[6] His father objected to the match on the grounds of "mad blood", a reference to the institutionalised relatives of the queen, and the engagement was broken off.

[2] He served as equerry to King George VI (1950–52) and to Queen Elizabeth II (1952–54),[10] and was invested as a Member (fourth class) of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) in 1954.

Frances Ruth Roche, the younger daughter of the 4th Baron Fermoy, were married in Westminster Abbey by Percy Herbert, Bishop of Norwich.

[14] The marriage was not a happy one, and in 1967, Frances left John to be with Peter Shand Kydd, an heir to a wallpaper fortune in Australia, whom she had met the year before.

Immediately thereafter, Frances married Peter Shand Kydd and John was granted custody of their children by the courts after his former mother-in-law, Ruth Roche, Baroness Fermoy, testified against her own daughter.

[18] His funeral was held at the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Great Brington, and his ashes were interred in the family vault beneath the Spencer chapel.