She was one of the seven children of Lady Mary Ramsay, Countess Dowager of Dalhousie and her second husband John Drummond Bellenden, 2nd Lord Bellenden of Broughton. She was their third daughter and she was baptised in Edinburgh on 4 May 1685. She had an advantageous friendship with Mary Ker who was the wife of her cousin (John Ker, 1st Duke of Roxburghe) and Mary Ker proposed to Caroline of Ansbach (the Princess of Wales) that Mary should become her maid of honour.[1]
Court life had become more entertaining with the new Prince and Princess of Wales and Mary had significant admirers. Lord Hervey and Horace Walpole were on record for admiring her charms. The poets Alexander Pope and John Gay wrote poems that referenced her while the Prince of Wales was among the men at court who had her in their plans. For four years she avoided gossip but Lord Hervey believed that she and the Prince were involved.[1]
In 1720, she married John Campbell of Momore in secret. She had told the Prince that she would ask his blessing on any marriage but she broke this promise and married. She lost her position but John Campbell retained his job as a Groom of the Bedchamber. They moved to Combe Bank.[1]
^Athol Murray, 'Campbell, Lord Frederick (1729–1816)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 14 Oct 2017
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