SUBTERRANE A N PASSAG ES.
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."1
SIR,—With reference to the article on this subject in a recent number of the Spectator, may not the so-called Mystery of Glamis be connected with one of these underground passages ?
The mystery as generally accepted is connected with a terrible secret known only to the Earl of Strathmore, his heir, and the factor of the estate. A secret chamber generally forms
part of the story, peopled with horrors, according to the imagination of the narrator. And one sometimes bears of visitors, with up-to-date good taste, hanging towels and other signals out of their windows in the hope of locating the chamber. Sir Walter Scott passed a night at Glamis when be was a young man of twenty, and he thus writes about the castle in his "Demonology and Witchcraft," published eighty years ago :-
"This hoary pile contains much in its appearance, and in the traditions connected with it, impressive to the imagination It contains also a curious monument of the peril of feudal times, being a secret chamber, the entrance of which, by the law or custom of the family, must only be known to three persons at once, viz. : the Earl of Strathmore, his heir apparent, and any third person they may take into their confidence."
Here, then, is the secret chamber of the mystery, and the secret confined to the three persons mentioned. It would
appear too that the chamber was used as a means of escape, and, though this is not mentioned, it was probably connected
with an underground passage as a means of retreat in the event of the place being captured by the enemy.—I am, Sir, Schloss Rothberg, Switzerland.
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