Palace confirms royal couple have divorced

Buckingham Palace has confirmed Lady Davina Windsor and her husband, Gary Lewis, have divorced after 15 years of marriage.

The split brings to an end an unlikely match between the 41-year-old great-granddaughter of King George V and the first man of Māori descent to marry into the royal family.

Lady Davina, who lived at Kensington Palace as a child, is daughter to the Queen’s first cousin, Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and is 30th in line to the throne.

“It’s very sad, but their differences were just too great in the end,” a friend of the couple told the Daily Mail.

The pair’s union was a hopeful one for royal watchers, with many citing it as proof marriages between royalty and commoners can in fact work.

Lady Davina met Gary, a carpenter by trade, while they were on separate holidays to Bali in 2000 and they married in the private chapel at Kensington Palace four years later.

The couple later moved to a working class suburb in Auckland where they lived in relative anonymity before eventually moving back to Britain.

‘Gazza’, as Lewis is reportedly known to friends, is the son of a champion sheep-shearer and has a 26-year-old child from a previous relationship.

Lady Davina gave birth to their daughter, Senna Kowhai in 2010 and a son, Tane Mahuta, two years later – the children are 31st and 32nd in line to the throne.

Although the reason behind the marriage breakdown remains unknown, friends have reportedly said ‘cultural differences’ was one of the causes.

Both Lady Davina and her now-ex-husband are said to remain ‘actively involved in the upbringing of their children’.

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