The dark secret of the hidden room of the Glamis Castle

If you could only guess the natural history of the castle’s secret, said of the thirteenth Earl of Strathmore, Claude Bowes-Lyon, you would surely get down your knees and will thank God that the castle was not yours.

The Glamis Castle is considered as one of those most haunted castles that can found in Great Britain. The castle has been the talk of prehistoric Europe during the next half of the nineteenth century. The castle has been connected with the tales involving the hidden prisoners, secret passages, shadowy figures and initiation rites witnessed on the ramparts during late night. The secret has been apparent, so unusual that there were only three people that were ever permitted to know about it at a time: The Earl, then, the Earl’s heir (right after he had reached his twenty first birthday), and their estate manager, that is known as the factor. Tales abounded over what the Earls’ secrets might be. Based on the legends, the heir of their 13th Earl of the Strathmore flatly rejects to participate in their initiation rite that might have updated him on the dark history of the castle. Many suspected that the thriller died with their 14th Earl; but, the visitors cannot reject the chilling atmosphere being felt when they are inside the Castle, particularly in the lonely times or the hours passed in the night.

“I must own,” Sir Walter Scott wrote about his 1790 overnight trip to the castle, “when I heard the door after the doors shut, after my player had retired, I started to consider myself as someone far from those that are alive and somewhat consider too near with the dead.”

The Glamis Castle and their connections to those Earls of the Strathmore and Macbeth

The Glamis Castle wasn’t just any principality. This has been the seat of those Earls of Strathmore, the title still presently held by the present Bowes-Lyon kin – the maternal clan of our Queen Elizabeth II. Their Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, has been the descendant of the 14th Earls of Strathmore. The tragedy has always remained in the Glamis, just even before the era of Victoria secrets emerged. Popularly, King Malcolm II has been slain at the Castle and then the Royal Hunting Lodged during the year 1034. In the Macbeth of Shakespeare, written in the year 1606, the miserable protagonist lives in the Glamis Castle, even though the chronological King Macbeth does not have any connections with the site. This castle came into the ownership of the Lyon family, then later in the Bowes-Lyons during the year 1376. The primary ghost that was believed to haunt the fortress corridors was that of Lady Janet Douglas. Being caught up in their regional politics, this Lady Janet has been blamed of poisoning her half (the late sixth Lord of Glamis), then finally was convicted of the witchcraft in the year 1537. She has been burned at the risk in Edinburgh. The soul of Lady Janet has been said to give good turn to the clock tower of the castle.

The legendary secret chamber with the ‘monster’ of the Glamis Castle

Yet the very famous legend of the Glamis Castle was that of an unheard prisoner held in the secret hidden chamber. Based on the correspondents to the journal note and queries, the writings in the year 1908,

“The mystery has been told to the current writer some sixty years past, when he was the boy, and this has made the best impression on him. Then, in the tale was, and is, from that of the Glamis Castle is the secret chamber. It is in this chamber where there is a confined monster, who has been the rightful heir of the property and to the title as well, however, who is so not presentable, which is really essential to let him out from sight and from the possession” (Dash 2012).

This Monster of Glamis had been illustrated as a hairy, deformed, ‘a human toad,’ and who had always been terrified to behold. “The monster has been born into the clan. He was the real heir—the creature who is terrifying to behold. It has always been impossible to permit this malformed caricature of humankind to be seen—and even with their family friends.… His chest was a vast barrel that is hairy like a doormat, his legs and arms were toy like and his head ran directly into his shoulders” (Dash, 2012).

The sightings of this eerie figure at the Glamis Castle

Some of the witnesses claimed to have perceived the strange shadow of this odd creature as he stalked the battlements during late in the evening. One story tale tells about how the castle workman suddenly discovered the door that headed him to the unfamiliar, long passageway. Walking along in that eerie silence, a man has been said to have perceived ‘something’ in the far end side of the passage. Then, he fled and right away reported his meeting with the factor. He has been abruptly encouraged by mutual sides of the Earl and also the factor “to move abroad in Australia and his passage has been all paid off by the nervous Earl” (Dash, 2012).

When there is any established theory regarding with the origins of this ‘Monster’, it was that he has been the first-born child and the son of 11th Earl, Earl Thomas Bowes Lyon to his wife and half Charlotte Bowes-Lyon. Based on the contemporary records, this first child was “born a son and died on the 21st of October in the 1821.”

However, some thought that, but what if the son did not die at all? What if their unfortunate baby has been born with deformities and has been so severe, and that his parents had faked his death than just held him in a far away place? The real facts can never be known; however, what is just certain is that a thing that was very dark takes place in that old castle of the Glamis.