Thomas Lyon-Bowes, Master of Glamis (born 1821)

Rumours of Thomas Lyon-Bowes' survival, as recounted by James Wentworth Day in his 1967 book The Queen Mother's Family Story, appear to have started in local villages as the result of an account by the midwife, whose name is unrecorded.

[1] Details published about the mystery of Glamis during the reign of Queen Victoria scarcely mention a monster and are instead focused on the possibility of members of a rival clan dying while locked in the secret room.

However, the fact that Thomas Lyon-Bowes, as a child who died in infancy, has no individual gravestone is in keeping with the funeral customs of the time, when – owing to high rates of infant mortality – usually only adults were commemorated in this way.

During a visit to Glamis the Queen Mother's biographer Michael Thornton was allegedly told by the sixteenth Earl that the entrance to the chamber where Thomas lived had been bricked up after his death.

[4] According to Raymond Lamont Brown, a folklorist writing an account of tales associated with Glamis, while stories of a concealed chamber are likely to have a factual basis, he asserts the family emphatically deny rumours about a monster.