The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1923-02-04

e. 5 Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the daugh-
ter of the Earl of Strathmore, will his
stride whisper in his ear the explanation
.szof the terrible secret Of CLAIMS Castle,
which for generations has been closely
guarded by the CLAIMS family and care
fully hidden from inquisitive outsiders?
Legends of ghosts, of secret rooms, of
mysterious dungeons, of unspeakable
monsters, of spectral wanderings and
haunted chambers more or Tess attach
themselves to all the famous old castles of
Europe. But CLAIMS Castle has a very
real mystery.
And the true story of the mystery of
CLAIMS Castle is so shocking that the late
Lord Strathmore, grandfather of the girl
who will soon marry the Duke of York,
begged his friends not to press him for an
explanation of the mystery, and exclaimed
solemnly:
eff you could guess the terrible nature
of the mystery. you would go down on
your knees and thank God that you were
ignorant of it,
1t did not need Lord Strathmore's con-
fession that the mystery was too terrible
for -human ears, to confirm the widespread
belief not only in the neighborhood, but
throughout England, that CLAIMS Castle
was haunted.
When, during the war, this famous
home of the Strathmore family in Scot
land was offered for sale nobody made a
bid. 1t was then offered for rent and no
body made any inquiries. It is doubtful
if many people would agree to live in the
castle even if it was given to them with
out rent, so many are the stories abroad
of ghosts and uncanny monsters which
creep out of The dark crypts and the SUBJ
terranean caverns of the great castle.
Even the sober-minded Sir Walter Scott,
who slept in the castle in 1894, writes
that it gave him an "eerie feeling" in his
Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft."
Sir Walter doesn't claim to have seen
anything supernatural in the castle and
he did not get curiously meddlesome about
the haunted room. But, to him, there
seemed something in the air that provoked
goose flesh.
the secret of the chamber of Glamis in
his Lives OF the LlndSayS.
There is abundant evidence, therefore,
that the castle has an ancient reputation
for being haunted, whatever the truth of
the matter may be.
So. grim and hideous is the terrible
secret that has hung over CLAIMS Castle
for centuries that it is known to only
two people at a time-the lord of the
manor and his eldest living son. When
the Earl died and his eldest son succeeded
him, he passed the secret on, in turn, to
his son.
The present Lord Strathmore has son
who, in the natural course of events, will
inherit the castle with its unspeakable
secret Nobody knows whether this young
man has already been told the secret by
his father. 1t is not impossible that even
so terrible thing may have already been
explained, not only to the future heir to
the castle, but to his sister, Lady Bowes-
Lyon who will soon become the bride of
the Duke of York. Woman's curiosity
may have pried loose the secret from her
father, or her brother, or her mother.
+ If she knows it, will she whisper it into
the ear of her husband? And is there
more than one secret and mystery of old
Glamis Castle?
The legendary story of something
supernatural and uncanny about the
castle extends back several generations.
And yet, there is also very good evidence
to believe that still different horror turks
in the place and that there is a secret
chamber where some living monster ex-
listed until at least very recent years.
Are there, then, two secrets Of old
CLAIMS? Whatever it was that made Sir
Walter Scott speak of an "eerie feeling"
when he slept in the castle century and
a quarter ago could scarcely have been
the same thing which, in more recent