Glamis castle

 Pronounced Glams. A Disney like building as you will see. Waiting for us at the rather quaint entrance door was a piper- as it turns out previously he was a piper in the Black Watch. 

We were piped into a cellar, presented with whisky tastings in order to toast the piper, which we did. Nikki was our guide, she gave us souvenir booklets and we had coffee and shortbread at the end. It was a great tour, nearly 2 hours. It has been in the same family since the 1400s. Oliver Cromwell was the only force to ever ‘take it’ and they did strip the castle of everything.  Time to redecorate in 1650.

Well I like a good noble family story. The Queen Mum was from the family, not sure if she was born  there. She married the second son of the king of England, and unexpectedly became Queen when feckless David, known as Edward VIII abdicated for love. Thank goodness. We go the Good King George during the war, and his daughter Queen Elizabeth II to follow. My mum and dad met her Queen and Prince Phillip in Canberra! 

Ghost stories are to be heard everywhere. LadyJanet Douglas was the wife of one of the Earls, and she is said to haunt the chapel. When one of the King James’ wanted to harm the Earl, she was caught up in the dispute and was burned at the stake as a witch.  She was said to sit on a certain chair in the corner. On a tour last year, a woman sitting on that chair stood up and said”my name is Janet Douglas”. Unfortunately the story did not elaborate on what happened to her! 

Another legend. The Lord and his mate were playing cards and being boisterous one Saturday night. It was ticking over into Sunday, the Sabbarh. When the servants came to the door and begged them to stop due to it about to be the Sabbath when card playing was strictly forbidden, the Lord said “ I’ll play cards till I like, even with the devil for all time, for I am the lord of this castle”. The next knock on the little door was the devil. It is said that the Devil took him to hell and the little room was walled up with the two men inside.

There were of course loads of family portraits. One was intriguing. Two were painted of the Earl wearing his see-through armor. 

Apparently the wife did not think much of the suit or the painting, and spent 14 years embroidering wall hangings instead. Here I found a cheetah for Pipey. She also did an elephant, a rhino with its horn coming out of its back, snail, caterpillar and regular farm animals.

A later countess who had 10 children, including the Queen Mum, embroidered their names inside her bed hangings. The Queen Mum was child number nine, but she did alright for herself. So and her husband, the future king, spent their honeymoon there for 3 weeks, and her mother prepared special rooms which now house a lot of the ‘royal memorabilia’. 

Brief mentionings:

Lots of imported crockery, China, then Germany; endless family paintings (though this was outdone by Scone Castle in the afternoon).

The coloured standards from the Black Watch, after our visit to their museum yesterday had meaning.

Ceiling motifs, it was really worth looking up. Some lovely art deco style intwined letters.

King Macbeth lived 300 years before the castle was built, but Shakespeare had him as thane of Glamis. “nothing to do with us but we enjoy the free publicity”.

Wig room, powder, arsenic, weevils

The wealth came from a Lady Bowes, once the richest heiress in Europe. First marriage ok. Second marriage tricked into by scoundrel pretending to be dying after a duel. Became a tyrant and eventually she divorced him, an unusual achievement for the time. From her comes the Bowes of Bowes-Lyon.

We witnessed the annual Carriage Driving Competition, where various tasks were performed such as collecting a glass of champagne from a stand, and carrying it to another stand without spilling a drop, as well as driving past a piper blasting out. I don’t know if part of this is to use a young piper, but he was young and he was awful, so maybe the pony was a music critic too.