WEBVTT - Season 08 Episode 17: Stone in the Blood 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:05.120 Hello, it's Richard McLean Smith here, not the impostor you've 0:00:05.160 --> 0:00:09.400 been listening to on the podcasts, the real one. Join 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:14.360 me for Unexplained TV at YouTube dot com Forward Slash 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:30.280 Unexplained pod. In August twenty twenty three, workers were in 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:33.280 the middle of a restoration project on the eight hundred 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:38.440 year old Johnstown Castle in County Wexford Island. A carpenter 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:41.839 was repairing a window frame in the east wing when 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:46.280 he inadvertently knocked a hole in the wall. After the 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:50.760 team made further excavations, they discovered a secret room under 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:54.800 the tower. Though the empty space is assumed to be 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:58.520 nothing more alarming than a small bedroom, news of the 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:03.360 discovery made head lines around the world. Adding fuel to 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:08.480 the speculative fire was the estate manager's enigmatic suggestion that 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:11.600 the room could have been sealed off due to an 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:20.080 unspecified tragedy in the castle's past. Castles, tragedies secrets three 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:25.399 ingredients that have come together darkly and deliciously over the centuries. 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:31.160 Back in Unexplained Season six, episode one, The Chasm Below, 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:36.040 we detailed the legend surrounding the Czech Republic's Hauska Castle. 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:40.720 In episode thirteen of the same season a place of forgetting, 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:47.520 we plumber the secrets of Lepp Castle, supposedly Ireland's most haunted. Clearly, 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:50.320 there is something about the idea of a castle and 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:55.200 its mysteries that just ignites the imagination. Maybe we are 0:01:55.280 --> 0:02:00.520 conditioned by their prominence in our darker stories, from Shakespeare's 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:05.080 to the great Gothic novels. Maybe it's the irony of 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:10.880 buildings designed to withstand battle, bombardment and siege being ultimately 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:16.600 impotent to withstand the human capacity for manufacturing terror, that 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:21.080 no matter how impregnable we make our defenses, we cannot 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:26.240 ever escape ourselves. Or maybe it's just that castles have 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:29.600 been the stage for so much horror and violence that 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:34.480 they now impose themselves and our psychogeographical landscape just as 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:38.800 heavily as they sit on their hilltops, as vast monuments 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:42.839 to the worst that humans can do. There is one 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:47.280 castle where legend and history is woven so tightly that 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:51.800 the twin strands are now impossible to unpick. A castle 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:56.280 where devils are said to have visited, monsters are said 0:02:56.320 --> 0:03:01.639 to rome, and secrets are kept at any cost, and 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:04.960 where it appears there may be more than a little 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:10.920 truth to the rumours you're listening to unexplained, and I'm 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:22.639 Richard mc lean smith. For a thousand years, Glam's Castle, 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:26.840 located just north of Dundee in the East of Scotland, 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:30.960 has been bound up with secrets and stories. They are 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:35.080 as integral to the structure as the mortar between its stones. 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.440 In ten thirty four, when GLAMs was still the site 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:42.600 of a royal hunting lodge, it played host to the 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:47.000 death of King Malcolm the Second of Scotland. The details 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:51.080 of Malcolm's demise are lost to history, but documents from 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:55.320 the period suggest he was likely murdered. In the late 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:59.360 fourteenth century, an early rudimentary tower was built on the 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:02.680 site and established as the family seat of the Lyon 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:07.480 family as reward for Sir John Lyon's services to the crown. 