SOME FAMILY CURSES

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 83, 4 October 1930, Page 25

SOME FAMILY CURSES

GLAMIS HOLDS HORRIBLE SECRET

• The most-famous family curso—itvpno imay so designate-it—is that which has apparently had no 'evil effects on the people who lie beneath'-it. This is the mystery of Glamis Castle,1- the ancestral home of. the Earls of Strathinore, wKere the Duchess of York''has been in residence and where Princess Margaret was born. There are many uncanny stories connected with Grlamis, but the best known is that of the secret chamber^ where a former. Earl is traditionally supposed to have diced with the devil. "What this room actually contains; is known to only the.Earl, his heir, and the factor of the estate. The heir is initiated into the mystery on the night of Ms 21st birthday and the secret — whatever it is—has never been divulged to the outside world. ; When the late Earl was "sounded" ion the subject he told the inquirer that !"!£'• yitfttt-could- guess: the nature of this Bccretyou would go down on your knees andv!haaki.Gbd..it wero not yours.", • "More than one-of the Earls have de'elar,ed,. themselves to be oppressed by-. theVknbwre^ge-thaf they had acquired on reaching their majorities, so that we mgyf MasonaWyirielude tlje (31aniis mystery among'1 family "curses," writes Mr. ( W.^liamb. in .the Neweastlo "Weekly Phromcle-;'*""1-- :-.•:■>'>.•■-;•;■•. •■• - £' "family curse" whieli just missed fulfilment;-was.«that 6f "the Tiehbprnes.. Accb'rdiiig'"tb"' tradition," Sir Koger Tiehborne., who lived ia the reign of Henry I.,vp*fttois'ed?ihis- dying wife—the Lady Isabella*—that:'he would annually distribiiteja'dplej.deriyed: from tho rents" of as "much land as she could encompass by^

ciiiv/liug whilo a lighted brand continued burning. The la"dy—whoso charitablo life had endeared her to the countryside—managed to creep ou her hands and-knees round "S3, acres of ground, whiclV-by tho way, is known as the "Crawls" to this'day. '■-

Having completed her task and feeling that death was imminent, Lady Isabella warned^ her husband that so long as the dole was faithfully distributed his^family would prosper, but as soon as the^ charity was discontinued there would ,be born a generation of seven eons to bo followed' by seven daughters, after which the family would becomo estinet.

This warning, so impressed the Tichbornes that for 600 years tho dole was distributed in the shape of 1900 small loaves, but in 179G tho charity was transferred to tho Church by Sir Henry ] Tichborne —and he had seven sons! | Four of these succeeded to tho title in I a short space of time, then came the | promised seven daughters, and eventual-; ly tho family name was changed to < Doughty-Tichbome. . How near Lady Isabella came to boing a true prophet may bo gathered from the fact that when the baronet of that day died'he had no issue, and the line was only, saved from extinction by :a .'■ posthumqiis- son born three months after the baronet's death. But one thinks that the gentle Lady Isabella was satisfied with this incomplete fulfilment, for she was a lady of many virtues.and surely mercy was an attribute of hers! . , :'.■•■

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