Friends of Thomas Kingston shocked by his death as they tell how he and Lady Gabriella were ‘happily married until the end’ as royals mourn his passing

Friends of Thomas Kingston have been shocked by his death as they told how he and Lady Gabriella were ‘happily married to the end’.

The 45-year-old financier and former hostage negotiator was found dead at his parents’ £3 million mansion in Gloucestershire on Sunday evening.

An investigation will be conducted to determine the cause, but there are no suspicious circumstances and no other parties involved.

Buckingham Palace announced his death on Tuesday, hours after his parents-in-law, Prince and Princess of Kent, put on a brave face as they attended King Constantine of Greece’s memorial service at Windsor Castle.

King Charles and Queen Camilla have joined grief-stricken Kents in mourning Mr Kingston.

Yesterday his close friends, reeling from his shock death, said he and Lady Gabriella ‘remained childless but happily married to the end’.

The couple, who married at Windsor Castle in 2019, had no known relationship or financial problems, a source close to the family said. The times.

They were last pictured together in public on Valentine’s Day at an event celebrating the works of William Shakespeare.

The couple were at an event at the National Gallery with a friend last Wednesday and said they ‘looked happy and positive as ever’.

Another old friend told how the thoughtful Mr Kingston had focused on others ‘perhaps to the detriment of his own sanity’.

A priest named the Vicar of Baghdad last night also paid tribute to the late devout Christian.

The Revd Canon Andrew White, who led Iraq’s only Anglican church and worked with Mr Kingston in Baghdad, said the ‘adrenaline junkie’ couple had cheated death numerous times.

Mr Kingston worked in the war-torn country for almost three years, mediating conflicts and negotiating the release of hostages.

Paying tribute to his ‘best ever intern’, Mr White told the Mail: ‘I’ve worked with Tom in all kinds of dangerous places. Most of the time we were in the middle of a war zone.’

Rev White described Mr Kingston as ‘a risk taker and a person of great faith’.

‘Tom was not a yellowbelly. He was never afraid. I could never say to him ‘do this’ and he would say it was too dangerous. He was always willing to be there.”

Mr Kingston’s work with the priest, who has multiple sclerosis, helped sustain the Anglican Church in Baghdad, which was founded in 1990.

Mr Kingston, who studied economic history at the University of Bristol, has repeatedly encountered death, most notably during a suicide bombing at the church in 2004, which killed 22 people.

Pastor White recalled another occasion when the pair visited a shrine to the prophet Ezekiel in Babylon and encountered a massive traffic jam on the way back.

He said, ‘We couldn’t move, and I remember saying, ‘What are we going to do, Tom?’ And he said, ‘Pray.’ I said, ‘Lord, have mercy on us,’ and suddenly a huge oil tanker exploded about 80 feet in front of us.

‘If we hadn’t been stuck in traffic, we would have died instantly. But this was something that happened every day.”

Before Mr. Kingston met Lady Gabriella, Rev. White remembers saying to him, “All my interns accomplish two things. They do very exciting work when they leave here, and they marry very beautiful women. And you will do both…and he did both.”

The priest said he met Lady Gabriella, 42, who is 57th in line to the throne, at the Carlton Club in London’s Mayfair after Mr Kingston proposed in 2018.

He said: ‘She was such a sweetheart. I loved her. I remember sitting down and she said, “Well, who am I marrying anyway?”

“I said, ‘You’re marrying more than a rock star. You’re marrying one of the great people who never took no for an answer and always took risks.’ I said, “I hope you’re being very bold, because you need to be.”

‘She said, “I’m very sassy and I’m very in love, so don’t worry.”

In a statement from Buckingham Palace on Tuesday, relatives of Lady Gabriella and Mr Kingston described him as “exceptional” and someone who “lightened the lives of all who knew him”.

A statement released alongside her husband’s parents, Martin and Jill Kingston, and his sisters, Joanna Connolly and Emma Murray, said: ‘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 entire family and we ask that you respect our privacy as we mourn his passing.”