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:12.240 Ten years later, Sir John would also be murdered by 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:17.039 his rival, James Lindsay of Crawford. The castle and its 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:21.000 estate was surrendered back to the Crown in fifteen thirty seven, 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:25.279 after Jane Douglas, the Lady of GLAMs, was found guilty 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:29.840 of witchcraft and intent to poison the king. In punishment, 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:32.640 she was burned at the stake, and for the next 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:36.279 two centuries, GLAMs bounced in and out of the Lyon 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:40.600 family's possession, eventually settling with them when the family was 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:44.480 awarded the earldom, though they would later change the family 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:48.160 name to Bow's Lion. They remained the Earls and Ladies 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:52.200 of Strathmore and Kinghorn to this day. But even with 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:57.440 its ownership secure, GLAMs regularly sat empty, as few of 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:02.719 the earls chose to inhabit its coal drafty halls. It 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:07.120 is a place of thick walls and heavy atmosphere, consistently 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:13.240 associated with the Macarbre. When Shakespeare adapted the real historical 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:16.680 Macbeth into one of the most cursed figures in all 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:22.280 of literature, where else did he appoint his home but GLAMs. 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:26.320 And just as Shakespeare promoted the castle's notoriety in the 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:30.360 sixteenth century, it was another writer who plucked it from 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:35.479 obscurity in the eighteenth Walter Scott, the famed author of 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:40.279 historical epics such as Ivanhoe and Rob Roy, visited in 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:44.520 the summer of seventeen ninety three, requesting the opportunity to 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.880 stay overnight in one of the rooms. Forty years later, 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:52.640 Scott wrote an account of his stay in his letters 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:58.160 on Demonology and Witchcraft, I must own he reminisced, as 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:02.080 I heard door after door shut, I began to consider 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:06.000 myself as too far from the living and somewhat too 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:10.520 near to the dead. Scott was a lifelong scholar of 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:14.640 folklore and the supernatural, so it's likely his perception of 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:18.080 the half empty Castle was colored by an awareness of 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:22.600 its many ghost stories. Several are of a notably cruel 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:27.760 and violent strain. One of the more benign supposed specters 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:32.080 is that of Jane Douglas. After she was burned at 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:36.039 the stake on trumped up charges of treason, her spirit 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:40.480 was said to remain at GLAMs. Known as either the 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:43.919 White or Gray Lady, she is said to appear most 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:48.760 frequently in the castle's small chapel, often kneeling at the altar, 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:51.719 where she has apparently been seen by some of the 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:55.400 most prominent members of the family, including the mother of 0:06:55.480 --> 0:07:00.560 Queen Elizabeth, the second Elizabeth Bow's Lion, who grew up GLAMs. 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:04.200 It has long been traditioned to leave one of the 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:09.680 forty six chapel seats vacant for Lady Jane. Even today, 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:14.160 when large family gatherings can quickly fill the space to capacity. 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:18.320 No one is allowed to sit in her place. Other 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:29.840 tales paint GLAMs in a less wholesome light. It was 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:33.440 late one Saturday night in the fifteenth century when a 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:37.119 group of drunken noblemen were playing cards in the Old 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:42.480 Square Tower, the original core of Glam's Castle. As midnight 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:46.240 drew near, the group began to slip away, feeling a 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:51.120 little guilty, perhaps at gambling on the Sabbath. One man, however, 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:55.440 had no such reservations, declaring that he would happily play 0:07:55.480 --> 0:08:00.480 on the Sabbath or until doomsday Hell. He insisted he 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:04.200 would play with the devil himself if needs be. In 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:08.120 some versions of the legend, this man is Alexander Lindsey, 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:12.440 the fourth Earl of Crawford. Other tellings have it that 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:16.920 it was the then Lord of Glance himself, Alexander Lyon. 