Glamis: The most haunted castle in Britain holds a
secret with which I have been obsessed for days.
~ the history
The village of Glamis (pronounced "glahmz") lies a few miles north of Dundee, in an ancient forest. The first historical record of Glamis recounts the story of St Fergus, who converted the Picts to Christianity in the early eighth century. In 1024, King Malcolm II died of battle-wounds there. Glamis was also the setting for William Shakespeare's Macbeth, though it is unlikely that circumstances of the real King Macbeth's ascension in 1040 had anything to do with Glamis – the first thaneship of Glamis was not awarded until 1264, more than two hundred years after the end of Macbeth's rule.
Sir John Lyon, Thane of Forteviot, was made Thane of Glamis in 1372 by King Robert II. At that time, it consisted of a keep that was used as the King's hunting grounds. It was in an awkward position strategically, being at the bottom of a vale, but was based on the Scottish L-Plan and was quite secure, after minimal modifications. In 1376, John married Joanna, the daughter of King Robert, and was made the Chamberlain of Scotland. His descendents live in the Castle to this day.
Sir John Lyon was killed in a duel in 1383. His son, also John Lyon, commissioned construction of an east wing in the early 15th century. Sir John junior married the great-granddaughter of Robert II, and his son became the first Lord of Glamis.
In 1609, the ninth Lord of Glamis was created Earl of Kinghorne. The third Earl of Kinghorne (eleventh Lord of Glamis) hauled the estate out of severe debt and managed to give the castle significant renovations, including the pink sandstone exterior it bears today. He also gained a new charter of peerage, becoming the Earl of Strathmore. In the sixteenth century, Janet Douglas, Lady Glamis, was convicted of witchcraft and taken to Edinburgh, where she was burnt at the stake.
Sir Patrick Lyon (1643-1695), the third Earl of Strathmore (thirteenth Lord of Glamis), was much renowned for his libertinage. He and Lord "Beardie," the Earl of Cawdor, were up playing cards late one Saturday night in one of Glamis's towers, when a servant reminded them that it would soon be midnight, and that it was forbidden to play games on the Sabbath. Lord Beardie mocked this, saying he would play cards until Judgment Day if he saw fit. It seems that at the stroke of midnight, the Devil appeared and informed the gentlemen that their souls were forfeit. Legend has it that his ghost sometimes causes a hootenanny in the tower where the Devil keeps him to this day. Sir Patrick is also believed to have fathered a couple of deformed sons, one of which was raised in a secret room. There is a painting hanging in the house which depicts Sir Patrick without any genitalia.
In the eighteenth century, the ninth Earl of Strathmore undertook a major campaign to modernize the village, and both the castle and the village have undergone a process of improvement right up to the twentieth century, and led eventually to a renewed closeness with the Royal Family. This Earl also married the Bowes heiress from Yorkshire, and the family has since been called Bowes-Lyon. In 1923, the young Miss Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, daughter of the fourteenth Earl of Strathmore, married Prince Albert Windsor – who would later go on to become King George VI, making Ms Bowes-Lyon Queen Elizabeth. Their daughter, of course, is Queen Elizabeth II; most people know Ms Bowes-Lyon today as the late Queen Mother (1900 - 2002). Her other daughter, Princess Margaret, was born in Glamis, the first Royal to be born in Scotland in three hundred years.
Glamis has more than its fair share of ghosts. There is the "Grey Lady," Janet Douglas, who wanders the halls, and an unidentified "White Lady" in one of the towers. The sounds of Patrick's gambling has been heard as recently as 1957. There is a strange bearded man who, in 1486, was shackled and left to die in one of the rooms. Someone wanders the Monk's Walk, and there is also a screaming woman whose tongue has been cut out. According to legend, a serving girl was caught sucking the blood from another of the employees, and was sealed inside some room, where the vampire waits to this day to escape. There are also unattributed screams, knocks, ripping sheets and doors which open and close of their own accord. This is only a sampling of the tales which surround Glamis.
~ the mystery
Some time in the eighteenth century, rumours started floating around about a secret chamber somewhere in the castle and "the curse of the Strathmores." Nobody knew quite what was in that secret room; some have said that it might have been Sir Patrick's deformed son, or another Strathmore born later who may have exhibited similar teratologies. This is possible, but calls into question the necessity of the extreme (and extremely tantalizing) security with which knowledge of the chamber is treated.
On his twenty-first birthday, the heir of Glamis is shown the contents of the secret chamber by the current Earl and the castle steward. By tradition, only the Earl, his heir, and the steward know what's in there. No woman has ever been told.
During the term of the thirteenth Earl of Strathmore, twenty-third Lord of Glamis, in the late nineteenth century, a workman chanced upon a hidden door, and explored the passageway it revealed. After he emerged shortly afterward, quaking with terror, the Earl swore him to secrecy and packed his family off to the colonies. Before he died at the age of eighty in 1904, the old Earl told a friend, —
"If you could guess the nature of the secret, you would go down on your knees and thank God it were not yours."
His son and heir, the fourteenth Earl and father of the late Queen Mother, told the secret to the factor of his estate, Gavin Ralston. Ralston told the Earl's daughter-in-law, —
"It is lucky that you do not know and can never know it, for if you did you would not be a happy woman."
In the 1920s some young guests decided to try to find the secret room by placing linen towels in each window, and then locating the empty window from outside. When the Earl discovered their plan, he was furious, and the guests never had the opportunity to finish.*
The castle is private, but is opened to the public every day from spring to early autumn; nevertheless, guests are discouraged from talking about the hidden room. The contents of the chamber, and the nature of the secret, have never been disclosed.
* Timeshredder tells me about a book Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother: Chronicle of a Remarkable Life: 1900-2000, which is a compilation of old articles and pictures, and of course includes some information about Glamis Castle. He says that one of the articles, written in the early '20s, reports explicitly that Glamis housed a deformed Strathmore son in a secret chamber. This creature supposedly lived from 1821-1921. Unfortunately neither Timeshredder nor I are in any position to verify this claim. It is also difficult to reconcile with the fact that rumours of this secret chamber had been floating around for a hundred years before this child was supposed to have been born.
sources ~
Innes, Brian. Ghost Sightings. London: Brown Books, 1996.
Lee, Linda and Laurie Jonas. Glamis Castle. 12 February 2002. The Heritage Trail. 23 April 2002.
<http://www.theheritagetrail.co.uk/stately%20homes/glamis.htm>
AboutBritain.com: Glamis Castle. 23 April 2002. <http://www.aboutbritain.com/GlamisCastle.htm>
Glamis Castle. 2001. Hauned Castles and Hotels. 23 April 2002. <http://www.haunted-castles-and-hotels.com/Scotland/glamis.htm>
Stevenson, Sandy. "Tour Glamis Castle." Travel Scotland. 23 April 2002. <http://www.scottravel.com/glamis-castle2.htm>