The Duke of Marlborough has appeared in court and indicated not guilty pleas to charges of strangling his estranged wife.
Charles James Spencer-Churchill, a distant relative of Winston Churchill and Diana, Princess of Wales, is accused of three charges of intentional strangulation against Edla Marlborough between November 2022 and April 2024.
High Wycombe magistrates court in Buckinghamshire was told the 70-year-old is accused of striking Marlborough, 57, several times after a row in their garden before putting his hands around her neck on 13 November 2022.
The court was told that on 23 April 2023 Marlborough ran into a laundry room where the defendant is alleged to have grabbed her, hit her with a closed fist and strangled her.
The final allegation is that the duke pushed Marlborough on to a bed and assaulted her after putting his hands tightly around her neck on 29 January 2024.
Spencer-Churchill appeared in the dock on Monday and spoke to confirm his name and date of birth and gave his address as Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. He also indicated not guilty pleas.
He was granted conditional bail to appear at Oxford crown court on 5 February, where he will be asked to formally enter pleas to the charges.
Spencer-Churchill, the former Marquess of Blandford, became the 12th Duke of Marlborough after inheriting the title from his father, John Spencer-Churchill, who died in 2014 aged 88. He married Edla, his second wife, in 2002 but they separated in 2024.
Blenheim, the family’s ancestral home, is Winston’s Churchill’s birthplace.
The duke does not own the 18th-century baroque palace and estate, which was given by Queen Anne to the first Duke of Marlborough in 1704. The Unesco world heritage site is instead owned by a foundation.