Did Madonna's gamekeeper leave because Guy broke his arm?

Thereafter things went sour between gamekeeper Martin Taylor and his celebrated employers, Madonna and Guy Ritchie.

In charge of the prize shoot at the couple's country estate, Mr Taylor apparently was exasperated by the singer's insistence he should run it in line with the whims of her celebrity animal rights activist friends such as Stella McCartney and Trudie Styler.

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He also felt further let down when Madonna and her husband decided to shelve their shooting parties altogether because they felt it was against their kabbalah beliefs.

The final straw, say friends, was when Mr Martin had his arm broken when a play fight involving Ritchie escalated.

Now, after five rollercoaster years, Mr Taylor, 44, has quit the couple's staff at Ashcombe House, their £10million 1,200-acre estate on the Wiltshire-Dorset borders, and emigrated to the US to set up a shoot for a billionaire property developer.

There the gamekeeper may enjoy a freer rein than he did in England.

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Madonna is thought to have lectured him on her concerns over the way birds were reared intensively and how they should be humanely killed once shot.

As well as fretting about the souls of the birds, she is also said to have felt excluded by the laddish atmosphere of Ritchie's hunting parties with the likes of chef Marco Pierre White and exfootballer Vinnie Jones.

The "play fight" took place on the lawn at Ashcombe after Mr Taylor - a karate black belt nicknamed Mad Martin - was challenged by judo expert Ritchie.

A friend said: "There was a history to this fight. Martin and some of the locals on the estate would always take the mickey out of Guy.

"It was just fun really, but you could see there was simmering tension.

"Martin always maintains he was letting Guy win the fight, but at one point the arm just cracked.

""hat has apparently upset Martin is that Guy never came forward and apologised."

Speaking from his new home in Spring Cripple Creek, near Idaho, Mr Taylor said: "I was headhunted by an American billionaire called Ronald Saypol and I've come here to set up the first traditional English driven pheasant shoot in the entire U.S.A."

For legal reasons, he added, he could not talk about personal details of his time at Ashcombe.