King Charles and the Prince and Princess of Wales were among the senior members of the Royal Family to attend the Duchess of Kent’s funeral on Tuesday.

One woman was, however, conspicuous by her absence at Westminster Cathedral: the late duchess’s daughter-in-law, Lady Nicholas Windsor.

The Daily Mail understands that Paola has separated from Lord Nicholas Windsor, younger son of the Duke and Duchess of Kent. It is a fresh blow for the duke, 89, a first cousin of the late Queen Elizabeth, whose wife died earlier this month aged 92.

Lord Nicholas, 55, a godson of the King, made history when he and Paola Frankopan, 56, a member of the Croatian and Italian nobility, were married in 2006.

It was the first Roman Catholic wedding of a member of the Royal Family since the reign of Queen Mary I in the 16th century and also the first to be held in Vatican City State.

‘It’s very sad, but the couple have been separated for some time,’ a friend of the family told this newspaper yesterday.

‘They no longer attend family events together. Both are very conservative and dislike divorce, so apparently they will never actually get divorced.’

The couple have three sons, Albert, Leopold and Louis. An Early Day Motion in the House of Commons welcomed the baptism of Albert as the first royal child to be baptised a Catholic since 1688.

The Daily Mail understands that Paola (pictured, right) has separated from Lord Nicholas Windsor (pictured, left), younger son of the Duke and Duchess of Kent
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The Daily Mail understands that Paola (pictured, right) has separated from Lord Nicholas Windsor (pictured, left), younger son of the Duke and Duchess of Kent

He met Cambridge University-educated Paola at a party in New York in 1999
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He met Cambridge University-educated Paola at a party in New York in 1999

Lord Nicholas, who moved from Westminster public school to Harrow because he was bullied, hit the headlines when he was caught with drugs as a teenager.

He was let off with a caution after police searched him in St James’s Park, yards from Buckingham Palace, and found a small amount of cannabis. Later he dropped out of university to go travelling in Africa.

Lord Nicholas, who has worked as a teacher and for a charity, made the news in 2001 when he followed the example of his mother and converted to Roman Catholicism. As a result, he forfeited his place in the line of succession to the throne.

He met Cambridge University-educated Paola at a party in New York in 1999.

Their wedding seven years later was a three-day extravaganza that included a white-tie ball and a reception atop a hotel overlooking the Forum in Vatican City. The couple were granted an audience with Pope Benedict XVI before the ceremony.

The bride’s parents, Prince Louis and Princess Ingrid, have a castle in Croatia and a home in Kensington, west London.

Although Lord Nicholas has generally shunned the limelight, he wrote a controversial article in 2010 in which he claimed that abortion was a bigger threat to Europe than Islamic terrorism.

He described it as ‘the single most grievous moral deficit in contemporary life’ and called for a ‘new abolitionism for Europe’ in which abortion, like the slave trade, could be abolished.

While the threat of terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda called for ‘robust and, where necessary, lethal response’, he claimed in the American journal First Things that ‘these are not threats that appear existential and have not as yet provoked a real sense of public crisis’.

A Buckingham Palace spokesman declined to comment.