The burning of Lady Glamis

Janet Douglas, Lady Glamis, died by burning for treason on Castle Hill, Edinburgh, on 17 July 1537. A ghost tradition at Glamis Castle links her name to a Black Lady.

Janet Douglas, Lady Glamis, died by burning at Edinburgh on 17 July 1537, on Castle Hill. The Tudor Society gives the charge as treason. Wikipedia says she was convicted that day of planning to poison King James V and of contact with the Earl of Angus and George Douglas, both her brothers. Earlier she had faced several legal actions, the last being an accusation that she poisoned John Lyon, her husband and the sixth Lord Glamis, who died on 17 September 1528. That case was dropped, and by the summer of 1532 she was free to marry Archibald Campbell of Skipness.

Executed Today traces the king's hostility to her family: her father had held the teenage James virtually captive for some years. After James got free, he declared Angus an outlaw and took properties. Janet kept sheltering Angus at times. The Tudor Society adds that her husband Archibald died of a broken neck during an escape attempt from Edinburgh Castle, while her son, the seventh Lord Glamis, received a death sentence that became imprisonment.

A later tradition belongs to Glamis Castle, one-time home of Janet. Hidden Scotland says she is said to haunt its passages and to weep behind a sealed door, and that she gets called the Black Lady. One version says a room was walled up after a figure at its window was taken for her.