 Lord Erne was the eldest son of the 5th Earl Erne and his wife Davina (Lady Davidema Katharine Cynthia Mary Millicent Bulwer-Lytton), a younger daughter of the 2nd Earl of Lytton, and was a godchild of King George VI.He inherited his father's titles in 1940, a few weeks before his third birthday, when his father was killed in action in the Second World War.In 1945 he gained a step-father when his mother married secondly Montague Woodhouse, a Conservative Member of Parliament who in 1998 would succeed his elder brother as the 5th Baron Terrington.