She was born in Paris in 1916 to Sir Michael Palairet, a career diplomat,[1] and his wife, Lady Mary de Vere Palairet (née Studd; 1895-1977), and brought up in the Roman Catholic faith to which her parents had converted.
[citation needed] She was raised in Japan, China and Bucharest, where she would help her father by decoding messages that had been sent to him.
Her husband took diplomatic postings in Libya, Zanzibar, and St Lucia, and he was the governor in the Seychelles.
[2] Lord and Lady Oxford had five children – two sons, both diplomats, and three daughters (the middle one married to another diplomat): Lord Oxford inherited the estate of Mells Manor from his mother Katharine Asquith, younger daughter of Sir John Horner, of Mells, and his wife Lady Frances (née Graham).
[6] He was succeeded in his peerage titles, which he had held for over eighty years, by their elder son, Raymond, a former British diplomat and elected hereditary member of the House of Lords.