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:22.080 Either way, the outcome is always the same. A heavy 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:25.160 knock is heard at the door, and a black cloaked 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:30.040 figure passes into the room. Like the drunken Earl, the 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:34.400 stranger has no fear of the Sabbath and asks to 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:38.440 be dealt in The two play into the early hours 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:42.000 of the night, and after some time the Earl's luck 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:47.600 begins to falter. First he loses his money, then his land, 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:52.440 and then his title. At one point, it said, he 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.920 had cause to look beneath the table and saw that 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:59.480 a long leg which extended out of his opponent's cloak, 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:04.600 ended in a cloven hoof. Realizing he was faced with 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:08.599 the devil himself, and with nothing left to up the ante, 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:13.880 the earl gambled his soul and lost. Thus the devil 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:17.319 cursed him to continue his game, just as the earl 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:22.720 bragged he would all the way until doomsday. Some say 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:26.280 that the pair are playing still somewhere in the dark 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:32.320 depths of GLAMs. The castle's most grotesque ghost is also 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:36.520 perhaps its most telling in several meanings of the word. 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:42.240 The so called tongueless woman has apparently been seen many times, 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:46.720 most often in the courtyard, with blood gushing from her mouth. 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:51.080 Some claim to have seen her appear suddenly in one 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:55.480 of the castle's many barred windows, her face fixed in 0:09:55.559 --> 0:10:02.439 a silent scream. There is an unverified, yet intriguing specificity 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:06.079 to one sighting of the tongueless woman in the mid 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:10.320 nineteenth century, An unnamed visitor to Glance was touring the 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:13.240 grounds one evening when he looked up to see a 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:17.440 woman at one of the castle's first four windows. As 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:21.599 he approached, the apparent apparition is said to have disappeared. 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:26.400 Moments later, the visitor heard a shriek, followed by the 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:30.560 pounding of feet on stone, loud enough that a noticeable 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:35.160 limp could be discerned in the steps. Just then, a 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:39.240 wooden door onto the courtyard burst open, revealing the woman, 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:43.800 fresh blood caked around her mouth and a stuffed sack 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:47.320 on her back. She is then said to have rapidly 0:10:47.360 --> 0:11:00.880 fled the courtyard and disappeared out of sight. It was 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:04.600 some years later when the same visitor who'd apparently seen 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:08.600 the bloody woman flee the courtyard at Glance was abroad 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:13.000 in Italy. Some bad weather forced him to seek shelter 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:17.240 in a local monastery. In the throes of conversation with 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:22.000 the hospitable monks, the man mentioned his experience at GLAMs, 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:26.800 only for the monks to become suddenly excited. The monks 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:30.160 apparently told the man of an englishwoman living in the 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:34.360 local nunnery. She'd been a member of staff at Glam's castle, 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:40.040 where she'd unintentionally stumbled across the details of some hideous secret. 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:44.040 When she relayed what she knew, the Lyon family had 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:48.439 her tongue removed, after which she fled the castle and 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:52.240 the country. When he was taken to meet the still 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:56.040 living woman, the Englishman was horrified to find it was 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:59.720 the exact same woman he'd seen in the castle courtyard. 