Angus, Scotland: A Queen, a Ghost and a Boy Who Would Not Grow Up

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

Parts of Scotland seldom reached by tourists in a hurry became accessible when the Forth Road Bridge came into creation in the 1970s. Now visitors flying British Airways into Edinburgh could discover and explore whole new territories in the North within two hours’ drive of that popular city. One area just beyond Fife and the seaport city of Dundee is the little County of Angus. It offers mountains, rivers and glens, odd little villages, ancient churches, old graveyards, historic battlefields -- and a famous castle "with a genuine ghost," a folk museum, and a house where a writer was born who would one day be beloved by millions of children.

So drive over the Firth (mouth of the river) of Forth, through the kingdom of Fife, over the Firth of Tay, past Burnside of Duntrune, New Bigginq, Balgray, Kirkton of Tealing, Tod Hills and Foffarty and come to Glamis. Glamis (pronounced Glahms) Castle has been the home of the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne since 1372. Despite the many events in its long history it is probably best known as the location of Shakespeare's Macbeth and because the late Queen Mother was born there, the daughter of the 14th Earl and his Countess, and in turn Princess Margaret Rose in 1930 -- the first royal baby in direct line to the British throne to be born in Scotland for 300 years.

Three hundred years, however, is a modest time frame compared to the centuries of legends that engulf Glamis Castle although the Macbeth connection is rather lightly dismissed by modern historian Robert Innes-Smith. "Macbeth," he concedes, "met a sticky end but although Shakespeare makes a great drama out of it, these events were not uncommon in the turbulent Scotland of those days when kings of Scot; were frequently slain by their heirs."

So much for Long Live the King!

Maybe those times were turbulent. Sir John Lyon, the Chamberlain of Scotland, who built much of what remains at Glamis Castle, was murdered in his bed in 1382 apparently by Sir James Lindsay, Scotland's ambassador to England. Then after the sixth Lord Glamis died in 1528, King James V struck out against his widow whose family he had always despised. Trumped-up charges of witchcraft were levied against her. She was burned alive outside Edinburgh Castle, and her beloved Glamis Castle looted and forfeited to the Crown for one generation.

The ghost haunting the castle is said to be Lady Glamis flitting through its halls until she reaches the sanctuary of the Chapel where she evidently favors the hard wooden pew in the left rear corner. Even now, says docent Tommy Baxter, the tour guides instinctively glance at this space for reassurance that it's empty as they enter the Chapel with visitors. Baxter leads his guests to another dark secret at Glamis, appropriately enough in the Crypt, the lower hall of the 14th century tower house and the most impregnable chamber in the castle. Suits of armor stand in shadowy corners and heavy shields hang on stone walls along with heads of animals, big game trophies, all competing with displays of swords, axes and firearms.

It would be all very medieval and mysterious, even without the story he now unfolds. Glamis, he tells his group, has a hidden chamber buried in the thickness of the castle walls. "Note , " he goes on, there are only two windows in this room, yet if you walk into the castle yard and look up you'll see three windows showing on the outside walls. The third window is located in the division of the wall that blocks off part of the room. The wall is many feet thicker than the rest in the castle."

Like a conspirator he drops his voice and tells his tale, his rich Scottish brogue making it all seem even more eerie. "No one has dared open up the wall to see what lies beyond," he whispers bending over some of the younger members of his tour group, "because the Devil himself has placed a curse on it.

"You see, one cold dark Saturday night in October towards the end of the 14th century, Lord Glamis and his great friend the Earl of Crawford were playing cards in this chamber. As midnight approached, an old servant came out from the kitchens and said, 'My Lords, please give up the game for if you play cards through midnight into the Sabbath Day you're asking for eternal damnation.'

"They sent the servant packing, saying they'd complete the game even if it took them to doomsday. "No sooner had they said that than midnight struck. And they were joined by a third party, the Devil Himself." Baxter straightens up and looks around. The children he's talking to follow his glances, their eyes bulging like ping gong balls.

Baxter continues: “The Devil said in deep and dispassionate tones, 'My Lords, I wiIl hold you to your words -- your doomsday is here.’

"Then we're told," says the guide, "that the walls and windows closed about the lords -- and it's said if you come to Glamis any year on the last Saturday of October you'll hear the voices of Lord Glamis and Lord Crawford entombed within the castle walls."

After a story like that, even the adults are glad to get upstairs into the bright light of the Drawing Room, the elegant pink-plastered Italian style apartment converted in the early 17th century from the Great Hall of the castle.

Other rooms well worth noticing include the Royal Apartments -- the private suite used when the late King George VI and his Queen, the daughter of the house, visited Glamis. Of interest too is the Chapel decorated by the Dutch artist Jacob de Wet who was brought over by the king in 1673 to paint all his predecessors dating back to the 6th century! No fool, de Wet portrayed not only all the previous monarchs with the same face as his patron, the king, but also painted many portraits of Christ with the identical nose of King Charles himself. The last look the tourist gets of Glamis is the dungeon-like room, Duncan's Hall, where traditionally Macbeth murdered King Duncan.

The atmosphere is less bloodthirsty two miles away at the Angus Folk Museum donated to the National Trust of Scotland in 1974 by an anonymous benefactor. The collection is housed in a row of six early 19th century cottages, all open to each other and their respective exhibits. The cottages, originally built in 1793 for estate workers at Glamis Castle, now show the lifestyle of simple folk of that era. One room is set up like a parlor in the village manse, one like a small school, another as a laundry, and yet another a mother's bedroom complete with a baby's cradle that could be rocked by a cord from where the mother was working -- because any Scottish Bible of those times would be willing to explain to any woman the evil that idle hands makes.

Another baby cradle lies in the upstairs room of a small house, this one six miles away, in the little village of Kirriemuir. There on the 9th of May in 1860 was born J. M. Barrie, and by the back door still stands the wash house that later figured in his most famous work, Peter Pan, a wash house in which by the age of seven, he was writing and performing his own plays.

Barrie was the ninth of ten children. Clearly his mother was a busy woman, but she still had time to inspire him with an enthusiasm for literature. As a child he would save up for weeks to buy a book "And while buying," he said, “read standing, at the counter, most of the other books in the shop, which is perhaps the most exquisite way of reading."

The family subscribed to "penny dreadfuls" -- pulp novels that came a chapter at a time each week. If one didn't arrive on schedule Barrie would write that episode himself and read it to his mother while she worked in the kitchen.

Later a newspaper job led to London and literary success. His books and plays made him wealthy, but Peter Pan made him famous, the book and play somehow encompassing the belief he once uttered: "Nothing that happens after we are twelve matters very much."

He loved children though he never had any of his own.

His generosity was legion but, even then, his friends and heirs were taken aback when he summoned them to a conference in 1929, eight years before he died. He wanted their approval -- and he instantly got it -- to sign over all the royalties of Peter Pan from every source to an institution he felt represented all he stood for. With his heirs' encouragement, though the sums would be immense, he formalized the action on the 17th of April, 1929.

The letter of acknowledgment he received said "We rejoice to think that Peter Pan who has brought already so much pleasure to countless children in health and happiness is, in future, to be their benefactor also in pain and suffering."

The letter was signed, "The Board of Management, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, London."