Thomas Kingston, husband of Lady Gabriella Windsor, died at his parents £3million country mansion in Gloucestershire

Thomas Kingston, husband of Lady Gabriella Windsor, died at his parents £3million country mansion in Gloucestershire, MailOnline has learned.

Paramedics were called to the large, detached home at around 6pm on Sunday.

Police also attended the property where the 45-year-old former hostage negotiator and financier’s parents Martin and Jill Kingston have lived since 1996.

A spokesman for Gloucester Ambulance Service said they had attended a private residence in the Cirencester area.

The spokesman said: ‘Gloucester Police have confirmed ambulance from Gloucester Ambulance Service attended a private residence.’

The house is on the National Heritage Register of listed buildings with its gate pier, boundary wall, outbuildings and garden features noted as being of historical architectural significance.

Martin Kingston KC is a well-known planning law barrister while his wife is a trustee of the Nadezhda Charitable Trust.

The 71-year-old had been heavily involved in work relating to Ukraine and has also run conferences for women in Ethiopia.

Mr Kingston, 74, was elected to the National Synod in 2016.

According to the National Heritage Register, the Kingston family home dates from the 17th Century and was built for Henry Poole.

It was much altered and enlarged in the mid 19th century by architect RW Billings.

Further remodelling took place in the mid 20th century, according to its entry. 

Buckingham Palace said it was supporting Mr Kingston’s devastated family despite the couple not being working royals, which is testament to just how well liked Lady Gabriella, often known just as ‘Ella’, is in the highest royal circles. 

Mr Kingston wed Lady Gabriella, 42, in 2019 in a ceremony attended by the late Queen and Prince Philip and a host of other senior royals. 

In a statement released yesterday, a spokesman for Their Majesties 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’.

Last summer, Lady Gabriella, a writer, and Mr Kingston, who during his previous career with the Foreign Office was posted to Iraq, were pictured enjoying the company of the King, her second cousin, and Queen Camilla at Royal Ascot.

In happier times, the two couples were seen laughing and joking as they cheered on their respective horses at the event – with Lady Gabriella’s relaxed, chatty nature, which has long endeared her to the senior royals, clear to see.

Lady Gabriella had been dating Mr Kingston for a number of years when he proposed while they were on the island of Sark in 2018. 

He was a director of Devonport Capital, which specialises in providing finance for companies in ‘frontier economies’.

The Bristol University graduate worked in Baghdad, Iraq, according to the Telegraph, working to procure the release of hostages after joining the Diplomatic Missions Unit of the Foreign Office.

At the couple’s wedding on May 18th 2019, the guest list proved the esteem in which Lady Ella is held by the royal family, with the late Queen and Prince Philip joined by other senior royals including Prince Harry, who took time away from his then newborn son Archie.

In the days following her husband’s shock death, Lady Gabriella, who studied at both Brown University in the US and the University of Oxford – and boasts degrees in Comparative Literature and Social Anthropology, is likely to turn to her closest family.

Her parents, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, married in 1978 and she has one older sibling, Lord Frederick ‘Freddie’ Windsor.

Freddie, 44, and his wife Sophie Winkleman, 43, half-sister of Strictly presenter Claudia, live close by after re-locating back to the UK from California.

In an interview with Tatler magazine in December, Sophie said she loved ‘all the Kents’, suggesting the family share a close relationship.

Her parents, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, enjoyed a close relationship with their son-in-law.

The couple put on a brave face yesterday as they attended a memorial for King Constantine of Greece, hours before news of their son-in-law’s death broke.

Despite their own family tragedy, the couple were determined to pay tribute to the late Greek monarch. 

Mr Kingston’s family are also likely to encircle Lady Gabriella with a ring of support. The minor royal and Mr Kingston’s family have put on a united front following their loss.

A statement released by the Palace on behalf of Lady Gabriella, Thomas’s parents and his sisters, read: ‘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.’

Serving in the diplomatic missions unit of the Foreign Office in Baghdad, Mr Kingston had countless brushes with death, including escaping a suicide-bombing that claimed 22 lives.

No one knew him better in those perilous times than the Reverend Canon Andrew White, who for more than ten years presided over the only Anglican church in Iraq, a role that led to him being dubbed the Vicar of Baghdad.

He previously told the Mail, he recalled Kingston as ‘an exceptional young man’ who ‘makes things happen’. His great strength, he said, was to ‘see beyond the impossible’.

Like the priest with whom he shared a strong faith, Kingston was also an ‘adrenaline junkie’. He helped with his ministry, which built up a following of 6,500 worshippers.

Canon White added: ‘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.’

While some were drawn to Iraq for business, for Kingston the lure of Baghdad was far more personal.

He was instead driven by a strong faith instilled in him by his parents – his father was elected to the General Synod of the Church of England and his mother a trustee of a Christian healing centre in Cirencester.

Sent to Baghdad, he was seconded as a project manager for the International Centre for Reconciliation, which is based at Coventry Cathedral, to mediate in disputes between political, religious and tribal leaders and to negotiate the release of hostages.

Baghdad was where Canon White and Tom met. ‘Tom is an individual with a very strong faith,’ recalled the Canon in a chat with the Daily Mail’s Richard Kay in 2019.

‘It was that faith and commitment which led to us working together in Iraq, where we survived some close scrapes. They were a daily occurrence.

‘Tom has a fierce determination to make things succeed and great insight into what makes humans tick, both good and bad. He uses those to see beyond the impossible and get through to the other side.’

His work with Canon White, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, helped maintain the Anglican Church in Baghdad, which was established in 1990.

‘We built up a huge following, hundreds of whom I baptised as children and who have relocated to Jordan. Tom helped me.’

The church was in a former palace of Saddam Hussein’s and the pulpit one of his thrones.

‘Those were good times,’ recalled the clergyman. ‘I think Tom would agree and we have stayed in touch by phone and email since.’

Both men were in the church when it was targeted in a suicide-bomb attack in 2004.

They had walked in just before the blast, which killed two of the congregation and 20 others.

Intriguingly, Mr Kingston was also at the time working with Prince Michael of Kent, his future father-in-law, even though he had not at that stage met his daughter Gabriella.

‘Prince Michael has a relative who is buried on the Mount of Olives. While we were working there, we located the grave for him and ensured it was properly tended,’ added Canon White.

Mr Kingston would later leave Baghdad, doing so to join the private bank Schroders, and later joined Devonport Capital where he helped find investment for ‘frontier’ economies and those undergoing postwar reconstruction.

He had always discreetly flittered in and around royal circles before his marriage to Lady Windsor, with women attracted to his languid confidence.

He was seen in close quarters with Pippa Middleton, the sister of the Princess of Wales, and financier Natalie Hicks-Lobbecke, who was an old flame of Prince William and whom he dated while working in Iraq.

Despite that relationship not working out, it was telling that none of his ex-girlfriends ever appeared jilted.

As one close friend said would admiringly tell the Mail: ‘Tom’s great achievement is that none of his old girlfriends have anything but nice things to say about him. Even when it’s all over, they still like him.

‘In old-fashioned terms, he is a gentleman, just the kind of guy you want to introduce to your mother.’

It was perhaps this that helped swing things in his favour when he and Lady Gabriella Windsor became an item and it was soon apparent they would be together for the long run.