Diana Hay, 23rd Countess of Erroll

Diana Denyse Hay, 23rd Countess of Erroll (5 January 1926 – 16 May 1978, Oban, Scotland) was a Scottish noblewoman.

Biography
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 Spicer in Wiltshire.

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.

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. They had three children:
 Merlin Sereld Victor Gilbert, later 24th Earl of Erroll (b. 20 April 1948), 4 children.
 Hon. Peregrine David Euan Malcolm Moncreiffe of that Ilk, Chief of Clan Moncreiffe (b. 16 February 1951), married in 1988 Miranda Mary Fox-Pitt (b. 29 December 1968), 6 children.
 Lady Alexandra Victoria Caroline Anne Moncreiffe Hay (b. Edinburgh, 30 July 1955), married Jolyon Connell (b. Edinburgh, 16 May 1952) and had Flora Diana Katharine Cecilia Connell (b. London, 24 February 1990); Ciara Edith Elisabeth Connell (b. London, 28 March 1994); she also has a son, Ivar Francis Grey de Miremont Wigan (b. Perth, 25 March 1979).

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 11 other peeresses.  Moncreiffe and Lady Erroll were divorced in 1964 and on 27 November that year, she married, in Lonmay, Major Raymond Carnegie (born 9 July 1920, a grandson of Charles, Earl of Southesk) and they had one son, the Hon. Jocelyn Jacek Alexander Bannerman Carnegie (b. 21 November 1966), who married Susan Mhairie Butler in 1990; the couple had six children; Merlin Thomas Alexander Bannerman Carnegie (b. 25 April 1991); Cecilia Diana Catriona Pearl Carnegie (b. 4 January 1993); Maximilian Archibald Josslyn Carnegie (b. 21 December 1995); Finn Kenneth Redvers Carnegie (b. 21 October 1997); Frederica Cecilia Sasha Carnegie (b. 6 April 2000); Willa Cecilia Susan Carnegie (b. 9 September 2001).

Lady Erroll died in 1978, aged 52. Her titles passed to her eldest son, Merlin. The cause of death has never been publicly disclosed.

References

Sources
 Genealogy website

External links
 

 
 

Category:1926 births
Category:1978 deaths
Category:Earls of Erroll
Category:Hereditary women peers
Category:Scottish countesses
Category:Lord High Constables of Scotland
Category:20th-century British women politicians
Category:20th-century Scottish politicians
Category:20th-century Scottish women