British noblewoman
Diana Denyse Hay, 23rd Countess of Erroll
(5 January 1926 ? 16 May 1978, Oban, Scotland) was a British noblewoman.
[1]
Early life
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Diana was the only child of
Josslyn, Earl of Errol
and his first wife
Lady Idina Sackville
. She was born in Kenya. Their home was a bungalow on the slopes of the
Aberdare Range
which they called
Slains
, after the former Hay family seat of
Slains Castle
which was sold by Hay's grandfather, the
20th Earl
, in 1916. The bungalow was sited alongside the high altitude farms which other white Kenyans were establishing at the time.
When her mother divorced her father in 1930, she was taken home to England to be raised firstly by her uncle
The Earl De La Warr
and then by her aunt, Lady Avice Sackville, in
Wiltshire
.
Career
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When her father was murdered in 1941, she inherited the
earldom of Erroll
and the
lordship of Hay
, while the
barony of Kilmarnock
, which could only be inherited by a male heir, passed to her uncle Gilbert Boyd. She also inherited the hereditary position
Lord High Constable of Scotland
.
[2]
After the passing of the
Peerage Act 1963
which allowed
suo jure
peeresses to take a seat in the
House of Lords
, Lady Erroll did so, with eleven other peeresses.
Personal life
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On 19 December 1946, at
St Margaret's, Westminster
, Lady Erroll married
Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk
, the Chief of
Clan Moncreiffe
and a
herald
at the
Court of the Lord Lyon
.
[1]
Together, they were the parents of three children:
[3]
Second marriage
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Moncreiffe and Lady Erroll were divorced in 1964 and on 27 November that year, she married
Maj.
Raymond Carnegie
(b. 1920) in
Lonmay
. Carnegie was a grandson of
Charles Carnegie, 7th Earl of Southesk
. Together, they were the parents of one son:
[3]
- Hon. Jocelyn Jacek Alexander Bannerman Carnegie (b. 1966), who married Susan Mhairie Butler in 1990.
[3]
Lady Erroll died in 1978, aged 52.
[2]
Her titles passed to her eldest son, Merlin, the incumbent Earl of Erroll. The cause of death has never been publicly disclosed.
References
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]
- ^
a
b
Mosley, Charles (2003).
Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition. Vol I
. Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd. p. 1337.
- ^
a
b
"The Countess of Erroll".
The Times
. 20 May 1978. p. 16.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
"Erroll, Earl of (S, 1452)"
.
www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk
. Heraldic Media Limited
. Retrieved
10 June
2020
.
Sources
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External links
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