Mary Hay, 14th Countess of Erroll
Mary Hay, 14th Countess of Erroll, was a Scottish noblewoman who held her titles in her own right. She was the 18th Hereditary Lord High Constable and Knight Marischal of Scotland, making her the senior Great Officer among Scotland’s royal officers and the Chief of the King's Household in Scotland. She inherited these duties in 1717 after the death of her unmarried brother, Charles Hay, 13th Earl of Erroll.
She was the eldest daughter of John Hay, 12th Earl of Erroll, and Lady Anne Drummond. Her family were active Jacobites. Her mother and brother were secret agents for the exiled court at Saint Germain-en-Laye. Her brother Charles was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle on suspicion of treason and lived in exile abroad from 1712 to 1715.
As the eldest sister and heir, she was recognized as High Constable at the coronation of King George II, though she was represented by a deputy.
In 1745 she supported the Jacobite rising of Charles Edward Stuart and raised an army of Buchan men. Slains Castle became a central hub for Jacobite activity and for landing agents, who were then guided inland to Delgatie Castle. Jamie Fleeman, the Laird of Udny’s fool, served as a messenger for these rebels. In 1747, after the Heritable Jurisdictions Act of 1746 abolished heritable jurisdictions, she received £1,200 for the regality of Slains.
Before 1722 she married Alexander Falconer of Delgaty (1682–1745), an advocate who later adopted the Hay surname. He died in July 1745. Mary Hay herself died on 19 August 1758 at Slains Castle, Aberdeenshire. She had no children, so the family dignities passed to her great-nephew James, Lord Boyd—the grandson of her sister Lady Margaret Hay and son of William Boyd, 4th Earl of Kilmarnock, who had been executed in 1746 for his role in the Jacobite rising of 1745.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 03:46 (CET).