The Green Lady is a work of fiction, but it is based on historical fact. When I began looking into Fyvie Castle’s history, I was struck by the possibility for so many different stories. Over the centuries, there were occurrences that today seem astounding. But perhaps the one fact that drew me in most of all was that Alexander Seton, created Lord Fyvie in 1597, allegedly starved his first wife to death for failing to produce a male heir.
The more I discovered about the man, the more fascinated I became, and my research took me not only north to Aberdeenshire but also to the National Library of Scotland and then to Holyrood Palace, where I saw the parure, given by Alexander’s godmother Mary, Queen of Scots to his aunt, Mary Seton. By this stage, I was hooked and the story began to take shape.
I decided to change some dates and events to ensure the tale ran smoothly. But the main historical facts, such as when Mary, Queen of Scots died, when her son James assumed the crown of both England and Scotland, and also the names and backgrounds of Alexander’s wives were unchanged. Meanwhile, some events – the location of Loch Leven Castle for Lilias’s imprisonment, for example – are invented for practical reasons that suited the narrative.
I wanted to give the women a voice, something they did not have in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when men ruled absolutely over their wives and children. In so doing, I hoped to portray their lives, which were so often tragic and subservient, as perhaps a little more hopeful. With the freedom that fiction enables, I have written a story set in history, but not based exclusively on fact.
Here I have noted what actually happened in my characters’ lives. 308 Alexander Seton was born in 1555. His father, George Seton, was Mary (Marie) Seton’s half-brother. He was Mary, Queen of Scots’ godson and became Prior of Pluscarden in 1565 then Lord President of the Court of Session in 1593, Provost of Edinburgh in 1598 and Lord Chancellor of Scotland in 1604. He bought Fyvie Castle from Andrew Meldrum of Drumoak in 1596 and was created Lord Fyvie in 1597. Of his sophisticated outer and inner renovations, the only remaining interior manifestation of his work in the castle is the Great Stair, the finest wheel-stair in Scotland, built in the late 1590s.
He was created Earl of Dunfermline in 1605 by King James I/VI, in acknowledgement of his custody of Prince Charles who later became King Charles I. The prince lived mainly at Dunfermline Palace during this guardianship.
The second oldest communion cup in Scotland belongs to Fyvie Parish Church and was gifted by Alexander Seton in 1618. Alexander Seton died in 1622.
His first wife was Lilias Drummond, born between 1571 and 1574. They married before 1592 and she produced five daughters, one of whom (Margaret) died in infancy. Lilias died in 1601, some accounts say of a broken heart, others that her husband starved her to death so that he could marry his second wife, Grizel, with whom he had fallen in love.
Grizel Leslie was born between 1575 and 1585 and she married Alexander in 1601 and gave birth to a son, Charles, who died in infancy. Her first daughter was called Lilias and she died unmarried. Grizel then had a third child, a daughter, Jean. Grizel died young, of unknown causes, in 1606.
His third wife, Margaret Hay, was born around 1592, and she married Alexander in 1607. She had a son, Charles, who became second Earl of Dunfermline after his father’s death. Her first daughter was called Grizel and she too died unmarried. She had 309 a second daughter, Mary, who died young, and a fourth child, recorded as “unidentified”. After her husband’s death, Margaret married the first Earl of Callendar and lived until 1659.
Mary Seton was born c.1541, into one of Scotland’s grandest families. Along with Mary Beaton, Mary Livingstone and Mary Fleming, she accompanied Mary, Queen of Scots to France in 1548. They then all returned to Scotland in 1561 after the death of the Queen’s French husband, Francis II of France.
Mary Seton was the only one of the Queen’s Four Marys or ladies-in-waiting never to marry. She was a skilled hairdresser, having learnt the art in France. She was tall and so wore in the Queen’s clothes as she too was tall. After the Queen’s imprisonment by her cousin Elizabeth I, Mary Seton stayed by her side for fifteen years, before retiring to the convent in Reims, France, run by the Queen’s aunt Renee de Guise. It was there she died in 1615.
The parure that I first saw during my research and that partly inspired the story is now part of the Royal Collection Trust (RCT) and is on display at Holyrood Palace. It consists of a necklace, earrings and a brooch – each of gold with translucent blue and green enamel scrollwork set with pearls, emeralds and rubies. According to the RCT, the oldest piece in the parure dates from the sixteenth century and the information in the display cabinet states the parure was “c.1575 with later alterations … a gift from Mary, Queen of Scots to her attendant, Mary Seton. A devoted companion and friend of Mary, Queen of Scots, Mary Seton shared many years of her exile.”
It is also known as the Seton or the Eglinton parure. The necklace used to be longer: it was a “cotiere” – a long chain worn by women and caught up in the breast. But Mary Seton’s descendant Alexander, sixth Earl of Eglinton (died 1661) removed four of the snake links and four S ornaments from the chain on his 310 succession to earldom in 1612 and these (which now form the shorter necklace, plus earrings and brooch) eventually passed to his descendant Archibald William, thirteenth Earl of Eglinton (1812–1861).
The parure remained in possession of the Eglinton family until it was sold by the three daughters of the thirteenth Earl at Christie’s in 1894. It was bought by the newspaper proprietor Algernon Borthwick, first Baron Glenesk (1830–1908), whose daughter, Lilias, Countess Bathurst (1871–1965) then presented the parure to Queen Mary on the occasion of King George V’s Silver Jubilee in May 1935.
The remaining sixteen snake links and sixteen white S ornaments, set with rubies and pearls – the longer necklace – were passed to the Hon. Elizabeth Seton when she married William Hay of Drummelzier in 1694. This necklace has been on long-term loan to the National Museum of Scotland since 2001.
I admit I was both delighted and amazed at the incredible coincidence of discovering that the parure was handed back to a Queen called Mary by a noblewoman called Lilias, so many years later. I like to think this was karma.
On 28 February 2004, a live transmission of BBC Radio 4’s Excess Baggage went out from Leap Castle, supposedly one of the most haunted castles in Ireland. Some twenty minutes into the transmission, while the wonderful Sandi Toksvig, the presenter, was talking to the guests, listeners reported hearing a ghostly whisper, that was interpreted as either the words “‘Lie down” or “You liar” or “I died”. The unsettling, spooky words caused many listeners to write in.
This incident affected me personally as on that Saturday morning in 2004, I parked my car at Ocean Terminal, Leith but could 311 not get out until the programme finished as I too had heard the words and waited for an explanation at the end of the broadcast. Neither the presenter, the guests nor the crew were aware of the ghostly whisperings until they played the recording back later.
Like some others, I clearly heard the words “I died” and the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. Explanations to listeners later were that it was white noise or possibly EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena). There was a 1971 paper on EVP that suggested that the personality of the person survives the death of the physical body. Whatever you think about that – and I am the world’s greatest sceptic – I can still recall so many years later the tingling chill that I experienced on hearing those ghostly words.
I wondered therefore if, since Fyvie Castle too is meant to be haunted, Lilias did in fact come back to haunt those who had wronged her, as the Green Lady. And even if they did not “see” her, they either felt her presence or became victims of her curse.