Richard Kay: How Britain's most toxic society divorce has ended

He was raised in a family where upbringing and ‘doing the right thing’ were the benchmarks of success. They were the principles that guided Charles Villiers not only in life but also when it came to the manner of his sudden and untimely death.

Yesterday it emerged that the distant cousin of the Duchess of Cornwall, who was the defendant in one of Britain’s longest and most toxic divorces, had apparently killed himself in a London hotel room.

Friends believe it was typical of the ‘gentle and kind’ aristocrat that he should choose the anonymity of a hotel to end his life and thus avoid causing pain to loved ones who might otherwise have discovered him.