Christian (Kisty), Lady Hesketh, was born into wealth and privilege. She saw much of the wealth go,

Christian (Kisty), Lady Hesketh, was born into wealth and privilege. She saw much of the wealth go, and did not repine. As for privilege, to her mind this entailed obligation, which she unfailingly fulfilled. Her life was marked by tragedy and misfortune; yet no one could be in her company without feeling the better for it. Her zest for new experience never failed. Denied the university education she merited, she made herself into a scholar and was awarded a doctorate by King’s College London for her thesis on the political opposition to the government of Charles I in Scotland. Kisty was the only girl among the seven children of Sir John McEwen of Marchmont and his wife Bridget, a daughter of Sir Francis Lindley, British ambassador to Japan in the 1930s. The McEwens were not, by the standards of the Scottish borders aristocracy, an old family, for their money dated only from the 19th century, and Kisty’s father, a soldier, poet and MP, was the first baronet. When, later, one tragedy followed another, four of her brothers dying young, then also a niece and nephew (the third baronet), and eventually Marchmont itself, an Adam house made over by Sir Robert Lorimer, had to be sold. The McEwens came to be regarded as a doomed family, seen by many as a Scottish Brideshead. Kisty bore all this stoically, as she did the death in a car crash of her second son, Robert, in 1997.  Kisty married Freddy, Lord Hesketh, when she was only 20. She thus became chatelaine of Easton Neston, Northamptonshire, the only country house built by Hawksmoor, and one of the most beautiful in England. Five years later, however, her husband died suddenly, and she was left to bring up three young sons. A fourth child was stillborn a few weeks after her husband’s death. In 2004, Lord Hesketh found he could no longer support the financial burden of Easton Neston, and that house too was sold. Again, Kisty did not repine. She moved to a London flat and remained as active, sociable and inquiring as ever. Throughout the many tragedies and blows that struck her, she was fortified by her religious faith. · Christian Mary ‘Kisty’ Fermor-Hesketh, Lady Hesketh, historian and campaigner, born July 17 1929; died April 7 2006 Jewelry from the Sotheby’s sale of her estate. article from her obituary in the Guardian. -- source link

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