One of my favorite cities is Edinburgh. It's people are great and it's architecture is magnificent. However it has some of the most haunted places on the face of the Earth. One of the places of horrible happenings is Queensbury House, a building just at the foot of the Cannongate off the Royal Mile.

And while this story might seem a bit tame for some people, I want to note that it's not a fiction. Everything I'm going to tell you about is based on the truth. The accounts vary, but there are papers on record, such as a 1707 article in the Weekly Scotsman. (Another thing I love about Brit/Scot history is that it's easy to debunk just by seeing who kept what records.) But on to the story.

Queensbury is a tall and gloomy house that was built in 1680. Charles Maitland was the original owner, but the house was given to Lord Drumlanrig, Duke of Queensbury. Drumlanrig was a pretty successful guy. He was rich, and he had supported William of Orange which meant he had some really powerful friends. The first night the Duke spent in the house he fell violently ill, and eventually died there in 1695.

Five years later, the Duke's daughter, Anne, was in her bedroom when she suddenly burst into flame. The servants that saw this said that they tried to help her but before they could do anything “her nose burnt off and her eyes burnt out”. Anne tried to scream, but the flames coursed down her throat, burning her tongue and roasting her lungs from the inside out.

But the story I mentioned in the beginning revolves around the Duke's legacy, his son James who inherited his title. Duke James Drumlanrig was just as successful as his father, but he had one secret shame. His son was born a giant, twisted, and thoroughly insane brute. You've heard the “horror stories” of the family that keeps the insane child locked up in the attic? Well this is the grand-daddy of those stories. This is the one that started it all, and if you don't believe me look up the article for yourself.

Anyway, Duke James Drumlanrig had designed an unpopular treaty, the Treaty of Union, which had a lot of people shouting for and against it. On the day that the treaty was approved by Parliament, the Duke and all of his supporters were out of Queensbury House. They were all down at Parliament Square, leaving the evening's celebratory dinner in the hands of the houseboy. It was his job to turn the massive roast on the spit at the kitchen fire.

The Duke and all of his house and supporters come back home, congratulating him. Patting him on the back, and getting ready to sit down to the roast, the smell of which is filling the whole house. But when the kitchen staff gets back to the scullery, they see the roast has been thrown off the spit and is sitting in the middle of the floor. They look over at the fire, but there is still something cooking on the spit. Then they hear the noises.

You can probably guess the rest. The Duke's son had escaped from the attic, found the houseboy, and roasted him. He was in the middle of eating the poor boy when they found him there in the kitchen.

The Duke's popularity fell like a stone. There is no record of what happened to his son.

The family continued to suffer in the house until 1832 when they just decided to leave. In 1926 the house was renovated and turned into a hospital, but during the renovations when they took down some walls they found the original fireplaces where the houseboy had been cooked. As of 2004 the house still served as a hospital, but staff still report negative feelings when going near the old kitchens, and nobody stays down there for very long.