Educated at Beaumont College, Windsor, then at Christ Church, Oxford, and the University of Innsbruck, Strutt joined the 3rd (Militia) Battalion of the Royal Scots (Lothian Regiment).
Strutt commanded a detachment of soldiers from the Honourable Artillery Company that escorted the family of Charles I, the last Austro-Hungarian Emperor-King, to safety in Switzerland in 1919,[REF] after having served as the family's protector at Eckartsau on the personal initiative of King George V [REF].