Getting into the Halloween spirit, a former butler to the royal family entertained the Daily Mail with a quick round of a game that we can call “places I have seen ghosts and who I think believe in them.”
Grant Harrold, who previously served in the royal household and now serves as a “British etiquette expert,” said that is it “hardly surprising there have been paranormal sightings” at many of the royal residences. Not that he’s looking for them, to be clear. “I’m easily scared of things like that, so at Halloween, I try to stay away.”
Harrold is especially steering clear of the cellars at Balmoral, the family’s residence in Scotland, where he says he’s heard the ghost of a little boy giggling. According to him, it’s the spirit of a boy who drowned in a well—exactly where the cellar is now.
“It’s safe to say there are ghosts within royal residences to this day,” he said.
“In the many residences and houses I’ve worked in, things have happened that you can’t explain.” Once, in a Scottish residence, he was working alone, he said, when something spooky happened. “I went out to get something from another room, I came back in, and all the chairs were moved on top of the table. I was the only one in the house. There have always been lots of things like that happening from time to time.”
Even the late Queen Elizabeth is said to have had brushes with the supernatural, he said. “I was told that Queen Elizabeth was in the library one evening and one of the corgis could sense something around the curtains next to the window.”
Whether or not royal ghost contact was actually made, however, Harrold was confident that the queen kept her cool. “I can’t imagine the late Queen being fazed though,” he said.
Her son, King Charles, may be a different story. Casper, come through.
“Personally, I don’t think the late Queen would have believed in ghosts, but with King Charles, you never know,” he said. “He’s quite an open person, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he did.”
Just last week, the world learned that the country home of Kate Middleton and Prince William may have a ghost hanging around, a Catholic priest who was hanged, drawn, and quartered for treason. When informed of the home’s immaterial resident, William is said to have responded, “No old hall would be complete without a ghost, would it?”
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