title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: In the book Sheldrake proposes a number of questions as the theme of each chapter which seek to elaborate on his central premise that science is predicated on the belief that the nature of reality is fully understood, with only minor details needing to be filled in. This "delusion" is what Sheldrake argues has turned science into a series of dogmas grounded in philosophical materialism rather than an open-minded approach to investigating phenomena. He argues that there are many powerful taboos that circumscribe what scientists can legitimately direct their attention towards. The mainstream view of modern science is that it proceeds by methodological naturalism and does not require philosophical materialism.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Sheldrake questions conservation of energy; he calls it a "standard scientific dogma," says that perpetual motion devices and inedia should be investigated as possible phenomena, and has stated that "the evidence for energy conservation in living organisms is weak." He argues in favour of alternative medicine and psychic phenomena, saying that their recognition as being legitimate is impeded by a "scientific priesthood" with an "authoritarian mentality." Citing his earlier "psychic staring effect" experiments and other reasons, he stated that minds are not confined to brains and remarks that "liberating minds from confinement in heads is like being released from prison." He suggests that DNA is insufficient to explain inheritance, and that inheritance of form and behaviour is mediated through morphic resonance. He also promotes morphic resonance in broader fashion as an explanation for other phenomena such as memory.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Reviews were mixed. Anti-reductionist philosopher Mary Midgley writing in "The Guardian" welcomed it as "a new mind-body paradigm" to address what she thought was "the unlucky fact that our current form of mechanistic materialism rests on muddled, outdated notions of matter." Philosopher Martin Cohen, a famous critic of esotericism in science, wrote in "The Times Higher Educational Supplement" that "[t]here is a lot to be said for debunking orthodox science's pretensions to be on the verge of fitting the last grain of information into its towering edifice of universal knowledge" while also noting that Sheldrake "goes a bit too far here and there, as in promoting his morphic resonance theory."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Bryan Appleyard writing in "The Sunday Times" commented that Sheldrake was "at his most incisive" when making a "broad critique of contemporary science" and "scientism," but on Sheldrake's "own scientific theories" Appleyard noted that "morphic resonance is widely derided and narrowly supported. Most of the experimental evidence is contested, though Sheldrake argues there are 'statistically significant' results." Appleyard called it "highly speculative" and was unsure "whether it makes sense or not."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Other reviews were less favourable. "New Scientist"'s deputy editor Graham Lawton characterised "Science Set Free" as "woolly credulousness" and chided Sheldrake for "uncritically embracing all kinds of fringe ideas." A review in "Philosophy Now" called the book "disturbingly eccentric," combining "a disorderly collage of scientific fact and opinion with an intrusive yet disjunctive metaphysical programme."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Reviews for the book were mostly positive. "Kirkus Reviews" described it as a "grounded and inspiring approach to appreciating the benefits of both science and religion". Adam Ford, reviewing the book for the "Church Times", describes it as a "useful and very clear introduction to the practice of meditation" combined with a how-to guide on the "healing and happiness-creating power of gratitude".


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: "Publishers Weekly" reviewed the book as having "accessible suggestions" and "clear arguments", while noting that "a few fuzzy moments, including reliance on many...overly speculative accounts" do not prevent the work from being "otherwise convincing" and "a good case for reincorporating bygone spiritual habits."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Reviews for the book were mixed. In "The Daily Telegraph", journalist Steven Poole reviewed Sheldrake's writing as "very engaging" and his defense of prayer as working "sometimes, but not always" as "not really good enough". Veterinary surgeon and barrister Charles A. Foster, writing in Literary Review, described the book as "a very mixed bag" but also "funny, wise, [and] full of whimsical weirdness".


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Writing in the "Times Literary Supplement", anthropologist Jonathan Benthall describes the book as "an affable, erudite manual to show how life need not be boring", and Sheldrake's arguments as "soft at the edges, sometimes presenting his hypotheses as facts".


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Sheldrake's ideas have been discussed in academic journals and books. His work has also received popular coverage through newspapers, radio, television and speaking engagements. The attention he receives has raised concerns that it adversely affects the public understanding of science. Some have accused Sheldrake of self-promotion, with Steven Rose commenting, "for the inventors of such hypotheses the rewards include a degree of instant fame which is harder to achieve by the humdrum pursuit of more conventional science."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Sheldrake and theoretical physicist David Bohm published a dialogue in 1982 in which they compared Sheldrake's ideas to Bohm's implicate order. In 1997, physicist Hans-Peter Dürr speculated about Sheldrake's work in relation to modern physics.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Following the publication of "A New Science of Life", "New Scientist" sponsored a competition to devise empirical tests for morphic resonance. The winning idea involved learning Turkish nursery rhymes, with psychologist and broadcaster Sue Blackmore's entry involving babies' behaviour coming second. Blackmore found the results did not support morphic resonance.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: In 2005, the "Journal of Consciousness Studies" devoted a special issue to Sheldrake's work on the sense of being stared at. For this issue, the editor could not follow the journal's standard peer review process because "making successful blind peer review a condition of publication would in this case have killed the project at the outset." The issue thus featured several articles by Sheldrake, followed by the open peer-review to which Sheldrake then responded. Writing in "Scientific American", Michael Shermer rated the peer commentaries, and noted that the more supportive reviews came from those who had affiliations with less mainstream institutions.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Sheldrake denies that DNA contains a recipe for morphological development. He and developmental biologist Lewis Wolpert have made a scientific wager about the importance of DNA in the developing organism. Wolpert bet Sheldrake "a case of fine port" that "By 1 May 2029, given the genome of a fertilised egg of an animal or plant, we will be able to predict in at least one case all the details of the organism that develops from it, including any abnormalities." The Royal Society will be asked to determine the winner if the result is not obvious.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: In September 1981, "Nature" published an editorial about "A New Science of Life" entitled "A book for burning?" Written by the journal's senior editor, John Maddox, the editorial commented:


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Maddox argued that Sheldrake's hypothesis was not testable or "falsifiable in Popper's sense," referring to the work of philosopher Karl Popper. He said Sheldrake's proposals for testing his hypothesis were "time-consuming, inconclusive in the sense that it will always be possible to account for another morphogenetic field and impractical." In the editorial, Maddox ultimately rejected the suggestion that the book should be burned. Nonetheless, the title of the piece garnered widespread publicity. In a subsequent issue, "Nature" published several letters expressing disapproval of the editorial, including one from physicist Brian Josephson, who criticised Maddox for "a failure to admit even the possibility that genuine physical facts may exist which lie outside the scope of current scientific descriptions."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: In 1983, an editorial in "The Guardian" compared the "petulance of wrath of the scientific establishment" aimed against Sheldrake with the Galileo affair and Lysenkoism. Responding in the same paper, Brian Charlesworth defended the scientific establishment, affirming that "the ultimate test of a scientific theory is its conformity with the observations and experiments" and that "vitalistic and Lamarckian ideas which ["The Guardian"] seem to regard so highly have repeatedly failed this test."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: In a letter to "The Guardian" in 1988, a scientist from Glasgow University referred to the title "A book for burning?" as "posing the question to attract attention" and criticised the "perpetuation of the myth that Maddox ever advocated the burning of Sheldrake's book." In 1999, Maddox characterised his 1981 editorial as "injudicious," saying that even though it concluded that Sheldrake's book


