Sadness of Britain’s foremost Catholic duke as he gives up eight-year battle to save his marriage

AFTER 34 years of marriage, the Duke of Norfolk has confirmed his divorce has been finalised, saying: ‘It’s just terribly sad.’

The staunchly Roman Catholic Duke, Edward Fitzalan-Howard, said both he and Georgina had tried to save the union but they were splitting ‘amicably’ now their children are adults.

Speaking to The Mail on Sunday, the Duke – who will eventually have the job of organising Prince Charles’s coronation – said: ‘By God we tried. For the sake of the family, and because we are Catholic, we really, really tried everything. It proved completely impossible and we had to move on.

‘The final divorce bit was instigated a year ago and now it’s finally come through. It’s just terribly sad, but we have to move on for the sake of the children – we can’t go on putting them through this.’

The Duchess, 60, has kept the couple’s Angmering Park House and 100 acres of the estate, which forms a small part of 16,000 acres owned by the Duke on the South Downs.

He lives less than two miles away at Peppering Farm, a property which was once occupied and decorated by the Duchess during one of their trial separations.

The Duke, who is worth £100million, will also keep Arundel Castle, the 1,000-year-old ancestral home in West Sussex.

The couple married in 1987 and have five children, now aged between 24 and 33. They separated in 2011, much to the sadness of close friends and family, and the split was said to be so acrimonious that they missed the Royal Wedding of William and Kate to avoid being in the same room as each other.

By 2016 they were back together, just before the wedding of their eldest son Henry, who will one day take on the prestigious title of 19th Duke of Norfolk.

The Queen, a close friend of both the Duke and the Duchess, was said to be delighted at this reconciliation, while the Catholic Herald ran an

article praising their decision to stay together.

But last year the Duke said the reunion had been shortlived and he was now in a new relationship.

At the time, the couple maintained they had no plans to divorce and, as recently as April this year, the Duke would only go as far as to say their future was ‘uncertain’.

But now the Duke – who is regarded as the most senior lay member of the Catholic Church in Britain – has revealed the divorce papers were signed in June.

He added: ‘Since the divorce, to be truthful, there’s no sharing. The castle is mine now, for family and weekends. Her area of influence is just Angmering House.

‘The financial settlement was agreed a long time ago, but since then we reconciled – now it’s been put into action after all.

‘The biggest hardness is just the sadness of the two of us not succeeding in making it work. That’s the biggest sadness, honestly. There wasn’t one thing that broke us – we tried and tried and tried, over eight years. We really have given it our best shot, there’s no doubt about it. It’s completely amicable and terribly sad.’

The Duke is now in a relationship with Francesca Herbert – known as Chica – the mother of socialite Frankie Herbert and ex-wife of Harry Herbert whose father, the 7th Earl of Carnavon, was the Queen’s closest confidant.