THE GHOSTS OF GLAMIS Marcus Dent

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 150, 22 December 1938, Page 20 (Supplement)

THE GHOSTS OF GLAMIS

Marcus Dent

A LTHOUGH this is npt the time of the year Ji\ when ghosts walk, I am tempted to tell my

readers something of the ghost which is said to have attached itself to Glamis Castle. By the way, it is well that you, reader, should understand that the correct -pronunciation of "Glamis" excludes the "i": it is as though the spelling were "Glams," pronounced as we pronounce the word "Psalms."

Visitors to Glamis are at liberty to inspect all the most famous apartments of the. castle save one — a mysterious room which is styled the "Secret Chamber." It is said that the exact situation of the room of mystery has for .centuries been known only to three persons at one time—the Earl of Strathmore for the time being, his heir, and someone in whom they can place absolute trustperhaps the estate factor.

This is the story which the Secret Chamber is supposed to tell: The Earl of Glamis and his friend the Earl of Crawford —the "Tiger Earl" he was dubbed—were so deeply engrossed in a game either of cards or of dice in; the room one Saturday night in the early part of the fifteenth century that they failed to observe the approach of midnight and the dawn of Sunday until a servant entered and told them. Vastly annoyed by the interruption the twain declared that they would finish their game even if it continued until the "crack of doom"! At that instant a castle clock struck the midnight hour, and before the startled gamblers there appeared a spectral shape, which told them that they wouid be kept to their word. Hence, according to the story, the ghosts of my Lord Strathmore and my Lord Crawford appear in the roiim every anniversary of the fateful night to continue their game. Students of history assure us that the story is but a legend—that it has not any foundation in fact; but that ; a mysterious chamber, the entrance to which is concealed, exists in Glamis Castle is an undoubted fact, as visitors to the fine old Scottish seat of the Earls and Countesses of Strathmore can vouch. -

INHERE is another ghost story concerning Glamis. It is said that a Scottish minister, with a ■-, reputation as a first-class beggar, on behalf of the kirk at which he was the "meenister," was a guest for the night at the castle. He was asleep when the insubstantial form of an Earl of Strathmore floated to his bedside. Waking, the "meenister" forthwith tackled the spectre, and begged from him!

Inasmuch as Glamis is associated, through the Queen, with the Royal Family, I may be pardoned tot asking you, reader, to turn your thoughts from

Scotland to' the Windsor home of the King and Queen. It; too, has its ghosts and its supernatural stories. A sentry nightly parades the Castle terrace overlooking Eton and its College. When King George 111 wag at the castle, in his earlier years, and even at the tragic end, when he was ill-witted and was confined to special rooms, he used to appear at one of the windows and acknowledge the salute of the passing sentry. A year or two after he died the sentry on duty on the terrace is said to have seen the ghost of the dead monarch at the castle window, and for long, so accepted was the story of the ghost, soldiers fought shy of the nightly duty on the terrace.

The Garter Tower at Windsor provides another ghost story. Most people enter the castle through what is known as the Henry VIII gateway, and the Garter Tower is part of the pleasant line of houses, near at hand, in which the Military Knights live. Here, about the time when Queen Elizabeth ruled, in ihe sixteenth century, a manservant at the castle is said to have killed a maidservant, and for long it has been said that the ghost of the murdered girl walks the house nightly. Disbelieved though the story is, it is a fact that dogs, which seem to sense the supernatural, have nervously refused to enter some of the castle towers.

The wraith of a woman, believed to be Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603), is also said to have been seen at Windsor on several occasions. Usually, the spectre is either flitting in or-out of the Queen's Library or gliding down the E^ct Terrace. The latest story is that she appeared inside the, Saxon Tower and on the battlements. The best authenticated version of the wraith of Queen Elizabeth, hooded, was related by an officer of\the Grenadier Guards. In 1836, when he was reading in one of the castle's libraries, he sensed that, someone or some creature was in the room. Looking up from his book, he saw the figure :of a; woman, dressed in black, pass into an adjoining room. As he left, the officer told -the librarian that the woman was still in the library. "What woman?" queried the librarian. "No woman has entered the library." Said the officer; "I saw one there, anyhow." "The figure you saw," explained the librarian, "was the ghdst of Queen /Elizabeth. Duly authenticated records show that for years .it has haunted these two rooms, although you happen to, be the only person of the present generation who has seen it."

Some time ago a Windsor man, living not far from the castle, toid this story: "About dusk, a man was walking near the Saxori Tower. As he knew that the Tower had been untenanted for

over a year, he, was surprised to see a woman looking out of one of the windows. The woman was tall and thin, dressed in black, and with her face partly hidden by a sort ol cowl or. veil.. He saw her quite distinctly one moment, and the next it was as though she had fallen through the floor. He saw the apparition again on the battlements, and as he was watching it it faded away. Curiously, the.details of the ghost's dress and appearance are identical with the description given of an appari- . tion seen some years ago1 by a Windsor Castle sentry. The sentry was on the East Terrace at night, standing by his box, when he caught' sightof a hooded woman walking towards him. Before v he had time to challenge, her. she had. flung herself down, kneeling at his feet, .and then vanished. -

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THE Tower of London is reputed to he th« most haunted building in the world. There are a large number of reported, ghosts in the Tower of London, the restless spirits ' of historic figures who have died during imprisonment.or been done to death there. Perhaps the most interesting, as being unattached to any particular person, is the ghost reported by Edward Lenthal Swifte, Keeper of' the Crown Jewels.

On a Saturday night in October, 1817, Swifte. was at supper with his wife, her sister, and his young son in the sitting-room of the Jewel House in' the Martin Tower, which1 is believed by some to have been the prison of Anne Boleyn.

Swifte passed a glass of wine across the,table to his wife. She put it to her lips to drink, then, gave a little cry, dropped the glass, and remained as if transfixed, .staring at a point above and behind her husband's shoulder. Swifte' looked round and saw a "cylindrical figure,, like a' glass tube, seemingly about the thickness of a man's, arm, hovering between the table and the ceiling, apparently filled with a dense fluid, white and pale azure."

After about two minutes it began io float around ; the room, finally coming to rest again behind Mrs. Swifte, who instantly buried her head in her hands shrieking, "It's got me, its-got me!" Swifte caught up his chair .and struck at the apparition, which promptly disappeared. The -chai damaged th» - wainscoting behind his wife's chair.

The following evening a sentry at the Jewel1 Office was alarmed by a figure like a huge bear coming from under the door. He lunged at it with his bayonet, which stuck in the door.- , Th« bear changed to a monkey and attacked the sentry,; who dropped in a fit. He was found- senseless on the ground and was carried to the guard room. A few days later he died. No statement was ever issued as to the cause of death, but the man wai buried with full military honours in the church* yard of St. Katharine's by the Tower,