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: ... should not be burned ... but put firmly in its place among the literature of intellectual aberration. ... The publicists for Sheldrake's publishers were nevertheless delighted with the piece, using it to suggest that the Establishment ("Nature") was again up to its old trick of suppressing uncomfortable truths." An editor for "Nature" said in 2009 that Maddox's reference to book burning backfired.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: In 2012, Sheldrake described his time after Maddox's review as being "exactly like a papal excommunication. From that moment on, I became a very dangerous person to know for scientists."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: During 1987 and 1988 Sheldrake contributed several pieces to "The Guardian"'s "Body and Soul" column. In one of these, he wrote that the idea that "memories were stored in our brains" was "only a theory" and "despite decades of research, the phenomenon of memory remains mysterious." This provoked a response by Steven Rose, a neuroscientist from the Open University, who criticised Sheldrake for being "a researcher trained in another discipline" (botany) for not "respect[ing] the data collected by neuroscientists before begin[ning] to offer us alternative explanations," and accused Sheldrake of "ignoring or denying" "massive evidence," and arguing that "neuroscience over the past two decades has shown that memories are stored in specific changes in brain cells." Giving an example of experiments on chicks, Rose asserted "egregious errors that Sheldrake makes to bolster his case that demands a new vague but all-embracing theory to resolve."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Sheldrake responded to Rose's article, stating that there was experimental evidence that showed that "memories can survive the destruction of the putative memory traces." Rose responded, asking Sheldrake to "get his facts straight," explaining the research and concluding that "there is no way that this straightforward and impressive body of evidence can be taken to imply that memories are not in the brain, still less that the brain is tuning into some indeterminate, undefined, resonating and extra-corporeal field."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: In his next column, Sheldrake again attacked Rose for following "materialism," and argued that quantum physics had "overturned" materialism, and suggested that "memories may turn out to depend on morphic resonance rather than memory traces." Philosopher Alan Malachowski of the University of East Anglia, responding to what he called Sheldrake's "latest muddled diatribe," defended materialism, argued that Sheldrake dismissed Rose's explanation with an "absurd rhetorical comparison," asserted that quantum physics was compatible with materialism and argued that "being roughly right about great many things has given [materialists] the confidence to be far more open minded than he is prepared to give them credit for."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: In 1990, Sheldrake and Rose agreed to and arranged a test of the morphic resonance hypothesis using chicks. They were unable to agree on the intended joint research paper reporting their results, instead publishing separate and conflicting interpretations. Sheldrake published his paper stating that the results matched his prediction that day-old chicks would be influenced by the experiences of previous batches of day-old chicks. "From the point of view of the hypothesis of formative causation, the results of this experiment are encouraging" and called for further research. Rose published, stating that morphic resonance was a "hypothesis disconfirmed." He also made further criticisms of morphic resonance, and stated that "the experience of this collaboration has convinced me in practice, Sheldrake is so committed to his hypothesis that it is very hard to envisage the circumstances in which he would accept its disconfirmation." Rose asked Patrick Bateson to analyse the data, and Bateson offered his opinion that Sheldrake's interpretation of the data was "misleading" and attributable to experimenter effects.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Sheldrake responded to Rose's paper by describing it as "polemic" and "aggressive tone and extravagant rhetoric" and concluding that "The results of this experiment do not disconfirm the hypothesis of formative causation, as Rose claims. They are consistent with it."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Sheldrake was the subject of an episode of "Heretics of Science", a six-part documentary series broadcast on BBC2 in 1994. In this episode, John Maddox discussed "A book for burning?," his 1981 "Nature" editorial review of Sheldrake's book, "A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance". Maddox said that morphic resonance "is not a scientific theory. Sheldrake is putting forward magic instead of science, and that can be condemned with exactly the language that the popes used to condemn Galileo, and for the same reasons: it is heresy." The broadcast repeatedly displayed footage of book burning, sometimes accompanied by audio of a crowd chanting "heretic." Biologist Steven Rose criticised the broadcast for focusing on Maddox's rhetoric as if it was "all that mattered." "There wasn't much sense of the scientific or metascientific issues at stake," Rose said.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: An experiment involving measuring the time for subjects to recognise hidden images, with morphic resonance being posited to aid in recognition, was conducted in 1984 by the BBC popular science programme "Tomorrow's World". In the outcome of the experiment, one set of data yielded positive results and another set yielded negative results.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Sheldrake debated with biologist Lewis Wolpert on the existence of telepathy in 2004 at the Royal Society of Arts in London. Sheldrake argued for telepathy while Wolpert argued that telepathy fits Irving Langmuir's definition of pathological science and that the evidence for telepathy has not been persuasive. Reporting on the event, "New Scientist" said "it was clear the audience saw Wolpert as no more than a killjoy. (...) There are sound reasons for doubting Sheldrake's data. One is that some parapsychology experimenters have an uncanny knack of finding the effect they are looking for. There is no suggestion of fraud, but something is going on, and science demands that it must be understood before conclusions can be drawn about the results."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: In 2006, Sheldrake spoke at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science about experimental results on telepathy replicated by "a 1980s girl band," drawing criticism from Peter Atkins, Lord Winston, and Richard Wiseman. The Royal Society also reacted to the event saying, "Modern science is based on a rigorous evidence-based process involving experiment and observation. The results and interpretations should always be exposed to robust peer review."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: In April 2008, Sheldrake was stabbed by a man during a lecture in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The man told a reporter that he thought Sheldrake had been using him as a "guinea pig" in telepathic mind control experiments for over five years. Sheldrake suffered a wound to the leg and has since recovered, while his assailant was found "guilty but mentally ill."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: In January 2013, Sheldrake gave a TEDx lecture at TEDxWhitechapel in East London roughly summarising ideas from his book, "The Science Delusion". In his talk, Sheldrake stated that modern science rests on ten dogmas which "fall apart" upon examination and promoted his hypothesis of morphic resonance. According to a statement issued by TED staff, TED's scientific advisors "questioned whether his list is a fair description of scientific assumptions" and believed that "there is little evidence for some of Sheldrake's more radical claims, such as his theory of morphic resonance." The advisors recommended that the talk "should not be distributed without being framed with caution." The video of the talk was moved from the TEDx YouTube channel to the TED blog accompanied by the framing language called for by the advisors. The move and framing prompted accusations of censorship, to which TED responded by saying the accusations were "simply not true" and that Sheldrake's talk was "up on our website."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: In November 2013, Sheldrake gave a lecture at the Oxford Union outlining his claims, made in "The Science Delusion", that modern science has become constrained by dogma, particularly in physics.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Between 1989 and 1999, Sheldrake, ethnobotanist Terence McKenna and mathematician Ralph Abraham recorded a series of discussions exploring diverse topics relating to the "world soul" and evolution. These also resulted in a number of books based on these discussions: "Trialogues at the Edge of the West: Chaos, Creativity and the Resacralization of the World" (1992), "The Evolutionary Mind: Trialogues at the Edge of the Unthinkable" (1998), and "The Evolutionary Mind: Conversations on Science, Imagination & Spirit" (2005). In an interview for the book "Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse", Sheldrake states he believes the use of psychedelic drugs "can reveal a world of consciousness and interconnection" which he says he has experienced. Alternative medicine advocate Deepak Chopra has been a notable supporter of Sheldrake's work.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Sheldrake's work was amongst those cited in a faux research paper written by Alan Sokal and submitted to "Social Text". In 1996, the journal published the paper as if it represented real scientific research, an event which has come to be known as the Sokal affair. Sokal later said that he had suggested in the hoax paper that 'morphogenetic fields' constituted a cutting-edge theory of quantum gravity, adding that "This connection [was] pure invention; even Sheldrake makes no such claim."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Sheldrake has been described as a New Age author, though he does not endorse certain New Age interpretations of his ideas.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: The 2009 "Zero Escape" video game "Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors" was inspired by Sheldrake's morphogenetic field theories.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Among his early influences Sheldrake cites "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (1962) by Thomas Kuhn. Sheldrake says that the book led him to view contemporary scientific understanding of life as simply a paradigm, which he called "the mechanistic theory of life." Reading Kuhn's work, Sheldrake says, focused his mind on how scientific paradigms can change.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Sheldrake says that although there are similarities between morphic resonance and Hinduism's akashic records, he first conceived of the idea while at Cambridge, before his travel to India where he later developed it. He attributes the origin of his morphic resonance idea to two influences: his studies of the holistic tradition in biology, and French philosopher Henri Bergson's 1896 book "Matter and Memory". He says that he took Bergson's concept of memories not being materially embedded in the brain and generalised it to morphic resonance, where memories are not only immaterial but also under the influence of the collective memories of similar organisms. While his colleagues at Cambridge were not receptive to the idea, Sheldrake found the opposite to be true in India. He recounts his Indian colleagues saying, "There's nothing new in this, it was all known millennia ago to the ancient rishis." Sheldrake thus characterises morphic resonance as a convergence between Western and Eastern thought, yet found by himself first in Western philosophy.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Sheldrake has also noted similarities between morphic resonance and Carl Jung's collective unconscious, with regard to collective memories being shared across individuals and the coalescing of particular behaviours through repetition, described by Jung as archetypes. However, whereas Jung assumed that archetypal forms were transmitted through physical inheritance, Sheldrake attributes collective memories to morphic resonance, and rejects any explanation of them involving what he terms "mechanistic biology."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Lewis Wolpert, one of Sheldrake's critics, has described morphic resonance as being an updated Drieschian vitalism.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Sheldrake is married to therapist, voice teacher and author Jill Purce. They have two sons, biologist Merlin Sheldrake and musician Cosmo Sheldrake.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Sheldrake is a practicing Anglican. He has stated that he studied with a Sufi teacher and practiced Sufism while he was in India. Sheldrake reported "being drawn back to a Christian path" during his time in India.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: Fire Emblem Awakening is a tactical role-playing game developed by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo SPD and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS. It was released in April 2012 in Japan and 2013 internationally. It is the thirteenth installment in the "Fire Emblem" series and the first to be developed for the Nintendo 3DS family of systems. The gameplay, like previous "Fire Emblem" games, focuses on the tactical movement of characters across a grid-based battlefield and fighting enemy units. Other features include the ability to build and foster relationships between characters to improve their abilities, adjustable difficulty levels, a mode that disables the permanent death of characters, and multiple camera perspectives in battle.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: The story is set 2000 years after the events of the game and "Fire Emblem Gaiden" and focuses on Chrom, the prince of Ylisse, and his personal army, the "Shepherds". They rescue Robin (an Avatar whose name, gender, and appearance are customizable by the player), who is suffering from amnesia and serves as their tactician. Over the course of the story, Chrom's army travels across Ylisse, defending it from undead invaders - the Risen - and attacks from the hostile nation of Plegia.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: Development of "Fire Emblem Awakening" began in 2010, with multiple veterans of the "Fire Emblem" series filling key development roles. Development was handled by Intelligent Systems with supervision from Nintendo. As the series had seen declining sales with previous installments, "Awakening" was designed as the possible last entry in the series, with elements from all previous "Fire Emblem" games incorporated. Due to the 3DS still being fine-tuned by developers, the team's decisions for content and graphics were made based on what they thought was feasible for what they had available to them. However, some gameplay options and proposals were met with mixed feelings, such as the option to disable permanent character death, often colloquially known as "permadeath", a staple of the "Fire Emblem" franchise.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: Upon release, the game received critical acclaim and achieved strong sales worldwide, with many critics praising the new additions to the traditional gameplay and accessibility to newcomers of the series. After release, the game was nominated for multiple awards from video game publications, often being cited as one of the best games on the 3DS platform, is credited with boosting sales for the 3DS and is considered one of the best role-playing video games of all time. "Awakening"s commercial success ensured the continuation of the series. The successor to "Awakening", "Fire Emblem Fates", was released in Japan in 2015 and in Western territories in 2016.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: In "Fire Emblem Awakening", the player begins the game as one of the central characters, a customizable Avatar: while the character's default name is Robin, their name, gender, hair color, feature types, and voice can all be customized. There are two modes of play: Casual Mode and Classic Mode. In Classic Mode, characters defeated in battle are permanently dead, unable to be used for the rest of the game. Casual Mode enables the player to disable permanent character deaths. With permanent death disabled, fallen units are restored after the completion of the battle. When Chrom or the Avatar character dies in battle in any mode, the player receives a "Game Over" message and must restart the battle. The game has multiple difficulty levels: the three standard modes are Normal, Hard and Lunatic. A fourth difficulty level, Lunatic+, is unlocked after completing the game on Lunatic mode. The playing mode and difficulty level are selected at the beginning of a new game.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: After the player is given access to a party of characters, they can travel across a world map both to new locations and revisit old locations. The time of day on the world map is synced to the player's time zone and time of day. New locations can contain main story missions as well as side stories where new characters can be recruited. Previously visited locations have shops where the player can acquire new weapons. They also can contain random enemy skirmishes. Between missions, players can go to a customizable central base called the Barracks, where the player can watch scenes between characters and perform other activities. The player can recruit approximately forty characters, not including characters included in downloadable content. The game features multiple uses of the Nintendo 3DS-exclusive SpotPass and StreetPass functions via the world map. During navigation, the player can encounter other players and interact via StreetPass. The player can do battle with a party of up to ten characters from another player's world. Whichever player wins the battle gains access to the party. Avatars can also be either befriended or defeated in battle, and loaned out to other players using this function.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: "Awakening" uses a turn-based tactical role-playing battle system. The terrain is displayed on the top screen of the 3DS, while unit information is displayed on the bottom screen. Before each battle, the player selects a limited number of characters from their roster for use in battle. The player can either control each unit manually or activate an auto-battle option. Character movement is dictated by a tile-based movement system. During combat, player-controlled sprite characters and enemy units controlled by the game's artificial intelligence (AI) each get one turn where they position their units. An additional turn is added when unaffiliated AI-controlled units are in the field. Playable characters positioned next to each other in the field will support one-another, granting buffs, and performing actions such as blocking attacks. Two characters can also pair up as a single mobile unit, enabling both units to attack at once. As the relationship between characters strengthens, they gain greater bonuses to their strength and effectiveness when paired up in battle. During combat, the perspective switches to a 3D scene between combatants. Optional camera angles, including a first-person view through the eyes of playable characters, can be activated using the 3DS stylus.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: During battles, characters earn experience points (EXP) through successful actions during battle. When the character has earned 100 EXP, their level is raised by one, increasing various stats including health and attack power. New skills are also learned by each character. The game includes a character class system, with approximately forty classes available. Each character, including the Avatar, has a starting class. When a unit reaches Level 10, they can either upgrade or change their classes using special items called Master Seals and Second Seals. A Master Seal promotes the character's class, improving character stats and giving access to new ability sets or weapons. A Second Seal allows a character to change class, or "reclass", when they are either at Level 10 or have reached their current Advanced Class. Upon reclassing, a character's experience level is reset to Level 1 while their stats and abilities are retained. The classes that most characters can reclass into are limited. The exception to this is the Avatar, who is able to reclass into any class available to their gender. Regardless of future changes, characters retain learned skills from earlier classes. A character's class affects both their attack capabilities and their mobility on the battlefield: for example, mages and archers can attack at greater ranges than melee units, mounted units have more powerful attacks than foot units, while flying units have greater mobility and range.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: Relationships between characters are built up through Support conversations between chapters. The normal rankings of relationships are C to A, with A standing for a close friendship. For characters of opposing genders, an additional S ranking is available, in which the characters fall in love, marry and have children. Relationships also have a direct impact during battles, with certain character pairings granting positive effects such as increased mobility or an automatic guarding action. A couple's children can be found and recruited in optional chapters made available by the parent characters' marriage, with their appearance and in-game abilities varying depending on who their parents were. Most characters have a specific list of units which they can have Support conversations with; the Avatar can build a relationship with all characters, and (depending on their chosen gender) marry any unit from any generation as long as they are not a direct descendant.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: The game takes place approximately 2000 years after the events of "" and "Gaiden". In ancient times, the Fell Dragon Grima attempted to destroy the world. To stop Grima, the Divine Dragon Naga (voiced by Mela Lee) chose the ruler of the Halidom of Ylisse (known as the First Exalt) and granted them power through two magical objects: Falchion, a sword with the power to slay dragons; and the Fire Emblem, a magical shield, both items having been made from Naga's own fangs. Using these, the Exalt struck down Grima, sending it into a long slumber. In the intervening period, the continents of Archanea and Valentia became known as Ylisse and Valm.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: By the present time, the land of Ylisse is divided between Halidom of Ylisse, which continues to worship Naga, and is ruled by Exalt Emmeryn (voiced by Erin Fitzgerald) and defended by the Shepherds, her brother Chrom's (voiced by Matthew Mercer) militia force; the kingdom of Plegia, which worships Grima; and Regna Ferox, a country whose rulers periodically compete for dominance. Fifteen years prior to "Awakening", the last Exalt of Ylisse, Emmeryn's father, waged a religious war against Plegia, which greatly damaged both countries and left bitterness on both sides. Ylisse has slowly recovered from the war thanks to Emmeryn's peaceful actions.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: After dreaming of killing Chrom, an amnesiac Robin wakes up in a field and is found by Chrom and members of his personal army, the Shepherds. Robin joins the Shepherds, after exhibiting the qualities of a tactician when they defend a nearby town from Plegian bandits. After gaining an alliance with Regna Ferox, the Shepherds move to fight both Plegia's forces and revenant monsters called the Risen; they are helped by a masked man calling himself "Marth". After a confrontation between Plegia and the Shepherds, Emmeryn is almost killed by Validar and his minions. The assassination plot is foiled with aid from "Marth", who has prior knowledge of the event, and is also revealed to be a woman. Soon after, Plegian forces capture Emmeryn as she goes to parley with King Gangrel, Plegia's ruler, and prevent another war. Gangrel demands the Fire Emblem in exchange for Emmeryn's life. Though Chrom almost accepts Gangrel's terms, Emmeryn stops him by throwing herself over a cliff, becoming a martyr to both Ylisse and Plegia. Eventually, the Shepherds triumph over Plegia, defeating Gangrel and restoring peace to the continent.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: Two years after Gangrel's defeat, Chrom inherits the throne of Ylisse, marries, and fathers a newborn daughter named Lucina. Chrom leads the Shepherds again when Emperor Walhart of Valm threatens to invade Ylisse. During the campaign, "Marth" returns and reveals to Chrom that she is actually Lucina (voiced by Laura Bailey), from an alternate timeline more than 10 years in the future where Grima has been resurrected, and she used a time traveling spell devised by Naga to return to the past in order to prevent the events leading to her future. To combat Grima, Chrom must perform the "Awakening", a ritual that grants him Naga's power, by combining the Fire Emblem with five magical gems divided among the nations. During and after the war in Valm, the Shepherds manage to retrieve four of the gemstones. They are then ambushed by Validar, the new king of Plegia and Robin's father, after he offers them the last gemstone. Validar takes control of Robin and steals the Fire Emblem from Chrom. He also reveals that Robin was born as the ideal vessel for Grima. Lucina realizes that Grima used Robin to kill Chrom in her timeline, and attempts to execute them; Chrom forces her to stand down, remaining confident the Avatar can overcome Grima's control. Alternatively, if Robin is Lucina's husband or mother, Lucina is unable to go through with it and stands down on her own. The Shepherds manage to track down Validar, who uses Robin to attack Chrom, mirroring the events of their nightmare. However, Robin uses their foreknowledge to prevent Chrom's death, allowing the Shepherds to kill Validar and recover the Fire Emblem.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: At this point, a possessed Robin from Lucina's future appears, revealing that the present timeline Robin's amnesia was caused by Grima's unsuccessful attempt to possess them. The future Robin then uses the power gathered for Grima's resurrection to restore its dragon form. In a race against time, Chrom performs the Awakening and summons Naga. Although Chrom now has the power to stop Grima, Naga reveals that she only has enough power to put Grima to sleep for another thousand years. Naga explains that the only way to truly destroy Grima is to have him destroy himself through Robin, which could come at cost of Robin's life. Naga tells them that Robin will only survive if their bonds with Chrom and the Shepherds are strong enough. In the final battle, the Shepherds manage to weaken Grima. Chrom, already set against the sacrifice of Robin, offers to deliver the final blow to the fell dragon. Depending on the player's final choice, the game will reach one of two different endings. If Chrom deals the final blow, Grima is put back to sleep for another thousand years, though Robin is left with regrets. If Robin deals the final blow, both them and Grima permanently die. Chrom and the Shepherds refuse to believe that Robin is dead, and vow to find them and bring them home. In a post-credits scene, Robin wakes up in a field similar to the beginning of the game, where Chrom and Lissa find them and welcome them home.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: The original planning for "Fire Emblem Awakening" began in 2010, when Nintendo SPD director Genki Yokota was finishing his work on the Wii game "Xenoblade Chronicles". The game was co-developed by Nintendo and regular "Fire Emblem" developer Intelligent Systems. Among the staff members were veterans of the "Fire Emblem" series, including project manager Masahiro Higuchi, who had first worked on "", and Intelligent Systems producer Kouhei Maeda, who first worked as a scenario writer for "". The first proposals were made after the completion of "", a remake for the Nintendo DS of the . Development was very slow for the first year, during which time producer Hitoshi Yamagami organized the game's development structure. Once this was completed, he handed the main production duties over to co-director Genki Yokota. The art director was Toshiyuki Kusakihara. Character designs were done by Kusakihara and Yūsuke Kozaki. Kusakihara was brought on board to offer a fresh perspective on the "Fire Emblem" series and new ideas for the team, while Kozaki was brought in to help create a distinctive art style that would be well-received overseas, as had his previous work for the Wii title "No More Heroes". During development, Kusakihara and Kozaki had lengthy meetings about various aspects of the game. These meetings became so time-consuming that Kusakihara compared his situation to the legend of Urashima Tarō.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: Due to declining sales of the series, the developers were told by Nintendo that "Awakening" would be the last "Fire Emblem" game if it failed to sell above 250,000 units. This caused panic for the team, with them considering including a high number of elements new to the game. Among the concepts were a modern-day setting or using the planet Mars as a setting. Eventually, the team decided that these elements would alienate rather than attract players and stuck to the medieval setting and style of previous "Fire Emblem" titles. As a compromise, the team decided to make it the "culmination" of all the games in "Fire Emblem" series to that point, incorporating gameplay elements from multiple titles. This approach was approved by the team and the proposal was completed within a month, though the decision also created difficulties with choosing which elements to include, and how to balance them so they did not clash with one another. The game's final title, ""Awakening"", was born from this concept of an ultimate "Fire Emblem" game. It was initially just casually suggested by Yamagami when discussing ideas for a title with Yokota, and Yokota liked it. As development progressed, the team continued to come up with ideas that increased workload, but they maintained a positive attitude and pushed forward in spite of the consequent pressures. Internally, the game was known as ""Fire Emblem Fin: The Children from the Brink"".


