An extended member of the British Royal Family who was once close to the late Queen has passed away under unfortunate circumstances.

Lord Charles O’Hagan, who was a godson to the late Queen Elizabeth II, died on March 23 at the age of 79 after suffering a severe head injury, according to the New York Post.

In addition to counting the queen as his godmother, the elderly retired politician also once served as one of her attendants in the early years of her decades-long reign.

Fatal brain injury

Hello! magazine reported that a formal inquest revealed that Lord Charles Towneley Strachey O'Hagan had died on March 23 at the North Devon District Hospital in Barnstaple after suffering an unexplained head injury.

The head injury is suspected of resulting in a subdural hematoma, or bleeding on the brain, which is often associated with some sort of trauma to the head.

Such head trauma could be minor or severe, and the risks of a hematoma are significantly higher for the elderly or for those who take blood-thinning medication or have a history of alcohol abuse.

A subdural hematoma occurs when a blood vessel located between the brain and skull is damaged, releasing blood and forming a blood clot that puts damaging and potentially fatal pressure on the brain.

Served as one of the queen's pages

The New York Post reported that Lord O'Hagan was born into the British nobility as the grandson of politician Maurice Towneley-O’Hagan, the 3rd Baron O’Hagan. After studying at Eton College and New College in Oxford, he served in politics as a member of the European Parliament for several decades.

O'Hagan's mother, Lady Mary Sophia Palmer, served as a Lady-in-Waiting for then-Princess Elizabeth in the mid-1940s and beyond, and she developed a close relationship with Elizabeth while caring for her and her newborn son, Charles, the future king.

That relationship led to Elizabeth becoming the godmother to Lady Mary's son, Charles, who developed his own relationship with the queen when he served as a Page of Honor in the late 1950s after she'd been crowned.

A thrice-married member of the European Parliament

The Independent reported that it reached out to a representative of the British Royal Family for comment about Lord O'Hagan's death and apparent head injury but did not receive a response.

O'Hagan, said to be one of around 30 godchildren of the late Queen Elizabeth II, served his hometown of Devon as a Member of the European Parliament from 1973-75 and then again from 1979-1994, when he retired.

He was involved in three marriages over the years, the first of which was to Georgian Princess Tamar Bagration-Imeretinsky from 1967 to 1984, in which the couple produced a daughter, Nino Natalia O'Hagan Strachey.

Just a year after that marriage ended in divorce, O'Hagan married Mary Claire Roose-Francis but divorced her 10 years later in 1995, at which time he quickly was wed for a third time that same year to Elizabeth Lesley Eve Smith, with whom he spent the remainder of his life.