SARAH VINE: Tragic reminder for this generation of royals that death is no respecter of age or social class

The news that Lady Gabriella Windsor’s husband, Tom Kingston, has died suddenly at the age of 45 might seem of little immediate importance to the fate of the Royal Family: after all, she is 57th in line to the throne.

But while it may not cause much of a constitutional crinkle, it is nevertheless a personal tragedy.

Kingston was by all accounts a lovely man, as dashing as he was dishy. A financier, he also worked as a hostage negotiator in Baghdad, in the Diplomatic Missions Unit at the Foreign Office.

Before getting together with Lady Gabriella, now 42, he dated the Princess of Wales’s sister, Pippa, and was also linked to Natalie Hicks-Lobbecke, an old flame of Prince William’s.

When he and Lady Gabriella tied the knot in 2019, their wedding was attended by the late Queen and Prince Philip. It came hot on the heels of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s nuptials a year earlier, and those of Princess Eugenie and Jack Brookbanks. Three glamorous young royal weddings: the next generation finally settling down.

Tom Kingston, husband of Lady Gabriella Windsor, has died aged 45. He worked as a hostage negotiator in Baghdad, in the Diplomatic Missions Unit at the Foreign Office

The couple on their wedding day in 2019. The ceremony was attended by the late Queen and Prince Philip

How desperately sad, then, for Lady Gabriella, known to her friends as Ella, to have become a widow at such a young age.

As for her parents, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, they must have been terribly torn between being by their daughter’s side and attending today’s memorial service for King Constantine of Greece. They were pictured today, talking quietly together at St George’s Chapel, where Lady Gabriella’s wedding took place only five years ago.

Kingston’s sad passing is a reminder to us all that death is no respecter of class or age. Happiness – if you are lucky enough to find it – is something to be treasured.

For this generation of young royals, so relatively unscathed by tragedy, Kingston’s untimely end will no doubt come as a terrible shock. Especially when the older generation suddenly doesn’t seem quite as robust as it once was. Poor Lady Gabriella fainted at the lying-in state ceremony of the late Queen Elizabeth: like so many, she was deeply affected by the loss of a woman whose presence seemed immutable.

The Kingston marriage was by all accounts a very happy one, which makes the whole thing even more heart-breaking. Especially since poor Lady Gabriella had not had the best luck with men in the past, having dated a rather nasty piece of work called Aatish Taseer, a British journalist, who later revealed details of how they once swam naked together in the indoor pool at Buckingham Palace and took ecstasy at Windsor Castle.

He also wrote that ‘royals and Nazis go together like blinis and caviar’ and was spectacularly scathing of Ella’s mother, Princess Michael of Kent, writing of her ‘that everybody above a certain age in Britain is at least a tiny bit racist’.

But in Kingston, Lady Gabriella seemed finally to have found her peace, someone who understood her rather studious nature (friends say she is incredibly down-to-earth, and always happiest buried in a book) and who was with her for who she is, not what she represents.

It’s not easy for royals like her, who carry all the baggage of that association but enjoy few of the obvious advantages, to find their path in life.

The last picture of them together, taken on Valentine’s night this year at an event also attended by Queen Camilla, shows them beaming happily at the camera. They are the very picture of a joyous couple in their prime: beautifully matched not just in spirit but in appearance (both are wearing electric blue).

May he rest in peace; and may she find comfort in the loving arms of her family.