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: Maeda was mainly responsible for the original scenario, thinking out the rough outline before the team created the events of each chapter in detail. Some plot points, such as the true identity of "Marth", were planned from an early stage, while many of the other plot twists came about during its development. Many of them were added at the suggestion of team members from both Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. Two key story themes while developing the game were the love for the characters, and the bonds characters developed over the course of the story. The latter theme was expressed in gameplay through the cooperative behavior of adjacent characters. While voice acting was included, it was limited to snappy lines meant to evoke a certain feeling. This was because the team had concerns about the amount of content in the game, which would increase a great deal with full voice acting, and its effect on the pacing. The team also used multiple well-known Japanese voice actors for the characters. Special voice overs and visuals were created for the character "confession" sequences. All the main characters had a personalized backstory, and appropriate personalities were chosen for them. The first one to be finalized was the child character Inigo, who was created by character planner Nami Kumoru. A large team of writers were employed to create the character dialogue, and a story bible containing the characters' personality traits was created for the writers to work from. While developing the playable and enemy characters, the team used feedback from fans saying they should name all the characters, including foot soldiers. Wanting to give the impression of every character having their own lives, they created full artwork for all characters. Creating the characters proved to be one of the hardest parts of development. While designing the characters, Kozaki took their backstories into account: for example, the thief character Gaius was drawn with a sack of sweets, as he had a love for them. Kozaki was also responsible for creating the 2D artwork which represented the characters during conversations.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: Once Nintendo gave the go-ahead for development, Intelligent Systems formed a small internal development team to handle the project. "Awakening" was the first "Fire Emblem" game for the Nintendo 3DS. The platform was as yet unreleased and still undergoing final development. Because of this, the team had a large number of ideas for features to include, but they also only had a limited idea of what the system was capable of. Consequently, they had difficulties deciding how the 2D sprites and 3D environments would interact with each other, and ensuring they did not clip through objects. One notable feature missing from in-game character models was their feet. The original idea was to add a unique and uniform deformation to characters. As the team did not have much knowledge of the platform's CPU strength, the number of character bones they could include were intentionally limited. This meant that the bones needed for the operation of ankles and feet were omitted. Later, it was discovered that ankles and feet could be included, but the team decided to leave that for a future game if it came to pass. A different explanation was that the team wanted players to focus on the top half of characters, so made their heads the largest part of their character models while shrinking their feet.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: The concept for character graphics on the map underwent changes. Initially, some of the team felt that accurately displaying a character's equipment and class would be enough, but later it was decided to give them all individual characteristics. They were also able to add more unique character expressions than previous "Fire Emblem" games, enabling a greater emotional range during scenes of drama. A different element was the environmental effects the team incorporated, such as dust clouds when characters performed actions in battle. For the full-motion cutscenes, the team wanted to create a sense of grandeur and spectacle, using the openings of Taiga drama series as inspiration. Japanese animation company Kamikaze Douga was in charge of supervising the production and art assets of the game's cutscenes. Cutscene animation was handled by Studio Anima. According to team members, their request to Studio Anima was to make the world "come alive" during the full-motion sequences, which were included at crucial moments in the plot.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: The first part of the game to receive full attention from the team was the gameplay. As a test map, the team used the opening map for "Mystery of the Emblem". One of the early options was switching between 16x16 and 24x24 pixel characters depending on the camera's overhead distance. In the end, the team used a hardware-based scaling system instead of switching between graphics types so as to keep the frame rate consistent in battle. While designing the levels, the team created both maps with a plot-driven structure and maps that allowed for player freedom. An aspect of the battle system new to the series was the inclusion of an optional first-person viewpoint during battles. This was done with western players in mind, as developers wanted to both give players an option on their perspective in battle and demonstrate the platform's 3D effects. The difficulty levels proved a point of debate amongst the team, ranging from the naming of difficulties to whether to include the ability to adjust it on the fly, which some felt was contrary to "Fire Emblem" traditions. There was also debate about both the inclusion and mechanics of the marriage system. While some aspects went smoothly, there was contention about the ability to marry any of the characters, and Kusakihara's suggestion of having characters kissing at the conclusion of each romance was vetoed by the team. An effort was made to make the interface and graphics easy for players to understand. An example of this was the cursor, which in previous games had been a triangular shape and for "Awakening" was changed to a pointing hand. One of the more controversial ideas that made it into the final game was the "Casual Mode", first introduced in "New Mystery of the Emblem". Initially opposed by staff members at Nintendo and Intelligent Systems, Yamagami and others successfully defended its inclusion. Yamagami's stance was that modern gamers would not be pleased with needing to invest extra time because a character had died. In another interview, team members said that "Awakening" was the first time the team conformed to the popular image of Nintendo games being easy to play and user-friendly.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: The game was first announced in September 2011 as part of Nintendo's 2012 lineup for the 3DS, alongside titles such as "Monster Hunter 4" and "Bravely Default". As part of its release, Nintendo created a limited edition Nintendo 3DS bundle with "Awakening" pre-installed. The game's localization and western release were planned from an early stage, hence the inclusion of multiple aesthetic and gameplay elements meant to appeal to a Western audience. The localization process took approximately one year and was handled collaboratively by Nintendo of America and independent video game localization company 8-4, who previously localized the Nintendo DS game "". The game was first announced for release in Europe in February 2012, with the stated release period being that year. In April of the same year, Nintendo of America registered a web domain for "Fire Emblem Awakening". Its North American release was confirmed in June through Nintendo's Twitter account. The release windows for western regions were announced in December. For its western release, the game included both the English and Japanese voice tracks. Like in Japan, a limited 3DS bundle with "Awakening" pre-installed was created for North America and Europe, with Europe also receiving the 3DS XL model as part of the bundle. There was some confusion upon its release in North America: on the day of release, while it was available through Nintendo's online store, multiple online retailers did not have it stocked. While Nintendo was fairly non-committal on the incident, they did state that due to variabilities in shipping, retailers could receive stocks on different days.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: "Fire Emblem Awakening" was the first packaged title released by Nintendo to receive downloadable content (DLC) after launch, taking the form of additional maps and characters from previous entries in the "Fire Emblem" series. The idea for DLC content came up when the game was close to completion. Due to this, the team could not do anything that would invalidate the main story. For the additional playable characters, the team focused on the main cast, picked out the most suitable, and left the final choice to Maeda. Starting from the game's release, over twenty different playable maps were released over several months at the rate of one map per week. Nintendo decided to release downloadable content for the game in all available regions. After it becomes available, the DLC can be accessed using the game's SpotPass system: within the context of the game's world, after a certain point in the game, the characters can access an area called the Outrealm Gate, being transported to the DLC maps. Various artists have contributed illustrations for the downloadable characters, including those who have worked on previous titles, such as Senri Kita, and newcomers, such as Kimihiko Fujisaka. One of the DLC maps received censorship upon release in North America and Europe, with a shot of a female playable character altered to hide her underwear.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: "Fire Emblem Awakening" has received widespread critical acclaim, holding an aggregate score of 92/100 on Metacritic, based on 72 reviews. After its release, "Awakening" was placed on "GameSpot"s list of the best games on the 3DS, and reached second place on a similar list by "GameTrailers". IGN included the game on two different lists: it reached #2 on their list of the top 25 Nintendo 3DS games, and #21 on their list of the top 125 Nintendo games of all time. "Slant Magazine"s staff ranked it the eleventh best video game of 2013.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: "Famitsu" said in its review that the game could be enjoyed by hardcore fans and newcomers alike, as it made accommodations for both, and particularly praised the new gameplay features. "IGN"s Audrey Drake called "Awakening" "the most fluid and stunning strategy RPG experience available on a portable, and features the best storytelling and production value of any 3DS game to date." Jeremy Parish, writing for "1UP.com", said that though the "Fire Emblem" series had changed little over the years while holding a place of respect within the genre, the changes Intelligent Systems implemented made "Awakening" "an engrossing title that should enjoy impressive shelf life." His main criticism was against the enemy AI, which occasionally unbalanced the gameplay. Ray Carsillo of "Electronic Gaming Monthly", while sharing Parish's opinion on the lack of a restart option, called "Awakening" "probably the best "Fire Emblem" to come to the States yet." While "Eurogamer"s Rich Stanton, giving the game a perfect score, called it "a special game", praising its story themes and how it made him care about his characters.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: "GameTrailers" said that the game "takes positive strides forward with new additions like enhancements to the social system and battle mechanics, and the series’ established formula is all the better for it." Despite feeling mixed about the interface and multiplayer, "GameSpot"s Heidi Kemps called "Awakening" the best installment in the series for some time. Alexa Ray Corriea, writing for "Polygon", said that the development team had "added just enough to the time-tested "Fire Emblem" formula to bolster its challenges without cutting away its roots." "Game Informer"s Kimberley Wallace said that "["Awakening"] made me scratch and claw for victory, and I savored every moment." Chris Carter of "Destructoid", similar to "Famitsu", recommended it to old and new players, saying: "If you've been itching to get into a "Fire Emblem" game, this is a great place to start. If you've been playing them all along, you'll feel right at home."