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:04.000 The story doesn't clarify whether the man had seen the 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:07.280 tongueless woman in the flesh on the night of her escape, 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:10.680 or whether he was supposed have witness some kind of 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:14.960 crisis apparition, an apparent phenomena that is said to occur 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:19.160 during moments of intense stress, in which one person witnesses 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:23.199 an event like a holographic film being played out from 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:28.280 a distance. Certainly it's a good story, but like the 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:31.640 Wicked Earl's card game, it has the neat yet in 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:37.000 substantial logic of folklore, no dates or names to substantiate 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:41.360 what is a very tall tale. However, there is one 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:46.160 element of the Tongueless Woman's story that bears scrutiny, the 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:50.720 hint of a terrible secret within Glans, because it has 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:54.640 long been thought that the castle does indeed contain a secret, 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:58.719 one that has been glimpsed over the years, with names, 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:04.840 dates and facts attached. And though the violence apparently committed 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:08.880 upon the tongueless woman may be a gross exaggeration, there 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:12.160 is some evidence that the Lyon family have gone to 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:23.440 great lengths to hold their real secret close. If you 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:26.520 could even guess at the nature of this castle secret, 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:29.920 you would get down on your knees and thank God 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:33.960 it is not yours. Those are apparently the words of 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:38.720 Claude Bow's Lion, the thirteenth Earl of Strathmore and King Horn. 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:42.240 He took up the lordship of GLAMs on the death 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:46.560 of his brother in September eighteen sixty five, and held 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:50.440 it until his own death in nineteen oh four. The 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:54.319 span of his and his brother's lordship roughly parallels a 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:58.079 period in which the so called mystery of Glance was 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.840 a common topic of conversation in the salons and dinner 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:07.040 parties of high society Europe. It centers on rumors of 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:12.400 a secret room hidden within Glams's thick walls. The room 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:15.720 was said to be both home and prison for a 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:21.800 supposedly monstrous occupant who'd spent his entire life within its confines. 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:27.680 One nineteenth century description of the so called monster referred 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:31.840 to a human toad. A fuller picture was given by 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:35.400 a twentieth century earl who talked about the legend of 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:39.520 a figure with an enormous barrel chest, as harry as 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:43.680 a doormat, and whose head ran straight into his shoulders, 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:49.000 with toy like arms and legs. Regardless of how unusual 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:52.440 its body may have been, the so called Monster of 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:57.479 GLAMs had to be cared for, kept safe, and even exercised. 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:00.440 That job, it said, was a war or did to 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:05.080 the Factor, the man responsible for the overarching administration of 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:10.160 the estate. What made this story more scandalous and appetizing 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:14.640 for high society gossip was the widely held belief that 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:18.360 the so called monster was actually a member of the 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:22.000 Bow's Lyon dynasty. He was thought to be a male 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:26.480 heir to the castle, the firstborn son of Thomas George 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:30.920 Bow's Lyon and his wife Charlotte. The two married in 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:35.400 December of eighteen twenty, and the peerage records note that 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:39.480 on October twenty first of the following year, Charlotte gave 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:43.520 birth to a boy, Thomas Junior, who it was claimed 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:48.840 died that same day. Whispers immediately began to swirl in 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:52.560 the local villages when the midwife spread word that the 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:57.080 child had in fact been born deformed as she described it, 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:00.280 but was in good health when she left him and 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:05.240 his mother, And so when Thomas's death was announced two 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:09.480 days later, on the twenty third, it was met with suspicion. 