To the lover of Shakespeare, the name of Glammis (as it was sometimes
spelt) will recall the act of treachery and murder which tradition
gives as having taken place there, when King Duncan was done to death
by the hand or at the instigation of the ambitious and unscrupulous
Lady Macbeth; although there is no possibility of proving or testing
the truth as to the details or locality of the tragedy.
To the antiquarian, the Castle must be of immense interest on account
of the great age of the central portion, or keep, which is known to
have been standing in 1016, but “whose birth tradition notes not”;
while to the romantic and superstitious it is associated as a place
where ghosts and spirits moving silently down winding stairs and dark
passages are wont to make night fearsome. This feeling of eeriness is
not confined to the naturally nervous, for Sir Walter Scott, who spent
a night at Glamis in 1794, writes:
“After a very hospitable reception, ... I was conducted to my apartment
in a distant part of the building. I must own that when I heard door
after door shut, after my conductor had retired, I began to consider
myself too far from the living and somewhat too near the dead.”
[Illustration: GLAMIS CASTLE, SCOTLAND.]
Additional interest attaches to this castle from the fact that its
venerable walls enshroud a _mysterious something_, which has for
centuries baffled the curiosity and investigations of all unauthorized
persons; this secret is known only to three people--the Earl of the
time being, his eldest son, and one other individual, whom they think
worthy of their confidence.
Most people have theories upon this subject, and many ridiculous
stories are told; but so carefully has the mystery been guarded, that
no suspicion of the truth has ever come to light. One version of the
story is as follows: Several centuries ago the Lord Glamis of the time
was entertaining the head of another noble family then resident in
Angus; and in the course of the evening they commenced to play cards.
It was Saturday night, and so intent were they on wagering lands and
money on the issue of the game, that they did not recognize the fact
that Sunday morning was approaching until an old retainer ventured to
remind them of the hour. Whereupon one of the gamblers swore a great
oath, with the tacit approval of the other, that they did not care what
day it might be, but they would finish their game at any cost, even if
they went on playing till Doomsday! It had struck midnight ere he had
finished his sentence, when there suddenly appeared a stranger dressed
in black, who politely informed their lordships that he would take them
at their word, and vanished.
The story goes on to aver that annually on that night three noblemen,
or their spirits, meet and play cards in the _secret room_ of the
Castle, and that this will go on till Doomsday. In corroboration of
this story, it is said that on a certain night in the autumn of every
year, loud noises are heard, and some of the casements of the Castle
are blown open.
Glamis Castle stands in the centre of the vale of Strathmore, in a
picturesque and well-wooded part of Forfarshire; the heather-clad
sides of the Sidlaws, which divide Strathmore from the sea, rising to
the south, while away to the north tower the Grampians, which form a
magnificent background to the ancient pile of buildings, whose turrets
rise some hundred and fifteen feet above the level of the ground.
The poet, Gray, in a letter, describes the exterior of the castle in
the following words:
“The house, from the height of it, the greatness of its mass, the many
towers atop, and the spread of its wings, has really a very singular
and striking appearance, like nothing I ever saw.”
The oldest portions of the Castle are formed of huge irregular blocks
of old red sandstone, which time and weather have mellowed into a
beautiful grey, pink colour. The walls in many places are sixteen
feet thick, which in the olden days had the essential recommendation
of great security, and also of allowing space for secret rooms and
passages as means of escape in times of peril; and as a matter of
fact, two secret staircases have been discovered within the last
five-and-twenty years, and possibly there are others which still remain
forgotten and unused.
The narrow windows appear at irregular heights and distances in the
central building or keep and left wing (the right wing having been
burnt down and rebuilt early in 1800, is not so interesting), but the
great staircase added by Patrick, Lord Glamis, in 1605, is very fine,
occupying a circular tower, the space for which has been partly dug
out of the old walls of the keep, and rises to the third story. This
staircase (the designing for which has been attributed to Inigo Jones)
is spiral, with a hollow newel in the centre, and is composed of stone
to the summit. It consists of 143 steps, 6 feet 10 inches in width,
each of _one_ stone.