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: "Awakening" was nominated for multiple awards after release. At the 2012 "Famitsu" Awards 2012, "Awakening" was among the games awarded the magazine's Excellence Award. In the West, it was nominated in the "Best RPG" category at the Spike Video Game Awards 2013. It was nominated in multiple categories in "Destructoid"s 2013 Game of the Year awards, including Game of the Year, Best Role-Playing Game, Best Story, and Best Soundtrack. It was also nominated for "GameSpot"s Game of the Year 2013 in the Nintendo 3DS category. In "IGN"s Best of 2013 awards, it won in both the Best 3DS Strategy Game and Best 3DS Story categories. At the Game Developers Choice Awards 2014, it was nominated in the Best Handheld/Mobile Game category.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: The game's Japanese launch saw incredible sales figures, being the fastest-selling entry in the series since detailed weekly tallies began. During its opening week, the game managed to sell 242,600 units, reaching the top of the sales charts and beating the debut sales of the previous two "Fire Emblem" releases. It sold through 81.63% of its initial shipment, causing sell-outs in some stores. Japanese sales tracker Media Create attributed the initial high sales to Nintendo's promotional campaign and a five-year wait between releases. Demand for the limited Japanese bundle also exceeded Nintendo's expectations, as the pre-order website crashed from the number of people trying to buy it. As marketing the game as any product other than a limited edition would have violated a Japanese commercial law, Nintendo were unable to reopen the pre-orders after the initial sales period despite complaints. By the beginning of 2013, the game had sold 455,268 units, placing it among the top 30 high-selling titles for 2012. In addition to the main game, Nintendo reported that 1.2 million units of downloadable content had been sold by September 2012, bringing in an additional 380 million yen (about $4.8 million).


