A Scottish relative of the Duchess of Cornwall has been found dead in his hotel room after one of the longest divorces in the country.
Charles Villiers, from East Lothian, is a distant cousin of a Camilla, with the news of his death confirmed this week by police in London. Discovered by a housekeeper working for the Durrants Hotel in Marleybone, emergency services had raced to the exclusive hotel on Thursday, August 18.
Believed to have taken his own life, the 59-year-old was known to have been part of a long-running divorce with his former wife Emma Villiers, that saw a huge legal battle take place.
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Separating in 2014, the couple had filed for divorce two years later, with the full process taking over eight years to complete as they fought over whether it should be settled in Scottish or English courts.
According to the Scottish Daily Express, the divorce involved five different courts and 20 judges while it was being discussed, and at one point involved a police investigation into allegations of bigamy against Mrs Villiers - claims which were later dismissed by detectives.
Speaking of his death this week, the Times claimed that Mr Villiers had been experiencing financial issues, and had been flown back to the UK from Greece earlier this month by a friend who had concerns over his mental health.
Mr Villiers, a distant cousin of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, argued at the time of the high-profile divorce battle that both he and his estranged wife were divorcing in Scotland and should therefore have financial decisions decided in a Scottish court. He also argued that the couple had lived in Scotland since their marriage in 1994.
Inherited wealth in Scotland is not taken into account when dividing assets after a marriage breaks down and maintenance payouts are also generally limited to just three years after a divorce is finalised.
But Mrs Villers made the move to England following the pair's separation - where divorce laws allow for financial support for the rest of the claimant's lives. In a landmark decision, Supreme Court justices ruled against Mr Villiers, as reported by the MailOnline.
The Supreme Court subsequently ruled that Mrs Villiers, who had demanded a £3.5million settlement from her former husband, could proceed with her application for maintenance in England.
In March last year, Mr Justice Mostyn, of the High Court's family division, ruled that Mr Villiers was heavily in debt and should not be required to pay maintenance. But Mrs Villiers persuaded Lord Justice Moylan, Lord Justice Coulson and Lord Justice Arnold to overturn the ruling on appeal.
The three judges decided that Mr Justice Mostyn had been wrong to dismiss an application Mrs Villiers made for maintenance as they considered arguments at a Court of Appeal hearing in London in January and published a ruling in June this year and reached the 'clear conclusion' that it had been wrong to dismiss Mrs Villiers' application.
Judges have heard how Mr and Mrs Villiers had lived at Milton House, a Georgian manor near Dumbarton, West Dunbartonshire. But the home was repossessed in 2015.
At the most recent court hearing, Mr Justice Mostyn said both Mr and Mrs Villiers had made accusations against the other after 'love' turned to 'hatred'. The court ordered that Mr Villiers should pay his wife £10,000-a-year in maintenance and had adjourned the case to see if he had benefited from his father's estate.
Mr Villiers, who is a distant cousin of Camilla on his mother's side, had been engaged to opera singer Heidi Innes, 45, but she ended their relationship in February this year. She told the MailOnline she was "glad she didn't marry him officially" as he was "not the man I thought he was all this time."
Mr Villiers's mother was Elizabeth Keppel, the daughter of Viscount Bury, the son of the 9th Earl of Albermarle. Her mother was Lady Mairi Vane-Tempest-Stewart, the daughter of the 7th Marquess of Londonderry.
A spokesman for the Met Police told the Mirror : "Police were called by the London Ambulance Service at 13:11hrs on Thursday, 18 August to reports of an unresponsive man at a hotel on George Street, W1.
"Officers attended. At the scene a man, aged in his 50s, was found deceased."
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