I am not going to take sides in the yes-William-had-an-affair-with-Lady C or no-William-has-not-plucked-a-garden-Rose. But I will use this post to point out that royal writers and news sites called The Daily Beast are clueless about titles and so much else.
The Rose in question is the Marchioness of Cholmondeley, the wife of David George Philip Cholmondeley, 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley, Earl of Rocksavage, Viscount Malpas. The family surname is Cholmondeley, pronounced Chumley. As a peer of the realm, Lord Cholmondeley signs his name as Cholmondeley. His wife signs her name as Rose Cholmondeley.
The present Marquess was born in 1960. When his grandfather, George, the 4th Marquess was alive, David was styled as Viscount Malpas. David's father, then the Earl of Rocksavage succeeded to the Marquessate in 1960. David, as the heir apparent, was now styled as the Earl of Rocksavage (Lord Rocksavage).
In 1990, David succeeded his father as the 7th Marquess.
Lord Cholmondeley is a descendant of Sir Robert Walpole, Britain's first Prime Minister. A portion of the family's wealth came when his grandfather married Sybil Sassoon, a descendant of the Sassoon and Rothschild families.
He is the Lord Great Chamberlain, a hereditary honor that he will hold through Queen Elizabeth II's reign. The position passed to the family after the first Marquess of Cholmondeley married Lady Georgiana Charlotte Bertie, daughter of Peregrine Bertie, 3rd Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven. The position had been held by the Dukes of Ancaster and Kesteven. With the death of Lady Georgiana's brother, Robert, the 4th Duke, who died without issue, the position of Lord Great Chamberlain went into abeyance The second, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh marquesses have all held this office.
Lord Cholmondeley married Sarah Rose Hanbury, daughter of Tim Hanbury and Emma Longman, whose mother, Lady Elizabeth Lambart, daughter of the 10th Earl of Cavan, was one of Princess Elizabeth's bridesmaids. Rose's sister, Marina is married to the 7th Earl of Durham.
The marriage took place on June 24, 2009, a day after the engagement announcement was made. The bride was pregnant. She gave birth prematurely to twin sons, Alexander Hugh George and Oliver Timothy George on October 12, 2009. As the firstborn son, Alexander bears the courtesy title Earl of Rocksavage, Oliver, as a younger son of a Marquess, is as Lord Oliver Cholmondeley, not Oliver Lord Cholmondeley. A younger sister, Lady Iris Marina Aline Cholmondeley was born in March 2016.
And the reason that Prince Harry and Lady Cholmondeley were paired at the State Banquet for the King and Queen of Spain in 2017 was due to precedence, nothing more. As Lord Great Chamberlain, Lord Cholmondeley has higher precedence than if he were attending as a Marquess in the peerage of the United Kingdom.
Richard Kay, whose job it was to allegedly provide cover for William, wrote in a recent article that "So does all that add up to a close friendship? According to an authoritative family source, the two couples have been to each other’s homes only three times."
This comment is slightly off-kilter as Lord and Lady Cholmondeley and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are all members of Norfolk's "Turnip Toff's" social circle. The Marquess and Marchioness were guests at the Duchess of Cambridge's birthday parties at Anmer Hall in January 2017 and 2018. On both occasions, David and Rose joined other party guests for Sunday service with the Queen at Sandringham. Lady Rose is next to her husband in the photograph.
Lord and Lady Cholmondeley live at Houghton Hall, which is a few miles from Anmer Hall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's country residence. Lord Cholmondeley also owns Cholmondeley Castle in Cheshire.
By car, it is a 15-minute drive Houghton to Anmer.
https://www.houghtonhall.com/
http://www.cholmondeleycastle.com/