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: Sales in the West were equally strong. During its first month on sale in North America, the game sold 180,000 units, with 63,000 units of the total sales being eShop downloads. These figures gave "Awakening" the best ever first month sales for the franchise in North America. Sales continued to rise in the coming months, with the total figure reaching 240,000 units by April, including a further 20,000 digital sales. By September, total sales in North America had reached 390,000 units. In the UK, "Awakening" debuted in third place on the charts behind "" and "BioShock Infinite". The game and the hardware bundle collectively boosted sales of the 3DS and 3DS XL by nearly 50% over the previous week. As of March 2017, the game has sold-through 1.9 million copies worldwide, with 500,000 copies sold in Japan and 1.4 million copies elsewhere.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: The game's strong sales, well exceeding the initial figures set by Nintendo during production, ensured that the "Fire Emblem" series would not be canceled. In January 2015, a new "Fire Emblem" title created for the Nintendo 3DS by the same core team as "Awakening", "Fire Emblem Fates", was announced for a worldwide release. The success of "Awakening" has been credited with popularizing the platform among other Japanese RPG publishers, such as Square Enix and Atlus.


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: "Awakening"s success has also resulted in characters making appearances in other Nintendo games. Two of the game's main characters, Lucina and Robin, were featured in the 2014 crossover fighting games "Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U". Chrom was considered for the game but was deemed too similar to other "Fire Emblem" characters on the roster at the time, so his appearance was relegated to small non-playable cameos. However, he was finally made playable in the franchise's next entry "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" by popular request, particularly from within Japan. A stage based on Arena Ferox was also included, along with a selection of music tracks from "Awakening".


title: Fire Emblem Awakening

text: Lucina and Robin were also made available as playable characters in "", "Fire Emblem Fates", and (albeit temporarily) "" for those who scanned their Amiibo figures. Costumes based on Chrom and Lucina are also available in Capcom's "" video game, in a cross-promotion done with Nintendo. A free downloadable content mission allowed the characters in "Fates" to visit the setting of "Awakening", mere moments before the latter's campaign began in earnest. During promotion for "Fates", a "Fire Emblem"-themed trading card game was released. A set themed after "Awakening" includes a code to download Lucina as a playable character in "Fates". Chrom and Lucina are both playable units in "Project X Zone 2", and multiple characters from "Awakening" are featured in "Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE", a crossover with Atlus's "Megami Tensei" megafranchise. Chrom also cameos as a guest character in the Nintendo-published mobile game "Dragalia Lost". Characters from "Awakening" prominently appear as playable units in the crossover spinoff titles "Fire Emblem Heroes" and "Fire Emblem Warriors", with the latter title launching alongside the first Chrom Amiibo figure. A second Chrom Amiibo figure for the "Super Smash Bros." lineup was released on November 15, 2019.


title: Dena Schlosser

text: Dena Schlosser ( Leitner, born 1969) is an American woman from Plano, Texas who, on November 22, 2004, used a knife to amputate the arms of her eleven-month-old daughter, Margaret, who died as a result. Plano police responded to a 9-1-1 call made by concerned workers at a local daycare center who had spoken to her earlier that day. The operator testified that she confessed to her and that the gospel song "He Touched Me" played in the background. When police arrived they saw her calmly sitting down, covered in blood, holding the knife, and singing Christian hymns.


title: Dena Schlosser

text: At the age of eight, Dena Leitner was diagnosed with hydrocephalus. She had eight surgeries to implant shunts into her brain, heart and abdomen before she was 13 years old. She graduated from Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, with a bachelor's degree in psychology.


title: Dena Schlosser

text: She met her husband, John Schlosser, when they were both students at Marist. Eventually they moved to Texas.


title: Dena Schlosser

text: The day after Margaret was born, Schlosser attempted suicide, was hospitalized in a psychiatric ward, and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder with psychotic features. She had been investigated earlier that year by the Texas Child Protective Services (CPS) after she was hospitalized for a psychotic episode. CPS ordered that she could not be alone with her children. Her sister-in-law came to live with them until CPS lifted the order. Schlosser came to believe that Margaret was destined to marry Doyle Davidson, a veterinarian who had become their pastor. The day before she attacked Margaret, Schlosser told her husband that she wanted to give her to Davidson. Later that day, according to a confidential CPS report, he spanked her with a wooden spoon in front of their children. She fatally injured Margaret by severing her arms with a knife, while her other two daughters were not physically harmed.


title: Dena Schlosser

text: Psychologist David Self testified that Schlosser told him about a disturbing news story she had seen. The news story concerned a boy who was mauled by a lion and she interpreted it as a sign of the coming apocalypse. She said that she heard God commanding her to remove Margaret's arms and then her own. The attack was later described as "religious frenzy". Self determined that she suffered from postpartum psychosis. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was committed to the North Texas State Hospital and ordered to go


title: Dena Schlosser

text: there until she is deemed to no longer be a threat to herself or others. There, she was a roommate of Andrea Yates, a Texas woman who had drowned her five children in a bathtub.


title: Dena Schlosser

text: During the trial, much attention was drawn to Schlosser and her husband attending Water of Life Church, a charismatic church pastored by Davidson. She had been taking antipsychotic drugs for several years prior to Margaret's death. Davidson thought that mental illness was demonic and this belief partly led Schlosser's husband to not buy her medication regularly. Under oath, Davidson testified that in his view, all mental illness is demonic at bottom. Due to viewer outcry after the trial, Davidson's television ministry was canceled everywhere outside the Metroplex.


title: Dena Schlosser

text: After Schlosser's arrest, her children were taken by CPS and kept in foster care. CPS said they would only allow him to regain custody of them under the condition that his sister live with the family, and he was required to complete psychotherapy and parenting classes. He received full custody of his daughters and raised them as a single father. He subsequently filed for divorce. As part of the divorce settlement, Schlosser was prohibited from ever having contact with him or their daughters again.


title: Dena Schlosser

text: On November 6, 2008, it was announced that Schlosser would shortly be released into outpatient care. The order required her to see a psychiatrist once a week, take medication, be on physician-approved birth control, and not have any unsupervised contact with children.


title: Dena Schlosser

text: In April 2010, it was reported that Schlosser was recommitted after firefighters from Richardson saw her walking down the street at 2:00 AM. Her attorney, David Haynes, said that he felt the judge made the correct decision.


title: Dena Schlosser

text: Schlosser was later released to outpatient status. She stayed out of the public eye until 2012, when WFAA-TV in Dallas reported that she was working under her maiden name, Leitner, at a Walmart in Terrell. Within hours, they fired her.


