She was educated by private tuition, and at the Convent of French Nuns in Northampton and at St. Margaret’s Convent, Edinburgh. She gave early signs of the gift of poetry, stringing together couplets on incidents she had heard, her favourites being tales of battle and chivalry. She was steeped in the Jacobite sentiment of her ancestors, composing about the heroics of the Rising, though she also included more contemporary examples such as "The Highland Brigade at the Battle of the Alma", "The Rush on Coomassie", and the Gordon Highlanders at "Dargai Heights".