting his parents’ home in the Cotswolds. His father went out to walk the dogs.

Lady Gabriella Windsor with husband Tom Kingston two months after their wedding in 2019
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Lady Gabriella Windsor with husband Tom Kingston two months after their wedding in 2019
2022: Thomas Kingston seen alongside Lady Gabriella Windsor
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‘On his return, Mr Kingston was not in the house. His father forced entry on a locked outbuilding when no reply could be gained. He found Mr Kingston deceased with a catastrophic head injury. A gun was present at the scene. Emergency services were called. Police are satisfied the death is not suspicious.’

Just what drove this apparently happy man in the prime of life with an adoring wife to an act of desperation is now likely to be the subject of intense inquiries.

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Outwardly Tom Kingston seemed to have it all. Marriage to one of the ‘nicest’ members of the Royal Family, a wide circle of friends and a thriving financial investment business. He was a man for whom a life of glittering promise from childhood was marked by easy-going cheerfulness and reassuring convention. And someone, according to acquaintances, who sought nothing more than comfortable domestic fulfilment.

Although they had no children, married life clearly agreed with him. He had navigated the goldfish bowl existence that permeates all royal marriages, however distant from the throne. And he had done so with aplomb.

Lady Gabriella — Ella to her family and friends — is not close in the line of succession to the Crown but as the daughter of the colourful Princess Michael she had often found herself at the centre of unwanted attention. To her great credit she has always dealt with it with an easy smile.

The couple did not live extravagant lives or find themselves the target of the paparazzi.

In many ways their unfussy approach — home is a modest flat in fashionable Notting Hill which they had recently put on the market pending a move somewhere larger — would serve as a valuable life lesson for some of Ella’s royal cousins.

It earned them a place at the royal top table — guests of the King and Queen at their Ascot house party last summer and countless other A-list gatherings.

Indeed it was significant that the King interrupted his cancer treatment not only to pay moving tribute following Tom’s death but to instruct Buckingham Palace staff to provide support not just for Prince and Princess Michael but also for the stricken Kingston family. This was unusual because the Kents are not working royals. But it also reflects on Ella and Tom’s popularity.

His death has stunned a Royal Family already reeling from a host of domestic issues including Charles and the Princess of Wales’s illnesses, stretching their ability to carry out their normal functions.

Ella loved being married and being ‘Mrs Kingston’, though technically she still has her title and is, officially, Lady Gabriella Kingston.