The staircases, which were in use before 1600, are very narrow, dark,
and some of them winding, the steps steep and irregular in height, worn
into hollows by the many feet that for centuries climbed them. Up two
flights of these dimly lit, uneven stairs, the wounded king, Malcolm
II., after having been treacherously attacked and mortally wounded
by Kenneth V. and his adherents on the Hunter’s Hill, about a mile
from the Castle, was carried by his followers to die in the chamber
that still bears the name of King Malcolm’s room. This murder of King
Malcolm is the first authentic event mentioned by the chroniclers in
connection with Glamis.
In the time of King Malcolm, Glamis was a royal residence, and remained
so till 1372, when Sir John Lyon, “a young man of very good parts
and qualities, and of a very graceful and comely person, and a great
favourite with the king” (Robert II.), was made Lord High Chamberlain
of Scotland. At that time the king’s daughter, the Princess Jean,
fell in love with this young knight, and was given him in marriage
together with the lands of the thanedom of Glamis, “_pro laudabili
et fideli servitio et continuis laboribus_,” as the charter bears
witness, March 18, 1372. Ten years later Sir John fell in a duel with
Sir James Lindsay of Crawford, and was buried at Scone among the kings
of Scotland. He left one son, from whom the present family of Lyon have
descended without a break from _father to son_ to the present day.
Fifty years later, Sir Patrick Lyon (Sir John’s grandson), who was one
of the hostages to the English for the ransom of James I. from 1424 to
1427, was created Baron Glamis, and appointed Master of the Household
to the King of Scotland. For the next hundred years nothing of interest
occurred till John, sixth Lord Glamis, married the beautiful Janet
Douglas, granddaughter of the great Earl of Angus (Bell-the-Cat), and
died in 1528. Lady Glamis married, secondly, Archibald Campbell, of
Kepneith, whose relative, another Campbell, fell in love with her.
Finding, however, that his addresses were but ill received by this
lady, who was as good as she was lovely, his love turned to hate, and
he revenged himself by informing the authorities that Lady Glamis, her
son, Lord Glamis, and John Lyon, his relative, were conspiring against
the life of the king, James V., by poison or witchcraft. They were
tried for high treason, and wrongfully convicted! Lady Glamis and her
young son were both sentenced to be _burned_, and the estate of
Glamis was forfeited and annexed to the Crown by Act of Parliament,
December 3d, 1540. However, these brutal judges, on account of the
extreme youth of Lord Glamis, feared to bring him to execution, so the
boy was kept in prison, with the death sentence hanging over him, while
the beautiful Lady Glamis was dragged forth and burned at the stake on
the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, July 17th, 1537. Those were days when
acts of violence and cruelty were regarded with an indifference that
we cannot now realize, although when she stood up in her beauty to
undergo this fearful sentence, it is recorded that all heads were bowed
in sorrowful sympathy. When this infamous execution was accomplished,
remorse seems to have come over Campbell, who was visited by visions of
his victim looking at him with sad, reproachful eyes. When, some years
later, his death was drawing nigh, he confessed that his evidence at
the trial was altogether false. Lord Glamis was therefore released from
prison, and his estates and honours restored.
To return to the Castle. The exterior is much ornamented with ancient
armorial bearings in carved stone, while a round niche over the
front door contains a bust of Earl Patrick. The principal entrance
is a striking feature. The doorway is small and low, and a stout
iron-clenched oaken door, thickly studded with nails, is guarded on
the inside by a heavily grated iron gate, which opens right on to
the staircase. A flight of steps to the right of the entrance leads
down to the dungeons, vaults, and the old well (now filled up) which
supplied the inmates with water in times of siege; while another stair
to the left leads up to the Retainers’ Hall (or Crypt as it is now
called), low, and fifty feet in length, with walls and arched roof
entirely composed of stone. Of the seven windows, which are small, four
or five are cut out of the thickness of the walls, and make recesses
just large enough to form small rooms, which might have been used as
sleeping chambers in old days. Lay figures, clad in complete armour,
stand in the recesses, which, especially in the dusk, give an eerie
effect to this part of the Castle. It is said that a ghostly man in
armour walks this floor at night--possibly the original of one of those
armoured figures standing silently in the crypt year after year, who
may, perchance, have ended his life in the dungeon that lies exactly
underneath.