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:14.960 Villagers were particularly perturbed by a lack of gravestone to 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:19.000 mark the boy's resting place. Word of the alleged cover 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:22.760 up spread rapidly, but only hints ever found their way 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:27.280 into print. During the nineteenth century, the author Walter Scott, 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:30.800 for one, had mentioned the legend of the secret chamber 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:34.320 in his report of his visit to GLAMs, but he 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:39.200 made no mention of any occupant. In nineteen o eight, 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:43.200 an article in the journal Notes and Queries relates the 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:47.000 mystery of GLAMs as if it was common knowledge. The 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:51.440 uncredited author begins by assuming that the reader is aware 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:54.160 of the story, which he says was told to him 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:58.400 sixty years earlier, when he was just a boy. And 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:02.000 though the article repeats the oft quoted theory that the 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:06.480 secret is only ever revealed to three living people, the 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:11.520 current Earl, his heir and the factor. Word had clearly 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:23.159 gotten out some time ago. In eighteen sixty five, a 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:26.879 laborer employed by the twelfth Earl to make repairs to 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:30.720 the older parts of the tower struck a seemingly solid wall, 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:34.240 only to see it crumble away to reveal a long 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:39.480 corridor beyond. The man ventured inside, but was soon stopped 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:44.080 by a heavy iron door. Other tellings of the story 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:47.280 say that he ran from the sight of a slumped, 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:52.439 distorted figure in the shadows. Either way, the man fled 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:56.399 the passage and reported it to his foreman. When word 0:17:56.480 --> 0:18:00.320 reached mister Ralston, the long serving and loyal factor of 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:04.440 the day, he quickly summoned the Earl back from London. 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:10.240 According to the conspiracy, Ralston and the Earl interrogated the laborer, 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:14.200 then paid him off handsomely on the one condition did 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:17.159 he and his family leave on a one way trip 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:21.920 to Australia. Other anecdotes suggest there is at least some 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:29.119 truth to Glams' supposedly anomalous architecture. Lord Ernest Hamilton spent 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:33.080 many summers of his boyhood at the castle, and returned 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:37.119 often as an adult. He wrote how once he was 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:40.040 playing in a dressing room known as the Blue Room 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:43.040 when he lifted a rug on the floor, only to 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:47.360 find a trapdoor underneath it. When he opened it up, 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:52.560 he too found a hidden passage. A few years later, 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:56.720 a doctor paid a professional visit to GLAMs that required 0:18:56.800 --> 0:18:59.919 him to stay for a couple of days. Speaking of 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:02.840 the trip later, he explained that when he retired to 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:05.760 his bedroom in the evening, he saw that a mark 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:09.359 he'd previously noticed on the carpet was now at the 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:13.280 opposite end of the room. For some reason, the carpet 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:17.760 had been taken up and relaid. Curious to know why, 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:21.040 the doctor quickly moved the furniture out of the way 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:25.359 and lifted the carpet up, under which he also found 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:31.879 a trapdoor, and beyond that the hidden passage. Moments later, 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:36.240 the doctor found himself in a narrow stone walled corridor 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:41.240 that ended abruptly at a blank cement wall. When he 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.680 pressed his hand against it, he apparently found the cement 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:49.720 still soft enough to leave an impression. The doctor returned 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:53.600 to his room and resettled the carpet and told nobody 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:59.000 of his unnerving excursion. Nonetheless, he was met early the 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:03.679 following morning by mister Ralston, who, after presenting him with 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:07.359 the check, informed him that a carriage was waiting outside 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:11.880 to escort him immediately to the train station. Though all 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:15.800 this may sound like a Gothic tinged gossip or an 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:21.719 early tabloid scandal, there is compelling testimony to support the rumors. 