The Telegraph - July 24, 2011 by Philip Sherwell - The bigamist Duke and his three wives

The bigamist Duke and his three wives

After the 13th Duke of Manchester’s marital misdemeanours were aired in the High Court, his (very) extended family talk about the trials that the ignoble aristocrat has put them through.

Regrets: Wendy Buford met the duke in a bar in 1992. 'It was one of those nights when you wish you'd gone home' Photo: JEFF RAYNER/COLEMAN-RAYNER

By Philip Sherwell, In Los Angeles and Jonathan Pearlman in Melbourne

7:00AM BST 24 Jul 2011

It is the astonishing story of the bigamous duke, his three wives, and the illegitimate Californian son who could now inherit one of Britain’s most scandal-plagued peerages.

The chequered life of Alexander Montagu, the Australian-born 13th Duke of Manchester, has been thrown into the spotlight by a High Court ruling last week that instructed family trustees to re-instate monthly payments to his two American children, offspring from a marriage that had been declared “bigamous and void”.

Even by the sometimes ignoble standards of the aristocracy, the clan’s fall from the grace has been as spectacular as it has been tawdry.

Today, after the far-flung marital misdemeanours of the errant 48-year-old aristocrat reached the High Court in London, new details about the Duke – who has served jail time in Australia and been deported from Canada – can now be revealed.

The Duke’s three wives – two past, one present – as well as the duke’s teenage son and long-presumed heir, cast light on the misdemeanours of “Lord Alex”, as the disgraced peer calls himself.
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