A Service of Thanksgiving will be held at St Peter’s Episcopal Church, Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, on 25 November, 2024, for the Lady Saltoun, widow of a cousin of the King, who died last month aged 93.
Lady Saltoun was the twenty first holder of a Scottish peerage, and until her retirement in 2014 she was the only holder of a lordship of Parliament who had a seat in the House of Lords as an elected hereditary peer.
Lady Saltoun, of Cairnbulg Castle, Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, was, as a daughter-in-law of Lady Patricia Ramsay, a member of the Royal Family, and a regular visitor to Balmoral, and frequently seen on the platform of the Highland Games at Braemar as a guest of her husband's cousin, Queen Elizabeth II. The Braemar Gathering attended by the King and Queen is to take place on Saturday 7 September, 2024.
Lady Saltoun (pronounced Salton) was the Chief of the Name and Arms of Clan Fraser since 1 May 1984, by decree of the Court of the Lord Lyon. She was also the head of the Scottish lowland family the Frasers of Philorth.
The Saltoun title was created in 1445 for Sir Lawrence Abernethy, descendant of Hugh, Hereditary Abbot of the Pictish Abbacy of Abernethy on Tay, extant in 1172. The 4th Lord Saltoun fought at Flodden and escaped. On the death in 1669 of Margaret Abernethy, the title went to her cousin Alexander Fraser, a faithful supporter of both Charles I and Charles II, and has remained with the Frasers of Philorth ever since.
Flora Marjory Fraser was born 18 October, 1930, the only daughter of the 20th Lord Saltoun, MC, DL, JP (1886-1979), of Cairnbulg Castle, and his wife the former Dorothy Geraldine Welby (1890-1985), scion of the Welby baronets.
An elder brother, Lt Alexander Fraser, Master of Saltoun, MC, Grenadier Guards, was killed in action in February, 1944, aged 22, leaving Flora as heiress presumptive to her father's peerage.
She married 6 October, 1956, Capt Alexander Arthur Alfonso David Maule Ramsay of Mar, of the Grenadier Guards (born 21 December, 1919), scion of the Earls of Dalhousie, a godson of the then Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII and Duke of Windsor) and of Alfonso XIII, King of Spain, the only child of Admiral the Hon Sir Alexander Robert Maule Ramsay, GCVO, KCB, DSO (1881-1972), and his wife HRH Princess (Victoria) Patricia Helena Elizabeth of Connaught, CI, GCStJ (1886-1974), who on her marriage was authorised by Royal Licence to relinquish the style of royal highness and title of princess, and by another royal warrant was granted the style of Lady Patricia Ramsay, with precedence immendiately before marchionesses of England.
She succeeded her father in the Scottish peerage, 31 August, 1979.
Flora's husband succeeded his aunt Princess Arthur of Connaught, Duchess of Fife in the Mar Lodge estate, Aberdeenshire, and became the laird of Mar and was authorised by the Lord Lyon to add the designation 'of Mar' to his surname.
Lady Saltoun, as Chief of the Name and Arms of Fraser retained that name on marriage. Her husband died 20 December, 2000, the day before his 81st birthday. She died 3 September, 2024.
The last major royal event at which Lady Saltoun was present was the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in Westminster Abbey in 2011. The King and Lord Lyon King of Arms had to be informed of her death before it could be made public, but the news was leaked several hours before.
Lady Saltoun leaves three daughters, the Hon Katharine Fraser (who retained that surname on her marriage), the Hon Alice, and the Hon Elizabeth. The eldest daughter, born 11 October, 1957), a goddaughter of Queen Ingrid of Denmark and the late Princess Mary, Princess Royal, succeeds to the Lordship of Saltoun (Peerage of Scotland, created 28 June, 1445).
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