US Edition Great-grandson of Queen Victoria more at home as a Highland laird than as a member of the wider Royal Family
CAPTAIN ALEXANDER RAMSAY OF MAR, who has died on the eve of his 81st birthday, was among the last surviving great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria and was perhaps the least familiar member of the extended Royal Family. The laird of Mar was the only son of Lady Patricia Ramsay, younger daughter of Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, who was Queen Victoria's third (and favourite) son.
Born Princess Patricia of Connaught, she had renounced her royal style and title upon her marriage in 1919 to Admiral Sir Alexander Ramsay, a son of the 13th Earl of Dalhousie, whom she had met when he was ADC to her father, then Governor-General of Canada. Their wedding, held at Westminster Abbey, was the first great royal occasion after the end of the war, and the focus of much public celebration.
Their son's birth was widely welcomed, so much so that the Admiral was heard to say: "They talk of Patsy's baby all the time. Where do I come in?" His son was senior to at least one member of the Royal Family, Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, in the Lord Chamberlain's list. As such, he was unlucky to have no royal title himself.
Had King George V not restricted the use of the title of Prince from 1917, Ramsay might have been born Prince Alexander, adopting a similar style to his first cousin, Prince Alastair (later the last Duke of Connaught). As it was, Ramsay was immensely proud of his royal connections, and was invariably present on the larger royal occasions. In later life, he would complain light-heartedly that these excursions into the bright lights too often obliged him to shed his tweed and to don a dinner jacket.
Alexander Arthur Alfonso David Maule Ramsay was born in his mother's bathroom at Clarence House, then home to the Duke of Connaught, on December 21 1919. He was christened in the Chapel Royal, St James's, in the presence of George V and Queens Mary and Alexandra. Two of Queen Victoria's daughters were also at the ceremony, Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, and Princess Christian, who was a godmother and held the infant Sandy during the service. According to one report: "the dear little fellow behaved in the most exemplary manner and was warmly approved of by all present". Other sponsors included the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII, and King Alfonso of Spain.
Ramsay was also closely related to the Swedish, Danish and Norwegian royal families. His aunt, Princess Margaret of Connaught, was the first wife of King Gustav VI Adolph of Sweden, and he was thus a cousin of her daughter, the late Queen Ingrid of Denmark.
Sandy Ramsay was a playmate of the present Queen when young and in 1937 was a Page of Honour at the Coronation of King George VI. He went to Eton, and in 1938 was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards; his grandfather, the Duke, was Colonel of the regiment. He fought with them in North Africa during the Second World War, and in 1943 lost his right leg below the knee as a result of a wound sustained during a tank battle near Medjez, Tunisia. Thereafter he made use of an artificial limb; his disability never prevented him from wearing the kilt.
From 1944 he was for three years ADC to his cousin, the Duke of Gloucester, who was Governor-General of Australia. Halfway through his time there, Ramsay was lucky to escape with his life when his car became trapped between two trams in Sydney and was sliced in half. Ramsay knew that it was intended that he should inherit the Mar estates near Balmoral from his aunt, Princess Arthur of Connaught, and on leaving the Army in 1947 he went up to Trinity College, Oxford, to read Agriculture.
The story is told that early in his first term Ramsay approached the Dean of the college to ask permission to miss a tutorial to attend the wedding of his mother's third cousin. This request did not impress the Dean, until the modest Ramsay revealed that the bride was Princess Elizabeth. Ramsay subsequently spent three years as an assistant factor on the Linlithgow estates at South Queensferry, and then in 1959 came into the 100,000 acres of the Mar estates, which afforded good stalking and timber.
Although forced to sell the greater portion to alleviate death duties, he was permitted to add the Mar style to his name. In 1991 he was sad to hear the news of the destruction of Mar Lodge by fire, though it had long since passed from his hands.
"The house," he remembered, "was marvellously vast. I once came down to dinner and found I'd forgotten my handkerchief. There was a clock on the wall, and when I got back from my room I noticed that it had taken me a quarter of an hour - and I hadn't been dawdling." He was cheered to learn that the wooden ballroom, with 3,000 antlers on the walls, had survived. In the 1980s he built himself a new house, designed by Oliver Humphries, on the estate.
In 1956, having obtained the necessary formal assent from the Queen, Ramsay married Flora Fraser, whom he had met at the Perth Hunt Ball. She later succeeded to her father's titles as Lady Saltoun and Chief of the Name of Fraser, and they lived at her ancestral seat, Cairnbulg Castle, Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire. There Ramsay was much occupied with estate and charitable duties; in 1971 he became a Deputy Lieutenant for the county.
For more than 30 years he was chairman of the executive committee of the Scottish Life Boat Council, and since 1959 had been vice-patron of the Braemar Royal Highland Society, which supervises the annual Games attended by the Royal Family.
Captain Ramsay was a devotee of family and Scottish history, and took a keen interest in heraldry. He also enjoyed shooting, sailing and travelling. He is survived by his wife and by their three daughters.