Pushy’s first husband takes secrets to grave
For nearly 30 years he maintained a discreet and dignified silence over his tumultuous marriage to Princess Michael of Kent.
But whatever secrets old Etonian banker Thomas Troubridge might have kept hidden about his six-year union to the controversial Princess have gone with him to his grave.
For Troubridge — referred to sympathetically during his marriage to Czech-born Marie- Christine as ‘poor Tom Troubridge’ by Private Eye magazine — died last weekend aged 75. He was enjoying a shooting weekend with friends in Dorset where he suffered a heart attack.
He and Marie-Christine married at Chelsea old Church in 1971, where ushers reported the couple had ‘a blazing row’ in the vestry.
They were divorced six years later after Marie-Christine became involved with Prince Michael.
She is said to have met the Queen’s first cousin not long after her first wedding, while staying at Barnwell Manor in Northamptonshire, home of Troubridge’s old school friend Prince William of Gloucester.
The pair grew close while her marriage began to disintegrate when Troubridge was posted to Bahrain.
She said: ‘For a long time we [she and Michael] cried on each other’s shoulders. I saw him, for a year, simply as a friend.
‘Now I’m glad we had that time because friendship is something you never lose.’
After her divorce, Marie-Christine obtained an annulment in the hope
that the Pope would allow her to marry Prince Michael in a Roman Catholic ceremony. When this was refused, the couple wed in Vienna Town Hall in 1978.
After the breakdown of his marriage, Troubridge worked as President of British merchant bank Kleinwort Benson in New York, where he chose to remain for a number of years in order to avoid his ex’s social circle.
He subsequently married an Austrian, Petronella von Woyrsch, in 1981.
While the Princess became famous for her haughty, foot-in-mouth moments — earning the soubriquet Princess Pushy — Troubridge remained a by-word for old school discretion, having chosen never to speak publicly about their time together.