The 3rd Duke of Fife, who has died aged 85, inherited fortunes, titles and estates in Scotland from both sides of his family; in his youth he was one of the most eligible bachelors in Britain and was once spoken of as a possible consort for Princess Margaret.

Fresh-faced, good-looking, funny and popular, if rather shy, he had to endure frequent speculation about his love life in newspapers and his name was linked at one time or another with many beautiful women, including Divina Galica, the British Formula One racing driver and Olympic ski captain. In fact, his one marriage ended in divorce after 10 years. For the most part he led a quiet life as a farmer tending his Scottish estates.

James George Alexander Bannerman Carnegie was born on September 23 1929. His father, Lord Carnegie, would become the 11th Earl of Southesk in 1941. The Carnegies were close associates of the early Stuarts with a family seat at Kinnaird Castle in Angus.

^{The 3rd Duke of Fife (Allan Warren)}

The Earldom was created in 1633, by Charles I, for David Carnegie of Kinnaird (in 1616 he had been created Lord Carnegie of Kinnaird by James I for services to Scotland). The second Earl, James, was imprisoned by Oliver Cromwell and was known as the “Black Earl” because he was allegedly a warlock. The 5th Earl was a Jacobite and his support for the “Old Pretender” led to his honours and estates being forfeited to the Crown in 1715.

In 1855 James Carnegie, a poet and antiquary who was descended from the First Earl, obtained an act of Parliament reversing the attainder of 1715 and restoring the titles of Earl of Southesk and Lord Carnegie of Kinnaird. In December 1869 he was made a peer of the United Kingdom as Baron Balinhard of Farnell. Lord Carnegie would inherit these titles on his father’s death in 1992.

Unusually though, he inherited the Dukedom through the female line. His mother Princess Maud was the younger daughter of Alexander Duff, Earl of Fife, who married Princess Louise, daughter of the future King Edward VII, and was created Duke of Fife by Queen Victoria in 1900. As he had no son, provision was made by a special remainder for the title (and the subsidiary title of Earl of Macduff) to pass through his daughters.

_{With Caroline Dewar, daughter of Lord Forteviot, on their wedding day in 1956 (Scotsman)}

The title passed to his elder daughter, Princess Alexandra, who became Duchess of Fife following her father’s death in 1912 from the effects of exposure after the liner in which the family were returning from Egypt sank. Princess Alexandra reached shore safely thanks to the efforts of fellow passengers and married Prince Arthur of Connaught the next year. Their only son, Alastair, died on active service in 1943 so, on her death in 1959, the title passed to her nephew, Lord Carnegie.

He was brought up close to the Royal family’s Balmoral estates at the Southesk family seat of Elsick House, Stonehaven, Kincardineshire. A friend of the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret from childhood, he would often attend birthday parties at Balmoral.

He always wanted to be a farmer, however, and after leaving Gordonstoun he studied at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. He did his National Service in Malaya in the Scots Guards (1948-50), then settled down to farming his family’s 20,000-acre estate in Angus.

On his coming of age in 1950 he inherited his mother’s fortune, she having died in 1945. After his marriage in 1956, he moved to Elsick House, his father having left in 1941 when he succeeded to Kinnaird Castle.

^{At the Braemar Gathering, 1999 (James Fraser)}

As well as farming, he was for some years vice-chairman of Carnegie Films, a company founded by his father. He had become interested in films when he was a fellow passenger on a ship bringing Jean Simmons and the Blue Lagoon Company home from the Pacific. During the 1950s he was a director of a wine and cigar firm in Pall Mall.

A keen sportsman, the Duke also served as president of the Amateur Boxing Association (1959-63) and was also involved with the West Ham Boys’ Club. He liked fast cars – Bentleys particularly – and competed in the Monte Carlo Rally in 1955. He was a vice-president of the British Olympic Association and vice patron of the Braemar Royal Highland Society.

The Duke of Fife, who returned to Kinnaird in later years, was a genial host, loved jokes and pranks and, despite all the trappings of grandeur, was an unstuffy and self-effacing man.

He married in 1956 (dissolved 1966) Caroline Dewar, daughter of Evelyn Dewar, Lord Forteviot (1947) and chairman of John Dewar & Sons. They had a daughter, Alexandra, and a son, David Carnegie, born in 1961, who was given the title Earl of Southesk by his father on the death of his grandfather in 1992. He inherits the Dukedom.

The 3rd Duke of Fife, born September 23 1929, died June 22 2015