Anne Legendre Armstrong, who died last week of cancer at the age of 80, may have been born into comfort and married into wealth but she made a considerable and long career in the Republican party and national politics, out front and behind the scenes, on her own formidable merits.

She is best remembered internationally as the first woman appointed US ambassador to the Court of St James’s, but she had already chalked up some impressive American breakthroughs by the time she arrived in London in 1976.