Sir Ranulph Fiennes ‘drew up secret will’ after divorce veto

Sir Ranulph Fiennes reportedly wrote a secret will at Everest base camp during what has been described as a severe crisis in his marriage.

Michael Kobold, the explorer’s friend of 30 years, told The Mail on Sunday that Sir Ranulph handwritten the document in his tent in May 2008, the night before making an unsuccessful attempt to reach Everest’s 29,000ft summit.

Sir Ranulph then sealed the will and handed it to Mr Kobold, who remains in possession of it. He reportedly instructed his friend to open the document only after his death.

In an exclusive interview, Mr Kobold, a German watch entrepreneur based in Switzerland, said Sir Ranulph had decided to divorce his second wife, Louise Millington-Cotes, two months earlier, shortly before travelling from Britain to Nepal.

The explorer allegedly asked Mr Kobold to locate both a law firm and a public relations specialist to manage the divorce proceedings.

However, Mrs Millington-Cotes is said to have discovered the plan. According to the claim, she confronted Sir Ranulph at their farm on Exmoor in Somerset, prompting a “much deflated” explorer to abandon the decision.

Mr Kobold said last night: “I don’t know what’s in the will, and I promised Ran that I would not open it until he died.

“I become emotional when I think about it because it was an incredibly difficult period for all of us. Ran was unhappy with the situation.

“I was present when he wrote it by hand and when he signed it. In Ran’s mind, it was an extremely bleak period in his life — probably the darkest up to that point — because he felt trapped.”

The remarkable allegation comes amid intense speculation over the whereabouts of the world’s greatest living explorer, who has not been seen in public for two years.

Sir Ranulph, now 82 and living with Parkinson’s disease, is reportedly believed to have been moved between care homes in London, Wales and Cheshire by Mrs Millington-Cotes. Friends claim his identity was concealed under an alias and that they were prevented from visiting him.

Mrs Millington-Cotes, a horse trainer from Cheshire, married Sir Ranulph in 2005, following the death of his first wife, Ginny, the year before.

At one London care home, she reportedly required visitors to sign non-disclosure agreements. At another facility in Wales, where he was registered as Robert Millington, she allegedly instructed staff to prevent him from socialising with fellow residents.

After an outcry from friends, who have urged police and the Office of the Public Guardian to investigate, Sir Ranulph is now thought to be back at his remote farm in Shropshire, concealed behind a 6ft security gate.

Mr Kobold, who is writing a book about Sir Ranulph’s disappearance, spent several weeks living with the explorer and his wife in 2008. He said he was shocked by what he described as Mrs Millington-Cotes’s treatment of his friend.

“Louise subjected Ran to a relentless stream of attacks, humiliating him repeatedly in front of me and other people. It was heartbreaking,” he said.

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‘I’ll never forget the first night. I went to sleep feeling awful for Ran and was very sad. The next morning I woke up and thought that today things will be better. Well, that day was just as bad.

‘The only time we had any peace from her was when we went on runs, which perhaps explains why they always took so long [two to three hours].’

Mr Kobold claims that Sir Ranulph told him of an incident in which Mrs Millington-Cotes took his passport and locked him out of the house where they were living in Cheshire.

Sir Ranulph is said to have been injured as he attempted to climb back in through a bathroom window.

Mr Kobold claims that over several weeks, during which he was acting as Sir Ranulph’s de facto chauffeur, he persuaded the explorer to divorce his wife.

‘This was a firm decision and because Ran did not know how the mechanism works I was asked to basically organise everything around the divorce and manage it for him.’

Mr Kobold said he met a law firm in London and spoke over the phone to a PR specialist, because Sir Ranulph feared the divorce would ‘get ugly’ and he didn’t want to ‘be the next Paul McCartney’ – a reference to the acrimonious split of Sir Paul McCartney and his second wife, Heather Mills.

Sir Ranulph and Mr Kobold were due to discuss the plan at the explorer’s office at Greenlands, his farm on Exmoor. 

But to Mr Kobold’s surprise, Mrs Millington-Cotes arrived and insisted on talking to her husband alone.

‘She shows up, kicks me out, slams the door shut and spends ten minutes with Ran,’ Mr Kobold said.

‘Afterwards he says, ‘Mike, I’ve got bad news. Unfortunately I’m unable to move forward with the divorce.’

Days later, after Mr Kobold arranged a new passport, Sir Ranulph flew to Nepal for his second attempt at climbing Everest. Mr Kobold, who joined him at base camp, had previously seen a copy of the explorer’s will and does not know why he wrote a new document on the eve of launching his climb.

‘At base camp, for whatever reason, he created a new will. Something must have come into his mind. I just remember we were sitting in his tent and he wrote it out longhand and he signed it and he gave it to me.’

The legal status of the document is unclear because under English law, wills have to be signed by two witnesses. Mr Kobold said he may have signed the document, although he has no memory of doing so.

Sir Ranulph, then aged 65, was unable to reach the summit of Everest because of exhaustion, although he achieved the remarkable feat the following year, the oldest Briton to do so.

Mrs Millington-Cotes was approached for comment.