title: Dena Schlosser

text: Schlosser was briefly seen in the 2005 documentary "The God Who Wasn't There", which is critical of Christianity.


title: Dena Schlosser

text: There is also a segment about Schlosser in an August 23, 2013, episode of "Deadly Women" called "Evil Guardians".


title: Diplomatic mission

text: A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually denotes an embassy, which is the main office of a country's diplomatic representatives to another country; it is usually, but not necessarily, based in the receiving state's capital city. Consulates, on the other hand, are smaller diplomatic missions that are normally located in major cities of the receiving state (but can be located in the capital, typically when the sending country has no embassy in the receiving state). As well as being a diplomatic mission to the country in which it is situated, an embassy may also be a nonresident permanent mission to one or more other countries.


title: Diplomatic mission

text: The term embassy is sometimes used interchangeably with chancery, the physical office or site of a diplomatic mission. Consequently, the terms "embassy residence" and "embassy office" are used to distinguish between the ambassador's residence and the chancery.


title: Diplomatic mission

text: The head of an embassy is known as an ambassador or high commissioner. The term "embassy" is commonly used also as a section of a building in which the work of the diplomatic mission is carried out, but strictly speaking, it is the diplomatic delegation itself that is the embassy, while the office space and the diplomatic work done is called the "chancery". Therefore, the embassy operates in the chancery.


title: Diplomatic mission

text: The members of a diplomatic mission can reside within or outside the building that holds the mission's chancery, and their private residences enjoy the same rights as the premises of the mission as regards inviolability and protection.


title: Diplomatic mission

text: All missions to the United Nations are known simply as "permanent missions", while EU member states' missions to the European Union are known as "permanent representations", and the head of such a mission is typically both a permanent representative and an ambassador. European Union missions abroad are known as EU delegations. Some countries have more particular nomenclature for their missions and staff: a Vatican mission is headed by a "nuncio" (Latin for "envoy") and consequently known as an "apostolic nunciature". Under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's missions used the name "people's bureau", headed by a secretary.


title: Diplomatic mission

text: Missions between Commonwealth countries are known as "high commissions", and their heads are high commissioners. Generally speaking, ambassadors and high commissioners are regarded as equivalent in status and function, and embassies and high commissions are both deemed to be diplomatic missions.


title: Diplomatic mission

text: In the past, a diplomatic mission headed by a lower-ranking official (an "envoy" or "minister resident") was known as a "legation". Since the ranks of envoy and minister resident are effectively obsolete, the designation of "legation" is no longer among the diplomatic ranks used in diplomacy and international relations.


title: Diplomatic mission

text: A consulate is similar to, but not the same as a diplomatic office, but with focus on dealing with individual persons and businesses, as defined by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. A consulate or consulate general is generally a representative of the embassy in locales outside of the capital city. For instance, the Philippines has its embassy to the United States in the latter's capital, Washington, D.C., but also maintains seven consulates-general and four consulates elsewhere in the U.S. The person in charge of a consulate or consulate-general is known as a consul or consul-general, respectively. Similar services may also be provided at the embassy (to serve the region of the capital) in what is normally called a consular section.


title: Diplomatic mission

text: In cases of dispute, it is common for a country to recall its head of mission as a sign of its displeasure. This is less drastic than cutting diplomatic relations completely, and the mission will still continue operating more or less normally, but it will now be headed by a "chargé d'affaires" (usually the deputy chief of mission) who may have limited powers. A "chargé d'affaires ad interim" also heads the mission during the interim between the end of one chief of mission's term and the beginning of another.


title: Diplomatic mission

text: Contrary to popular belief, diplomatic missions sometimes do not enjoy full extraterritorial status and are generally not sovereign territory of the represented state. The sending state can give embassies sovereign status but this only happens with a minority of countries. Rather, the premises of an embassy remain under the jurisdiction of the host state while being afforded special privileges (such as immunity from most local laws) by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Diplomats themselves still retain full diplomatic immunity, and (as an adherent to the Vienna Convention) the authorities of the host country may not enter the premises of the mission (which means the head of mission's residence) without permission of the represented country, even to put out a fire. International rules designate an attack on an embassy as an attack on the country it represents. The term 'extraterritoriality' is often applied to diplomatic missions, but normally only in this broader sense.


title: Diplomatic mission

text: As the host country's authorities may not enter the representing country's embassy without permission, embassies are sometimes used by refugees escaping from either the host country or a third country. For example, North Korean nationals, who would be arrested and deported from China upon discovery, have sought sanctuary at various third-country embassies in China. Once inside the embassy, diplomatic channels can be used to solve the issue and send the refugees to another country. See the list of people who took refuge in a diplomatic mission for a list of some notable cases.


title: Diplomatic mission

text: Notable violations of embassy extraterritoriality include repeated invasions of the British Embassy in Beijing (1967), the hostage crisis at the American embassy in Tehran, Iran (1979–1981), and the Japanese embassy hostage crisis at the ambassador's residence in Lima, Peru (1996–1997).


title: Diplomatic mission

text: The basic role of a diplomatic mission is to represent and safeguard the interests of the home country and its citizens in the host country. According to the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which establishes the framework of diplomacy among sovereign states:The functions of a diplomatic mission consist, "inter alia", in representing the sending State in the receiving State; protecting in the receiving State the interests of the sending State and of its nationals, within the limits permitted by international law; negotiating with the Government of the receiving State; ascertaining by all lawful means conditions and developments in the receiving State, and reporting thereon to the Government of the sending State; promoting friendly relations between the sending State and the receiving State, and developing their economic, cultural and scientific relations.


title: Diplomatic mission

text: Diplomatic missions between members of the Commonwealth of Nations are not called embassies, but high commissions, for Commonwealth nations share a special diplomatic relationship. It is generally expected that an embassy of a Commonwealth country in a non-Commonwealth country will do its best to provide diplomatic services to citizens from other Commonwealth countries if the citizen's country does not have an embassy in that country. Canadian and Australian nationals enjoy even greater cooperation between their respective consular services, as outlined in the Canada-Australia Consular Services Sharing Agreement. The same kind of procedure is also followed multilaterally by the member states of the European Union (EU). European citizens in need of consular help in a country without diplomatic or consular representation of their own country may turn to any consular or diplomatic mission of another EU member state.


title: Diplomatic mission

text: In Rome, many states maintain separate missions to both Italy and the Holy See. It is not customary for these missions to share premises nor diplomatic personnel. At present, only the Iraqi and United States embassies to Italy and the Holy See share premises; however, separate ambassadors are appointed, one to each country. In the case of the UN's Food Agencies, the ambassador to the Italian Republic is usually accredited as permanent representative. The United States maintains a separate mission to the UN agencies, led by its own ambassador, but is located in the compound that houses its embassies to Italy and the Holy See.


title: Diplomatic mission

text: Several cities host both embassies/consulates and permanent representatives to international organizations, such as New York City (United Nations), Washington, D.C. (Organization of American States), Jakarta (ASEAN) and Brussels (European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization).


title: Diplomatic mission

text: In some cases, an embassy or consulate is divided between two locations in the same city: for example, Kolkata in India hosts two Bangladeshi Deputy High Commissions, one at Park Circus and another, opened later, at Mirza Galib Street, to reduce overcrowding.


title: Diplomatic mission

text: Governments of states not recognized by the receiving state and of territories that make no claim to be sovereign states may set up offices abroad that do not have official diplomatic status as defined by the Vienna Convention. Examples are the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Offices that represent the government of the Republic of China; Somaliland's Representative Offices in London, Addis Ababa, Rome, and Washington, D.C.; the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices that represent the government of that territory. Such offices assume some of the non-diplomatic functions of diplomatic posts, such as promoting trade interests and providing assistance to its citizens and residents. They are nevertheless not diplomatic missions, their personnel are not diplomats and do not have diplomatic visas, although there may be legislation providing for personal immunities and tax privileges, as in the case of the Hong Kong offices in London and Toronto, for example.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: Diplomatic rank is a system of professional and social rank used in the world of diplomacy and international relations. A diplomat's rank determines many ceremonial details, such as the order of precedence at official processions, table seatings at state dinners, the person to whom diplomatic credentials should be presented, and the title by which the diplomat should be addressed.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: The current system of diplomatic ranks was established by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961). There are three top ranks, two of which remain in use:


title: Diplomatic rank

text: The body of diplomats accredited to a country form the diplomatic corps. Ambassadors have precedence over chargés, and precedence within each rank is determined by the date on which diplomatic credentials were presented. The longest-serving ambassador is the dean of the diplomatic corps, who speaks for the entire diplomatic corps on matters of diplomatic privilege and protocol. In many Catholic countries, the papal nuncio is always considered the dean of the diplomatic corps.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: The ranks established by the Vienna Convention (1961) modify a more elaborate system of ranks that was established by the Congress of Vienna (1815):


title: Diplomatic rank

text: The rank of "envoy" was short for "envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary", and was more commonly known as "minister". For example, the "envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the United States to the French Empire" was known as the "United States Minister to France" and addressed as "Monsieur le Ministre".


