The Hon. John Adam Humphrey Drummond and Countess Sophie von Einsiedel are 12th cousins, as both are descendants of King Henri IV of France (1553-1610) and his second wife, Marie de Medici (1575-1642).
Sophie is a descendant of Henri's eldest son, King Louis XIII, who married Infana Ana of Spain. John's line of descent is through Henri's youngest child, Princess Henrietta Maria, who married Charles I. Their younger son, King James II, and his mistress, Arabella Churchill, had a daughter, Henrietta FitzJames, who married Henry Waldegrave, 1st Baron Waldegrave of Chewton.
Lord and Lady Waldegrave had three children, including a son, James, who succeeded his father in 1690 as the 2nd Baron Waldegrave. He was created Earl of Waldegrave in 1729.
James was married to Maria Walpole, the natural daughter of Edward Walpole, and they had three daughters, the eldest, Lady Elizabeth Laura, married her first cousin, George, 4th Earl of Waldegrave. The second earl died from smallpox at the age of 48, and the earldom passed to his brother, John.
The Waldegrave line continued Geoffrey, 12th Earl of Waldegrave (1805-1905), who married Mary Hermione Grenfell. Their daughter, Lady Elizabeth Waldegrave, married John Dewar, 4th Baron Forteviot. In 1988, Lord and Lady Forteviot's third daughter, Hon. Mary Emma Jeronima Dewar, married Adam Humphrey Drummond of Megginch, 17th Baron Strange.
Mary is a first cousin of David, 4th Duke of Fife, whose mother, the Hon. Caroline Dewar, is the older sister of the 4th Baron Forteviot. Her mother, Lady Elizabeth, is Lady Susan Hussey's older sister.
The Strange barony was created in 1299 by Writ, not a Letters Patent. English baronies created by Writ allow for female succession. In 1447, John le Strange, 8th Baron Strange, who was married to Jacquetta Woodville (sister of Queen Elizabeth, consort of Edward IV), died without male issue. The title passed to his daughter, Joan, who married George Stanley, who became the 9th Baron Strange (de jure uxoris -- in the right of his wife). Their son, Thomas, succeeded his grandfather as 2nd Earl of Derby and also inherited the Strange barony.
The barony went into abeyance in 1594 with the death of Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby. The earldom was inherited by his younger brother, but the Strange barony fell into abeyance.
However, the succession became a bit murky. In 1594, the 6th Earl of Derby erroneously claimed the Strange barony. This error continued when Lord Derby's son, James Stanley, was called to Parliament with a Writ of Acceleration as Lord Strange. It was soon learned that this second Barony Strange was created due to a clerical error. Because of this error, there are two different Strange Baronies.
It took more than 300 years for the original barony of Strange to be called out of abeyance. In 1921, Elizabeth Philipps, married to John, 1st Viscount St. David, succeeded as the 14th Baroness Strange (1299).
The Drummond family's barony is the one created by mistake in 1628. Following the death of William, 9th Earl of Stanley, this barony went into abeyance between his two daughters, Lady Henrietta and Lady Elizabeth. After Lady Elizabeth's death in 1714, the barony came out of abeyance and was inherited by her older sister, Lady Henrietta.
Henrietta was married twice. She had a daughter, Lady Henrietta Bridget, by her second husband, John Ashburnham, who succeeded to the title of the 5th Baroness Strange. When she died unmarried in 1732, the Strange barony was inherited by her great-uncle, the 10th of Derby (brother of the 9th Earl.
The 10th Earl of Derby died in 1736. A distant cousin inherited the earldom, but the Strange barony passed to James, 2nd Duke of Atholl, whose mother, Lady Amelia Stanley, was the daughter of James, 7th Earl of Stanley.
The 1628 Barony was now held by the Duke of Atholl. The 2nd duke had no surviving male heirs. His daughter, Lady Charlotte, inherited the barony, and his nephew, John, succeeded as the 3rd Duke.
Lady Strange married her first cousin, the 3rd Duke, and became the Duchess of Atholl. The barony remained with the dukedom until 1957 with the death of the unmarried 9th Duke of Atholl (14th Baron Strange). The dukedom was inherited by a fourth cousin twice removed, but the barony went into abeyance between the three daughters of the 4th Duke of Atholl: Lady Charlotte, Lady Amelia Sophia, and Lady Elizabeth. In 1965, Queen Elizabeth II ended the abeyance in favor of John Drummond, who was the grandson of Lady Charlotte and her second husband, Adam Drummond of Megginch.
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| The Times January 7, 1965 |
The new 15th Baron had three daughters and no sons. When he died in 1982, the barony fell back into abeyance. It was not until 1986 that abeyance ended in favor of his eldest daughter, Cherry, who was married to Humphrey ap Evans. With the Lord Lyon of Scotland's approval, Cherry and her husband took the surname Drummond of Megginch and moved into Megginch Castle in Perthshire.
A diversion from the royal descent: Cherry's father, John, was a first cousin to Hon. John Francis Amherst Cecil, who married Cornelia Vanderbilt, the only child of George Washington Vanderbilt II. Their mothers, Geraldine (Cherry) and Mary, were two of seven daughters of William Amhurst Tyssen-Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst of Hackney. When Lord Amherst died in 1909, Mary inherited the barony. This barony had a special remainder for Mary's succession and her male heirs. She married Lord William Cecil, a younger son of the 3rd Marquess of Exeter.
Although Cornelia and John's marriage ended in divorce, their two sons (and their descendants) are the heirs to Biltmore House, the largest house in the United States, located in Asheville, North Carolina. The Hon. John Drummond is a fourth cousin of Bill Cecil, Jr, the President & CEO of The Biltmore Company, which runs the Biltmore Estate.
