How Lord Nicholas Windsor's split from his wife was revealed weeks after the death of his mother, the Duchess of Kent

The whole royal family celebrated the life of the late Duchess of Kent with a funeral at Westminster Cathedral. But while the loss will have been keenly felt by all, it will have been an exceptionally difficult time for her youngest son in particular – Lord Nicholas Windsor , who has, according to well-placed sources, separated from his wife of 19 years.

Lord Nicholas, a godson of King Charles, is the youngest of the three children of the Duke and Duchess of Kent; like his late mother, he converted to Catholicism in 2001, thereby forfeiting his right of succession to the throne. He met his future wife, Paola Doimi de Lupis Frankopan, a Cambridge -educated member of the Croatian and Italian nobility, at a party in New York to mark the Millennium and the pair became engaged in 200