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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.