title: Diplomatic rank

text: An Ambassador was regarded as the personal representative of his sovereign as well as his government. Only major monarchies would exchange Ambassadors with each other, while smaller monarchies and republics only sent Ministers. Because of diplomatic reciprocity, Great Powers would only send a minister to a smaller monarchy or a republic. For example, in the waning years of the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom sent an ambassador to Paris, while Sweden-Norway and the United States sent ministers.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: The rule that only monarchies could send ambassadors was more honored in the breach than the observance. This had been true even before the Congress of Vienna, as England continued to appoint ambassadors after becoming a republic in 1649. Countries that overthrew their monarchs proved to be unwilling to accept the lower rank accorded to a republic. After the Franco-Prussian War, the French Third Republic continued to send and receive ambassadors. The rule became increasingly untenable as the United States grew into a Great Power. The United States followed the French precedent in 1893, and began to exchange ambassadors with other Great Powers.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: Historically, the order of precedence had been a matter of great dispute. European powers agreed that the papal nuncio and imperial ambassador would have precedence, but could not agree on the relative precedence of the kingdoms and smaller countries. In 1768, the French and Russian ambassadors to Great Britain even fought a duel over who had the right to sit next to the imperial ambassador at a court ball. After several diplomatic incidents between their ambassadors, France and Spain agreed in 1761 to let the date of arrival determine their precedence. In 1760, Portugal attempted to apply seniority to all ambassadors, but the rule was rejected by the other European courts.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: The Congress of Vienna finally put an end to these disputes over precedence. After an initial attempt to divide countries into three ranks faltered on the question of which country should be in each rank, the Congress instead decided to divide "diplomats" into three ranks. A fourth rank was added by the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (1818). Each diplomatic rank had precedence over the lower ranks, and precedence within each rank was determined by the date that their credentials were presented. The papal nuncio could be given a different precedence than the other ambassadors. The Holy Roman Empire had ceased to exist in 1806, so the Austrian ambassador would accumulate seniority along with the other ambassadors.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: In modern diplomatic practice, there are a number of diplomatic ranks below Ambassador. Since most missions are now headed by an ambassador, these ranks now rarely indicate a mission's (or its host nation's) relative importance, but rather reflect the diplomat's individual seniority within their own nation's diplomatic career path and in the diplomatic corps in the host nation:


title: Diplomatic rank

text: The term "attaché" is used for any diplomatic agent who does not fit in the standard diplomatic ranks, often because they are not (or were not traditionally) members of the sending country's diplomatic service or foreign ministry, and were therefore only "attached" to the diplomatic mission. The most frequent use is for military attachés, but the diplomatic title may be used for any specific individual or position as required, generally related to a specific or technical field. Since administrative and technical staff benefit from only limited diplomatic immunity, some countries may routinely appoint support staff as attachés. Attaché does not, therefore, denote any rank or position (except in Soviet and post-Soviet diplomatic services, where attaché is the lowest diplomatic rank of a career diplomat). Note that many traditional functionary roles, such as press attaché or cultural attaché, are not formal titles in diplomatic practice, although they may be used as a matter of custom.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: Furthermore, outside this traditional pattern of bilateral diplomacy, as a rule on a permanent residency basis (though sometimes doubling elsewhere), certain ranks and positions were created specifically for multilateral diplomacy:


title: Diplomatic rank

text: Special envoys have been created "ad hoc" by individual countries, treaties and international organizations including the United Nations. A few examples are provided below:


title: Diplomatic rank

text: Most countries worldwide have some form of internal rank, roughly parallel to the diplomatic ranks, which are used in their foreign service or civil service in general. The correspondence is not exact, however, for various reasons, including the fact that according to diplomatic usage, all Ambassadors are of equal rank, but Ambassadors of more senior rank are typically sent to more important postings. Some countries may make specific links or comparisons to military ranks.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: Officers from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) are graded into four broad bands (BB1 to BB4), with the Senior Executive Service (SES Band 1 to SES Band 3) following above.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: Ambassadors, High Commissioners and Consuls-General usually come from the Senior Executive Service, although in smaller posts the head of mission may be a BB4 officer. Generally speaking (and there are variations in ranking and nomenclature between posts and positions), Counsellors are represented by BB4 officers; Consuls and First and Second Secretaries are BB3 officers and Third Secretaries and Vice Consuls are BB2 officers. DFAT only posts a limited number of low-level BB1 staff abroad. In large Australian missions an SES officer who is not the head of mission could be posted with the rank of Minister.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: The Brazilian Foreign Service ("Serviço Exterior Brasileiro") is made up of three careers: the Diplomat Career, the Chancery Officer Career and the Chancery Assistant Career.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: There are no ranks in the Chancery Assistant or Chancery Officer careers, nor a hierarchy between careers. However, when working abroad, it is common for Chancery Assistants and Chancery Officers to be assigned to sensitive functions, such as the Vice-Consul, and/or as Head of Sectors such as administration, accounting, communications, processing of political, commercial, diplomatic or consular information.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: "" is the honorary dignity conceded permanently when a Minister of First Class assumes a Post overseas. It can also be a temporary assignment, when carried on by a lower-rank diplomat or Brazilian politician of high level.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: The ranks of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China are defined by the Law on Diplomatic Personnel Stationed Abroad, passed in 2009 by the National People's Congress:


title: Diplomatic rank

text: The German Foreign Service uses a rank system that is connected to that of the rest of the civil administration and to military ranks through a common pay table. All ranks also occur in female form.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: In Italy, ranks and functions are not exactly connected: each rank can cover several functions. Moreover, several exceptions apply.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: There are about 30 people who hold the rank of Ambassador. Therefore, most of the about 150 Italian embassies or permanent representations are held by a Minister Plenipotentiary: traditionally, ambassadors are appointed to the most important representations, such as London, Paris, Washington, New Delhi and Peking embassies and representations to the UN in New York City and the EU in Brussels.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: After the merger of the Consular and Diplomatic Corps, the current grades of Mexican career diplomats are (in ascending order)


title: Diplomatic rank

text: There are additional ranks for Administrative specialists and Staff, this civil servants are also part of the Mexican Foreign Service.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: In ascending order, the five ranks of the Portuguese diplomatic career are, as defined in the Statute of the Diplomatic Career ("Estatuto da Carreira Diplomática"):


title: Diplomatic rank

text: Ministers Plenipotentiary who have been in that rank for three or more years are called "Minister Plenipotentiary, First Class" ("ministro plenipotenciário de 1.ª classe"), those who have been in the rank for less than three years are called "Minister Plenipotentiary, Second Class" ("ministro plenipotenciário de 2.ª classe"). Embassy Secretaries who have been in that rank for six years or more and in the diplomatic career for eight years or more are called "First Embassy Secretary" ("primeiro-secretário de embaixada"), those who have been in the rank for three years or more and for five years or more in the diplomatic career are called "Second Embassy Secretary" ("segundo-secretário de embaixada"), and those who have been in that rank for less than three years are called "Third Embassy Secretary" ("terceiro-secretário de embaixada").


title: Diplomatic rank

text: The diplomatic ranks in the Russian Federation were introduced with enactment of the Federal Law of 27 July 2010 No.205-FZ. Diplomatic ranks are not to be confused with diplomatic positions (posts).


title: Diplomatic rank

text: Singapore's Foreign Service has a merged Consular and Diplomatic Corps due to its small size. Its Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) are typically appointed to the rank of Second Secretary / Vice-Consul or higher, while Foreign Service Administration Specialists (FSASes) are posted according to their substantive grades (typically ranging from Mission Support Officer to Attache - although in very rare cases some senior FSASes may be promoted up to the rank of First/Second Secretary or Consul/Vice-Consul). [Note: FSOs and FSASes are on discrete career tracks. Hence, even the rare FSAS who rises up the ranks, will not hold a similar substantive grade to that of an FSO. FSOs are typically the diplomats, while FSASes serve as support staff.]


title: Diplomatic rank

text: Regardless of rank, personnel are typically split across three tracks: (a) Political, (b) Administration and Consular, (c) Administration and Technical. Officers on the Political track take precedence over the rest, and are usually the ones holding the appointments of Head of Mission (HOM) or Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM). [Note: The Political track is reserved for FSOs.]


title: Diplomatic rank

text: Personnel seconded from other government agencies receive different protocol-based suffixes and titles from those in the Foreign Service, which differ from wider public and military services' ranks/grades and titles. For instance, a First Secretary (Economic) would represent an officer/middle-manager from the Ministry of Trade and Industry. While such persons may hold diplomatic status temporarily, they are not considered to be part of the Foreign Service.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: After the merger of the Consular and Diplomatic Corps, the current eight grades of Spanish career diplomats are (in ascending order):


title: Diplomatic rank

text: His Majesty's Diplomatic Service differentiates between officers in the "Senior Management Structure" (SMS; equivalent to the Senior Civil Service grades of the Home Civil Service) and those in the "delegated grades".


title: Diplomatic rank

text: SMS officers are classified into four pay-bands, and will serve in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in London as (in descending order of seniority) Permanent Under-Secretary (O-10), Directors-General (O-9), Directors (O-8), and Heads of department or deputy directors (O-7).


title: Diplomatic rank

text: Overseas Ambassadors and High Commissioners (in Commonwealth countries) are generally drawn from all four SMS bands (and the D7 delegated grade) depending on the size and importance of the mission, as are Consuls-General, Deputy Heads of Mission, and Counsellors in larger posts. (Deputy Heads of Mission at the most significant Embassies, for example those in Washington and in Paris, are known as Ministers.)


title: Diplomatic rank

text: In the "delegated grades", officers are graded by number from 1 to 7; the grades are grouped into bands lettered A‑D (A1 and A2; B3; C4 and C5; and D6 and D7).