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:26.240 Several prominent members of late Victorian society were willing to 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:31.520 put their name to their experiences. One such individual was 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:47.360 Virginia Gabriel, the romantic singer and composer. Virginia Gabriel had 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:50.640 a lengthy stay at GLAMs in the winter of eighteen 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:55.439 sixty nine and eighteen seventy, after which she was inspired 0:20:55.480 --> 0:21:00.520 to write the piano composition The GLAMs Castle Waltz. She 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:04.439 also returned from her trip convinced that the family and 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:09.240 their castle did indeed ours a horrible secret. Over the 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:12.719 course of that winter, Virginia was witnessed to a number 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:16.879 of strange incidents, which she relayed to former Chancellor of 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:21.040 the Exchequer and First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir Charles Wood, 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:26.080 an ardent collector of ghost stories. In November of eighteen 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:29.879 sixty nine, Virginia was at a dance to celebrate the 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:33.800 completion of a brand new dining room. The party went 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:37.880 on until the early hours, until everyone eventually made their 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:42.640 way to their rooms. One couple, a Missus and mister Monroe, 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:46.080 were staying in the red room while their young son 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:51.520 slept near by in an adjoining dressing room. The following morning, 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:56.880 over breakfast, Missus Munroe regaled Virginia and the other guests 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:01.840 with a tale. Deep in the night, Missus Munroe had 0:22:01.880 --> 0:22:05.080 woken with the feeling that some one was looming over 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:08.440 her in the dark. She even felt what she took 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:12.480 to be strands of a beard tickling her face. She 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:15.320 called out for her husband to find a match to 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:19.679 light the lamp. Seconds later, she saw a shadowy figure 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:24.360 moving towards the dressing room door. When she found matches 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:27.760 of her own, she lit one, only to be shocked 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:31.360 by the sleeping figure of her husband lying beside her 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:35.040 in the bed. It was then that she heard her 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:40.040 son screaming. When they rushed into his bedroom, the Munrose 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:44.240 found the boy in extreme distress, crying about a giant 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:48.840 that had come into his room. Shortly after, all three 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:52.120 heard a loud crash come from elsewhere in the castle, 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:56.919 as if a great door had just slammed. Another guest 0:22:56.960 --> 0:23:00.920 at the breakfast table, Lady Trevannion, said that she had 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:04.800 been woken at four a m by the same crashing noise. 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:09.760 Virginia Gabriel would also go on to give the fullest 0:23:09.760 --> 0:23:14.400 impression of the castle factor, mister Ralston, a man who 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:18.520 seems to always haunt the background of the castle's most 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:24.520 intriguing stories. Virginia describes him as a shrewd, hard headed 0:23:24.600 --> 0:23:29.480 Scotsman who never, under any circumstances, spent the night in 0:23:29.560 --> 0:23:33.840 the castle. She mentions one night in early eighteen seventy 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:38.840 when a sudden snowstorm blanketed the area, rendering Rolston's route 0:23:38.840 --> 0:23:43.359 home impassable, but rather than accept the invitation of a 0:23:43.400 --> 0:23:46.760 bed for the night, the Factor ordered a whole team 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:50.280 of gardeners and stablemen to dig out a mile long 0:23:50.400 --> 0:23:55.520 path through the snow to his home. Virginia also shared 0:23:55.560 --> 0:23:58.440 a conversation she had with the lady of the manor, 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:04.679 Francis bow'slon or Lady Strathmore, in which Bow's Lion confessed 0:24:04.880 --> 0:24:07.800 how she had once asked mister Ralston what all the 0:24:07.880 --> 0:24:13.080 fuss was over the supposed mystery. The factor responded gravely, 0:24:13.440 --> 0:24:16.520 that it is fortunate you do not know it and 0:24:16.680 --> 0:24:19.760 can never know it, for if you did, you would 0:24:19.760 --> 0:24:24.399 not be a happy woman. According to Virginia Gabriel, this 0:24:24.600 --> 0:24:36.240 speech from such a man was certainly uncanny. It appears 0:24:36.280 --> 0:24:40.680 that mister Rolston's warning did not defeat Lady Strathmore's interest 0:24:40.760 --> 0:24:44.720 in the family secret. Her attempts to resolve the enigma 0:24:44.760 --> 0:24:47.280 of the hidden room has become one of the most 0:24:47.359 --> 0:24:52.120 often repeated stories about the castle. It was first mentioned 0:24:52.160 --> 0:24:57.040 by Horace Rumboldt, Briton's then ambassador to Berlin. In his 0:24:57.160 --> 0:25:01.960 memoir Recollections of a Diplomatist. Rumbold describes a visit to 0:25:02.040 --> 0:25:06.359 Glance during the summer of eighteen seventy seven. The Earl 0:25:06.480 --> 0:25:10.239 was away on business, leaving Lady Strathmore to host a 0:25:10.280 --> 0:25:15.639 small gathering of family and friends. Conversation soon turned to 0:25:15.760 --> 0:25:20.000 the mystery. In all of the stories, the secret chamber 0:25:20.280 --> 0:25:22.679 was said to have a window, so someone in the 0:25:22.760 --> 0:25:27.159 party suggested that cloth be hung from every available window. 