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| Lady Strange @Megginch Castle |
In 1987, the Times reported that Queen Elizabeth II "approved a change in procedures designed to stop heirs traffiking in ancient hereditary titles." The Queen accepted a House of Lords privileges committee report to "make it simpler and less expensive for heirs to inherit titles where there is no dispute with his or her relatives."
It was the Strange barony that led to the change. One of Cherry's sisters did oppose her inheritance but changed her mind. Sir Michael Havers, the Attorney General was required to refer the case to the Privileges Committee, but he made it clear that the inheritance was not "tainted with impropriety."
The 16th Baroness Strange and her husband, Humphrey, were the parents of three sons and three daughters. Their eldest son, Adam, inherited the title following his mother's death in 2005. One of his first cousins is the actress Geraldine Somerville, who played the adult Lily Potter in the Harry Potter films. Geraldine is the daughter of the Hon. Margaret Drummond and Sir Quentin Agnew-Somerville, 2nd Bt.
Cherry's second daughter, the Hon Amelie Margaret Mary Drummond, was married in 1990 to Philippe de MacMahon, 4th Duke of Magenta (1938-2002). They had two children: Pélagie Jeanne Marie Marguerite Charlotte Natalie de MacMahon and Maurice Marie Patrick Bacchus Humphrey de MacMahon, 5th Duke de Magenta.
In 2023, Pélagie married Prince Amaury Yves Michel Marie Joseph of Bourbon-Parma
The current Lord Strange - John's father - and it was assumed that he would inherit the estate when his mother died. Unfortunately, for Adam, the day before his mother died, she "summoned two witnesses at 4am and altered her will, leaving her £3 million fortune" to her youngest child, the Hon. Catherine Herdmann.
“I Jean Cherry Strange wish to leave all my assets, both physical and financial, to my daughter Catherine Star Violetta Herdman.”
Lady Strange died the following day. The news about the will was made public in April 2006. A family friend told The Times: “Everyone had assumed Adam, as the eldest son, would inherit the estate. It is all very confusing, and quite a few people in the family have been left very upset by the way things have turned out. It doesn’t seem to be the normal way of doing things, but everything about that family is strange.”
https://archive.ph/yuWRR#selection-1685.0-1685.296
Megginch Castle had been in the Drummond family since 1661. Lord Strange has dropped of Megginch from his surname. After news of his mother's will becoming "common knowledge," Lord Strange told the BBC: "I don't want to make further comment on the matter."
A former major in the Grenadier Guards, Lord Strange said: "My mother made a will the day before she died. The document gave all her property and belongings to my younger sister.
"My mother spent a lot of time with Catherine when she was in London on parliamentary business, so I suppose they became quite close. But it was still a bit of a shock. I was very upset at the time because I had also lost my mother.
"Some may think it is a strange way to do things, but this is my family. We all have families, and so this will remain private, family business."
He and his wife continue to live in a cottage on the Megginch estate. At the time of his succession as 17th Baron Strange, Adam was employed by the Perthshire Housing Association.
Lord and Lady Strange and their son, John, own Balmyre Farm in Perth. John was born in Perth on November 3, 1992. He has an older sister, Sophia.
John earned a Master of Science in construction management from the University of Reading. He also has a degree in Ancient History and Archaeology from Newcastle University. For the last two years, he has been a Project Manager with the Leeds-based construction firmm Turner & Townsend.
Sophie's descent from King Henri IV is completely European. King Louis XIII's great-grandson, Francis I (1708-1765), was the Holy Roman Emperor who married Maria Theresa, daughter of Emperor Karl VI of Austria. Maria Theresa succeeded her father as the Empress of Austria. Their fourteenth child, Archduke Ferdinand Karl (1754-1806), married Maria Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Massa and Carrara.
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| Archduchess Maria Leopoldina. |
Ferdinand Karl's fourth child, Archduchess Maria Leopoldina, married twice, first to Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria. After his death, she married Count Ludwig von Arco-Zinneburg. Their son, Count Maximilian, married Countess Leopoldine of Waldburg zu Zeil und Trauchburg, and were the parents of nine children, including Countess Irene, the wife of Count Friedrich von Oberndorff.
Irene and Friedrich's son, Franz, married Countess Therese Wolff Metternich zur Gracht. Their son, Friedrich, was married to Baroness Margarethe-Marie von Berckheim. They had six children, including Countess Walburga, who married in 1950 to Count Wittigo von Einsiedel.
Wittigo and Walburga are Sophie's paternal grandparents. Their eldest of four children, Count Sandro Florian von Einsiedel (1951), is a registered architect and is the owner of von Einsiedel Architekten BDA. He is also a Professor at Stuttgart University's Institute for Building Construction.
http://einsiedel-architekten.de/cms/vita/
Countess Sophie is the second of three daughters of Count Sandro von Einsiedel and his second wife, Dorothee Philipps. She earned a degree in geography from the University of Cambridge, followed by a master's degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Edinburgh. She is a Landscape Architect with VOGT's London office.
Sophie is a Ph.D candidate at the Chair of Landscape Architecture and Transformation at the Technical University of Munich.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/18626033.2024.2463196#d1e135
She is not the first member of her immediate family to marry into the British nobility. Her uncle, Count Andreas von Einsiedel, was married to Harriet Duckworth, the daughter of Henry George Austen de l'Etaing Herbert Duckworth and the Hon. Mary Katherine Chatfield. Henry's mother was Lady Margaret Herbert, daughter of the 4th Earl of Carnarvon.
Andreas and his former wife have had four children, the eldest of whom is Orlando von Einsiedel, the Oscar-winning British filmmaker.
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