title: Diplomatic rank

text: Overseas, A2 grade officers hold the title of Attache; B3‑grade officers are Third Secretaries; C4s are Second Secretaries; and C5s and D6s are First Secretaries. D7 officers are usually Counsellors in larger posts, Deputy Heads of Mission in medium-sized posts, or Heads of Mission in small posts.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: In the United States Foreign Service, the personnel system under which most U.S. diplomatic personnel are assigned, a system of personal ranks is applied which roughly corresponds to these diplomatic ranks. Personal ranks are differentiated as "Senior Foreign Service" (SFS) or "Member of the Foreign Service". Officers at these ranks may serve as ambassadors and occupy the most senior positions in diplomatic missions. The SFS ranks, in order from highest to lowest, are:


title: Diplomatic rank

text: Members of the Foreign Service consist of five groups, including Foreign Service Officers and Foreign Service Specialists. Like officers in the U.S. military, Foreign Service Officers are members of the Foreign Service who are commissioned by the President. Foreign Service Specialists are technical leaders and experts, commissioned by the Secretary of State. Ranks descend from the highest, FS‑1, equivalent to a full Colonel in the military, to FS‑9, the lowest rank in the U.S. Foreign Service personnel system. (Most entry-level Foreign Service members begin at the FS‑5 or FS‑6 level.) Personal rank is distinct from and should not be confused with the diplomatic or consular rank assigned at the time of appointment to a particular diplomatic or consular mission.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: In a large mission, several Senior Diplomats may serve under the Ambassador as Minister-Counselors, Counselors, and First Secretaries; in a small mission, a diplomat may serve as the lone Counselor of Embassy.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: Most countries' consular corps are composed of career diplomats who are simply posted to Consulates/Consulates-General. In such situations, these career diplomats will hold consular ranks instead (ranking in descending order: consul-general, consul, vice-consul, consular agent; equivalents with consular immunity limited to official acts only include honorary consul-general, honorary consul, and honorary vice-consul. Other titles, including "vice consul-general", have existed in the past.) – although they are usually also given a diplomatic rank by the country. Consular ranks and responsibilities differ from country to country, and may also be used concurrently with diplomatic titles if the individual is assigned to an embassy. Diplomatic immunity is generally more limited for consular officials without other diplomatic accreditation, and is broadly limited to immunity with respect to their official duties.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: While in the past, consular officials have often been more distant from the politically sensitive aspects of diplomacy, this is no longer necessarily the case, and career diplomats in consulates often perform the same roles as those in an embassy would. Some countries also routinely provide their embassy officials with consular commissions, including those without formal consular responsibilities, since a consular commission allows the individual to legalize documents, sign certain documents, and undertake certain other necessary functions.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: Depending on the practice of the individual country, "consular services" may be limited to services provided for citizens or residents of the sending country, or extended to include, for example, visa services for nationals of the host country.


title: Diplomatic rank

text: Sending nations may also designate incumbents of certain positions as holding consulary authority by virtue of their office, while lacking individual accreditation, immunity and inviolability. For example, 10 U.S.C. §§ 936 and 1044a identify various U.S. military officers (and authorize the service secretaries to identify others) who hold general authority as a notary and consul of the United States for, respectively, purposes of military administration and those entitled to military legal assistance. A nation may also declare that its senior merchant sea captain in a given foreign port—or its merchant sea captains generally—has consulary authority for merchant seamen.


title: Glamis Castle

text: Glamis Castle is situated beside the village of Glamis (, ) in Angus, Scotland. It is the home of the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, and is open to the public.


title: Glamis Castle

text: Glamis Castle has been the home of the Lyon family since the 14th century, though the present building dates largely from the 17th century. Glamis Castle was the childhood home of the late Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother. Her second daughter, Princess Margaret was born there on 21 August 1930.


title: Glamis Castle

text: The castle is protected as a category A listed building, and the grounds are included on the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland, the national listing of significant gardens.


title: Glamis Castle

text: Glamis is set in the broad and fertile lowland valley of Strathmore, near Forfar, county town of Angus, which lies between the Sidlaw Hills to the south and the Grampian Mountains to the north, approximately inland from the North Sea. The estate surrounding the castle covers more than and, in addition to parks and gardens, produces several cash crops including lumber and beef. There are two streams running through the estate, one of them the Glamis Burn. An arboretum overlooking Glamis Burn features trees from all over the world, many of them rare and several hundred years old.


title: Glamis Castle

text: The vicinity of Glamis Castle has prehistoric traces; for example, a noted intricately carved Pictish stone known as the Eassie Stone was found in a creek-bed at the nearby village of Eassie.


title: Glamis Castle

text: In 1034 Malcolm II was murdered at Glamis, where there was a Royal Hunting Lodge. In William Shakespeare's play "Macbeth" (1603–06), the eponymous character resides at Glamis Castle, although the historical King Macbeth (d. 1057) had no connection to the castle.


title: Glamis Castle

text: By 1372 a castle had been built at Glamis, since in that year it was granted by Robert II to Sir John Lyon, Thane of Glamis, husband of the king's daughter. Glamis has remained in the Lyon (later Bowes-Lyon) family since this time. The castle was rebuilt as an L-plan tower house in the early 15th century.


title: Glamis Castle

text: The title Lord Glamis was created in 1445 for Sir Patrick Lyon (1402–1459), grandson of Sir John. John Lyon, 6th Lord Glamis, married Janet Douglas, daughter of the Master of Angus, at a time when James V was feuding with the Douglases. In December 1528, Janet was accused of treason for bringing supporters of the Earl of Angus to Edinburgh. She was then charged with poisoning her husband, Lord Glamis, who had died on 17 September 1528. Eventually, she was accused of witchcraft, and was burned at the stake at Edinburgh on 17 July 1537. James V subsequently seized Glamis, living there for some time.


title: Glamis Castle

text: In 1543, Glamis was returned to John Lyon, 7th Lord Glamis. In 1606, Patrick Lyon, 9th Lord Glamis, was created Earl of Kinghorne. He began major works on the castle, commemorated by the inscription "Built by Patrick, Lord Glamis, and D[ame] Anna Murray" on the central tower. The English architect Inigo Jones has traditionally been linked to the redesign of the castle, though Historic Scotland consider the King's Master Mason William Schaw a more likely candidate, due to the traditional Scottish style of the architecture.


title: Glamis Castle

text: During the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, soldiers were garrisoned at Glamis. In 1670,


title: Glamis Castle

text: Patrick Lyon, 3rd Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, returned to the castle and found it uninhabitable. Restorations took place until 1689, including the creation of a major Baroque garden. John Lyon, 9th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, succeeded in 1753, and in 1767 he married Mary Eleanor Bowes, heiress to a coal-mining fortune. He set about improving the grounds of the castle in the picturesque style in the 1770s. The south-west wing was rebuilt after a fire in the early 19th century. In the 1920s, a huge fireplace from Gibside, the Bowes-Lyon estate near Gateshead, was removed and placed in Glamis' Billiard Room. The fireplace displays the coat of arms of the Blakiston family; Gibside heiress Elizabeth Blakiston had married Sir William Bowes. Several interiors, including the Dining Room, also date from the 18th and 19th centuries.


title: Glamis Castle

text: In 1900, Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was born, the youngest daughter of Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne and his wife, Cecilia (née Cavendish-Bentinck). She spent much of her childhood at Glamis, which was used during the First World War as a military hospital. She was particularly instrumental in organising the rescue of the castle's contents during a serious fire on 16 September 1916. On 26 April 1923 she married Prince Albert, Duke of York, second son of George V, at Westminster Abbey. Their second daughter, Princess Margaret, was born at Glamis Castle in 1930.


title: Glamis Castle

text: Since 1987, an illustration of the castle has featured on the reverse side of ten pound notes issued by the Royal Bank of Scotland. Glamis is currently the home of Simon Bowes-Lyon, 19th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, who succeeded to the earldom in 2016.


title: Glamis Castle

text: In the 17th century four "brazen" statues were placed on the approach avenue: Charles I in boots; James VI in a stole; Charles II in Roman dress; and James II as in his Whitehall portrait. The first two were sculpted by Arnold Quellin.


title: Glamis Castle

text: The most famous legend connected with the castle is that of the Monster of Glamis, a hideously deformed child born to the family. Some accounts came from singer and composer Virginia Gabriel who stayed at the castle in 1870. In the story, the monster was kept in the castle all his life and his suite of rooms bricked up after his death. Another monster is supposed to have dwelt in Loch Calder near the castle.


title: Glamis Castle

text: An alternative version of the legend is that to every generation of the family a vampire child is born and is walled up in that room.


title: Glamis Castle

text: There is an old story that guests staying at Glamis once hung towels from the windows of every room in a bid to find the bricked-up suite of the monster. When they looked at it from outside, several windows were apparently towel-less.


title: Glamis Castle

text: A legend tells of the 15th-century "Earl Beardie," who has been identified with both Alexander Lyon, 2nd Lord Glamis (died 1486), and with Alexander Lindsay, 4th Earl of Crawford (died 1453). Several versions exist, but they all involve "Earl Beardie" playing cards. However, it was the sabbath, and either his hosts refused to play, or a servant advised him to stop. Lord Beardie became so furious that he claimed that he would play until doomsday, or with the Devil himself, depending on the version. A stranger then appears at the castle and joins Lord Beardie in a game of cards. The stranger is identified with the Devil, who takes Earl Beardie's soul and, in some versions, condemns the Earl to play cards until doomsday.


title: Glamis Castle

text: According to the official website for Glamis Castle, in 1034, Malcolm II was mortally wounded in a nearby battle and taken to a Royal Hunting Lodge, which sat at the site of the present castle, where he died.