0:25:27.880 --> 0:25:32.119 Once this was complete, logic dictated that the secret room 0:25:32.400 --> 0:25:37.960 would be literally uncovered. Sheets and towels, and even handkerchiefs 0:25:38.000 --> 0:25:42.159 were gathered, and visitors and staff joined forces in hanging 0:25:42.200 --> 0:25:46.200 them from every window they could find. Once they were done, 0:25:46.640 --> 0:25:52.120 the group gathered outside the castle. Some accounts claim that 0:25:52.240 --> 0:25:56.120 one window remained clear, others that there were as many 0:25:56.240 --> 0:26:01.120 as four. Rumboldt doesn't confirm the result, but he does 0:26:01.200 --> 0:26:06.760 describe the Earl's unexpectedly early return and the painful scene 0:26:07.080 --> 0:26:10.800 in which he bitterly remonstrated with his wife for treating 0:26:10.920 --> 0:26:14.880 so lightly what she well knew was a solemn secret 0:26:15.480 --> 0:26:20.720 deeply affecting the family fortunes. Considering that the twelfth and 0:26:20.920 --> 0:26:24.560 thirteenth Earls would be younger brothers of the so called 0:26:24.720 --> 0:26:28.760 Monster of Glance, its understandable that they felt a particular 0:26:28.840 --> 0:26:35.080 discomfort with anyone prying into the mystery. Rumbold writes how Claude, 0:26:35.280 --> 0:26:38.840 the thirteenth Earl, had seen both his father and brother 0:26:39.000 --> 0:26:42.920 traumatized by the knowledge that was imparted to them, and 0:26:42.960 --> 0:26:46.120 that he had asked if he could be spared the burden, 0:26:46.720 --> 0:26:50.960 but he was not. On his death bed, Claude's brother, 0:26:51.359 --> 0:26:54.359 the twelfth Earl, is said to have passed on the 0:26:54.400 --> 0:26:58.040 secret and implored Claude to do all that he could 0:26:58.359 --> 0:27:02.520 to thwart the sinister in fluenceants that had supposedly been 0:27:02.640 --> 0:27:06.760 such a burden to him. Claude's first act as Earl 0:27:07.400 --> 0:27:11.400 was to refurbish the castle Chapel, where not hours after 0:27:11.480 --> 0:27:14.680 its completion, he was said to have been found deep 0:27:14.800 --> 0:27:18.600 in prayer, still wearing his clothes from the night before. 0:27:19.600 --> 0:27:22.960 He was praying for salvation. It seemed that the first 0:27:23.080 --> 0:27:34.800 chance he got Claude Bo's lion. The thirteenth Earl of Strathmore, 0:27:35.240 --> 0:27:38.960 died in nineteen oh four. Most of the anecdotes and 0:27:39.080 --> 0:27:43.040 rumors that constitute the mystery of Glance came to light 0:27:43.160 --> 0:27:46.840 after his death, but they all relate to incidents that 0:27:46.960 --> 0:27:51.200 took place during his life. Interestingly, there are no new 0:27:51.280 --> 0:27:56.080 reports after the late eighteen hundreds. Later generations of the 0:27:56.119 --> 0:28:00.000 beau's Lyon family were relatively happy to discuss the legend 0:28:00.040 --> 0:28:05.480 and confident that it was just that a legend. In 0:28:05.560 --> 0:28:10.840 nineteen sixty, the writer James Wentworth Day interviewed the sixteenth 0:28:10.880 --> 0:28:15.280 Earl for a biography of the Queen Mother. The new 0:28:15.320 --> 0:28:18.800 Earl mentioned that he'd heard the legend, and it is 0:28:18.840 --> 0:28:21.760 he who gave the description of a monster with a 0:28:21.760 --> 0:28:26.320 hairy barrel chest However, he claimed to have never been 0:28:26.359 --> 0:28:30.760 told of the reality and responsibility of the secret, as 0:28:30.800 --> 0:28:34.600 his forebears were said to have been. The Earl reasoned 0:28:34.960 --> 0:28:38.240 that the story may have died with his father or 0:28:38.320 --> 0:28:41.680 with his brother, who was killed in the First World War. 0:28:42.720 --> 0:28:45.720 But there are some who think it isn't word of 0:28:45.720 --> 0:28:50.520 the secret that died, but the secret himself. If the 0:28:50.560 --> 0:28:54.720 so called Monster of GLAMs really was a disabled heir 0:28:55.400 --> 0:28:59.080 born in eighteen twenty one and sequestered away in the 0:28:59.120 --> 0:29:03.920 castle's recess, then that man would have been approaching eighty 0:29:04.280 --> 0:29:07.880 at the turn of the century. It's likely that he 0:29:07.920 --> 0:29:12.000 would not have long outlived his brother Claude, the thirteenth Earl, 0:29:12.640 --> 0:29:15.040 and there would not have been any cause for the 0:29:15.120 --> 0:29:24.080 fourteenth Eirl to pass the story down any longer. Today, 0:29:24.440 --> 0:29:28.360 the legacy of the story lives on in the architecture 0:29:28.560 --> 0:29:32.400 of Glam's Castle. There is a section of parapet that 0:29:32.640 --> 0:29:36.600 runs along the roofline, and it's there that the newest 0:29:36.640 --> 0:29:41.080 addition to Glance its roster of apparent ghosts is said 0:29:41.160 --> 0:29:45.640 to have been seen. Reports describe it as a strange 0:29:45.880 --> 0:29:50.640 shuffling shadow walking to and fro, as if taking the 0:29:50.680 --> 0:29:56.560 opportunity to stretch. Rarely used legs. That section of parapet 0:29:56.800 --> 0:30:00.400 as a name to the precise origins of w which 0:30:00.680 --> 0:30:05.719 can't be pinned down in history, it's known as the 0:30:05.800 --> 0:30:17.240 mad Earl's Walk. This episode was written by Neil McRobert 0:30:17.680 --> 0:30:22.400 and produced by me Richard McLain Smith. Neil is the 0:30:22.440 --> 0:30:26.840