Known far and wide for her extraordinary versatility-she has written books, a play, and many magazine articles, in addition to which she is a clever artist and musician-and for her noble work on behalf of the Scottish crofters and the labourers in the Staffordshire potteries, the Duchess of Sutherland will be one of the most notable figures at the Coronation ceremony, apart from the fact that she will act as one of Queen Mary's canopy bearers. Her marriage to the Duke of Sutherland was a romance of 1884. She was Lady Millicent St. Clair Erskine, and, when a girl of sixteen, Lord Stafford, eldest son of the then Duke of Sutherland, came to stay with her parents, the Lord and Lady Rosslyn of that period. Lord Stafford immediately fell a victim to the charms of Lady Millicent, and married her on her seventeenth birthday, October 20, 1884. Four years later, the heir to the dukedom, the present Marquis of Stafford, was born, and subsequently two other children. The favourite residence of the Duchess is Dunrobin Castle, Sutherland, where she is indeed a Lady Bountiful.

The Duchess of Sutherland Rita Martin