Duke of Manchester's illegitimate children have claim to estate, judge rules
The children of the Duke of Manchester's bigamous second marriage can benefit from his estate, after a judge ruled that the aristocracy cannot ignore the rights of illegitimate offspring.
The Duke of Manchester entered into a bigamist marriage in 1993 that produced two children
Britain must not "stand aloof in barbarous insularity" by preventing children from "invalid" marriages receiving inherited wealth, the judge said.
Alexander Montagu, the Australian-born 13th Duke and a distant relative of Diana, Princess of Wales, met his "bride" in a country and western night club in California.
He asked her out to dinner after handing her his business card, replete with his family crest and title.
He went through a "ceremony of marriage" in 1993 with by then heavily pregnant Wendy Buford, a 24-year-old Californian who worked for a law firm, and their son, also named Alexander, now 17, was born a week later.
Their daughter, Ashley, now 12, followed in 1999. MORE
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