Margaret?

Death and birth both came to Glamis Castle last week. Old William Fairweather, for over 30 years head gamekeeper to the Duchess of York's father, Claud George Bowes-Lyon Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, died of a heart attack during the suspense of waiting for the Duchess of York to give birth to a possible heir to the Throne. Britain was oblivious but tears glistened in the Earl of Strathmore's eyes as his servant was laid away in the castle grounds. On the coffin was a huge wreath of red and white roses from the Duke & Duchess of York.

All the world knew of the birth that came to Glamis three days later. A little before 9 p. m., in a driving hurricane that . howled over the Scotch hills and sent the rain to beat a devil's tattoo on Scotch windowpanes, a pair of roaring motors splashed through the village of Forfar carrying John Robert Clynes, Home Secretary of His Majesty's Government, from Airlie Castle 20 miles away to Glamis. Forfar housewives were quick to grasp the significance. They knew that by tradition and law an officer of the Crown must be present at the birth of a possible heir to the Throne.*

An hour later a telephone jangled far to the south in comfortable Sandringham House, Norfolk. George V and Queen Mary who were sitting up after dinner waiting for news, heard the excited stuttering voice of their son the Duke of York informing them that they had a new grandchild, a 7-1b. girl.

Back in Forfar, villagers and reporters were passing the evening in the town's only cinema when news of the birth was flashed on the screen. Instantly the cheering audience rushed to the rain-drenched streets. Wrote the New York Times correspondent:

"Not since King Robert II of Scotland bestowed a thanedom upon the Duchess of York's ancestor, Sir John Lyon, more than 550 years ago has there been such a stir here. Throughout the night squads of motorcycle despatch riders arrived at the gates bearing cablegrams of congratulation from all parts of the empire, while police and gamekeepers with rain streaming from their capes patrolled the low wall running for miles around the castle gates. Church bells were pealing throughout Forfarshire long after midnight, and the news passed from township to township by means of searchlights, a dozen or more of which could be seen at Glamis playing on the clouds."

Excited villagers attempted to light the huge bonfire which had been standing on Hunters' Hill, overlooking the castle, since the end of July. Though covered with a tarpaulin, the pyre had been fireproofed by three weeks of Scotch weather. Next afternoon the bonfire was rebuilt by foresters who had worked all morning felling fir trees, cutting gorse and furze bushes. Nearly 10,000 people came from as far away as Edinburgh and Aberdeen to watch it blaze up that night, to quench their thirsts with the hogsheads of free ale provided by the Earl of Strathmore. They danced strathspeys and reels to the squeal of a dozen bagpipes.

Home Secretary Clynes, who might have tripped it with the best of them (as a child he earned his keep as a professional clog dancer), smilingly told reporters what he had seen and done at Glamis the night before.

". . . Dr. Simson* entered the room. . . . He led the way along a narrow stone corridor to the Tapestry Room adjoining the Duchess' bedroom. There I found the family group including the Duke of York, the Earl and Countess of Strathmore, and Lady Rose Leveson Gower, sister of the Duchess, standing around a little cot. They made way for me and I went forward and peered into the cot. I saw the baby. She was lying wide awake. ... I congratulated the Duke, Earl and Countess on behalf of the nation and the Empire as a whole, then I left the room to attend to my official business of despatching the news to various people including the Lord Mayor of London who has the historic right to be the first person informed, outside of the royal family."

Almost as soon as the news was known Caledonians were clamoring that the baby be named Margaret, a name borne by many of Scotland's queens. Their request will probably be acceded to. Margaret is not only a royal Scots name, it is a family name with the Bowes-Lyon. Princess Elizabeth, the Duchess's first child was christened Elizabeth Alexandra Mary in honor of Queen Mary, the other name suggested by reporters last week.

First official bulletin from Glamis read:

"The Duchess of York had a restful night and continues to make satisfactory progress. The infant princess is doing fine."

Four-year-old Princess Elizabeth was told by efficient Nurse Knight that she was "P'incess Lilybet" no longer but "big Sister Betty." Shouting with excitement Big Sister Betty demanded to see the new baby instanter "cause grandaddy's the King." She announced later that she preferred it to all her other pets; her chow dog, her canary, her Shetland pony Jessie, present from Grandaddy George V.

The Town Council of the Royal Borough of Forfar assembled before a table studded with ale bottles to pass suitable resolutions, drink a health to the "first royal birth in Scotland for more than three centuries."* They decided that plebeian ale did not befit the occasion, spent the town's money for four bottles of Scotch whiskey which were instantly consumed.

In the Barbados, on the Mackenzie, in India, Egypt, South Africa, wherever British warships or British troops were stationed, crowds cheered while cannon banged a 41-gun salute. Observers had expected some such Empire jubilation for the birth of a boy who would have been third in direct line for the throne, but not for a girl, who stands a poor fourth in line./- whose chance of becoming Queen depends on the deaths of King George, the Prince of Wales (unmarried), the Duke of York, Princess Elizabeth.

To Elizabeth Duchess of York, whose happiest years were spent there, Glamis Castle is a very good place to have a baby. To a superstitious Briton--and there are millions of them--Glamis Castle is a very bad place. Glamis (pronounced Glahms) was old before Macbeth did murder sleep and Duncan. The central keep and two detached towers on the lawn date from at least the 10th Century. Glamis boasts all the romantic appurtenances of a novel by Horace Walpole. It has a secret staircase, a "Priest's hole" where Papists were hidden during the Commonwealth, the room where Macbeth murdered Duncan, another room known as the Hangman's Room because the last two people to sleep there committed suicide. It has also a long and hairy-armed ghost and a Family Secret, told to every wide-eyed heir of Strathmore on his 21st birthday. The Secret is the location of a hidden chamber. What is in that chamber nobody knows.

There is also a gruesome legend, "The Monster of Glamis," which is repeated at Scotch firesides in two versions. Version A: 500 years ago an heir of Glamis and rightful thane was born a hideous monster. He never died but is still alive in the castle's secret room. Version B: most of the Earls of Strathmore have been second sons, the firstborn sons, rightful heirs, being monsters which had to be spirited away.

*London papers, commenting on the birth at Glamis last week traced the origin of the Home Secretary-Royal birth rule to the famed Warming Pan legend of the birth of James II's son, James the Old Pretender, father of Bonnie Prince Charlie, in 1688. Mary, James II's consort, gave birth to a son before her time. Contemporary rumor was that the child was not Mary's at all, but was brought to her, new born, in a long-handled warming pan. Whether this is the origin of the custom in Britain or not, nearly all other monarchies have similar laws. In France under the Bourbons any French citizen had the right to be admitted to the Queen's bedroom when an heir was being born. An end of the room was grilled off, curious Parisians filed solemnly through.

*Sir Henry Simson, described in British despatches as an "expert in the Caesarian section,'' brought the Duchess of York's first child, Princess Elizabeth, into the world in 1926.

*The last were "Martyr King" Charles I, born at Dunfermline, 1600, and his brother Robert, Duke of Kintyre, 1602.

/-The London Evening News stated that the new Princess was not fourth in line but jointly third with her sister, Princess Elizabeth, quoted an opinion of the late famed Genealogist John Horace Round that the law specifically states that the throne shall go to the eldest son, does not specifically state that it shall go to the eldest daughter in case of a girl. Other papers taking it up, called for an Act of Parliament to fix the exact status of the newborn baby.

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