'Wifelet' lover of late 7th Marquess of Bath sues his estate

‘Wifelet’ lover of late 7th Marquess of Bath – owner of Longleat House and safari park – sues his estate after being left nothing in aristocrat’s will

• Amanda Doyle, 57, was one of 74 lovers or ‘wifelets’ of the late Marquess of Bath
• Ms Doyle moved into a cottage on aristocrat’s 10,000 Longleat estate in 2004
• However, she received nothing in Lord Longleat’s will upon his death aged 87
• Now, Ms Doyle is petitioning for ‘reasonable financial provision’ from his estate 

A High Court battle has broken out over the estate of the late Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath – a man who was as famed for keeping mistresses as ‘wifelets’ as his love of the arts.

During the course of a 51-year marriage to his Hungarian-British wife, actress Anna Gael, Lord Bath enjoyed the favours of 74 lovers or ‘wifelets’.

He immortalised his entanglements with them in a series of murals which he prominently displayed at Longleat House, the family seat and safari park in Wiltshire.

But his relentless pursuit of pleasure meant that he bequeathed not just a £23 million personal estate but also a legal and emotional quagmire, as made plain by the High Court claim.

Amanda Doyle, one of the lovers or ‘wifelets’ of the late Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath, is suing his estate after she was left out of her lover’s will upon his death aged 87 in 2020

Lord Longleat (pictured with Ms Doyle in 2005) was as famed for his colourful private life and keeping ‘wifelets’ as he was for love of the arts 

It has been brought against Alexander Bath’s trustees by Amanda Doyle, a former music producer estimated to have been wifelet 69.

Doyle insists that she was ‘entirely financially dependent’ on ‘the Loins of Longleat’, as Bath was popularly known, for 21 years — a period which, she says, ended only with his death, aged 87, in April 2020 after contracting coronavirus. 

Like all her fellow wifelets, Doyle went unmentioned in Bath’s will, in which he left everything to Anna, their daughter Lenka and son Ceawlin, now the 8th Marquess. 

The late 7th Marquess of Bath pictured outside Longleat House, Wiltshire, in 1997

Lord Bath and Amanda Doyle are pictured in London in 2002 together. She was one of his wifelets 

The current Marquess is married to Strictly star Emma Weymouth. Bath’s widow Anna died in September last year.

Doyle says she first encountered Bath at a Tommy Hilfiger launch party in the late 1990s, and is now seeking ‘such reasonable financial provision as the court thinks fit’.

She went to live in a cottage on the 10,000-acre Longleat estate in 2004 and will hope that The Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 will aid her case. 

It states that those who were financially dependent on the deceased can, in certain circumstances, claim for ‘financial provision’.

Shortly after Bath’s death, Doyle insisted that she mattered more to the lusty aristocrat than any other wifelet.

‘I’m the one who had the long relationship, the emotional relationship, the sexual relationship,’ she said. ‘We were twin souls, two peas in a pod. He was my life.’

Only a few of the 7th Marquess’s wifelets remained at 10,000 acre Longleat site at the time of his death, including Trudie Juggernauth-Sharma and Amanda Doyle. 

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