Her maternal grandparents were Sir Harold Wernher, 3rd Bt, and Countess Anastasia de Torby, morganatic daughter of Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich of Russia.

Through the countess, she and her siblings claimed descent from the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin and his great-grandfather, the Afro-Russian courtier Abram Petrovich Hannibal.

She was christened at St Margaret's Church, Westminster, with Lord Mountbatten, the Duchess of Kent, and Sir William Stephenson among her godparents.

[1] She had a debutante ball attended by 800 guests including the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at Luton Hoo, the Bedfordshire seat of her maternal grandparents, the Wernhers, in the summer of 1964.

[5] In June 1979, James succeeded his father as 5th Duke of Abercorn and moved to the family seat, Baronscourt, near Newtownstewart in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.