and married to John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, and English Governor of Scotland. The husband and wife had different minds and purposes. The lady was found guilty of conspiracy, with Lord Soulis of Hermitage Castle and others, against the life of the good King Robert. She confessed her offence, and was condemned to perpetual imprisonment within her own castle. Constant tradition affirms that it was set on fire and burnt to the ground, whether as the result of accident or a successful siege. One story tells how the Earl tried to save his wife, but failed from the irresistible power of the flames. The castle became a ruin, and was never re-built. Actual observation, after more than 500 years, has confirmed the truth, in this case stranger than fiction. Sir David Baird, the hero of the Nile, Cape of Good Hope, Corunna, and Seringapatam (remembered by the oldest folk for hunting with hawks, attended by a native Indian), having died at Ferntower in 1832, was first buried in Monzievaird Churchyard, and old people still recall the extraordinary storm of thunder and rain which signalised his funeral day. His widow prepared the massive monumental obelisk of granite, said to be exactly similar to Cleopatra's Needle, since struck by lightning in 1878, and badly rent, but now restored. It required foundations broad and deep. Most of the stones of the old castle had gone to form dykes in the neighbourhood. The workmen, thinking they had to deal with solid rock, proceeded to blast it, when to their amazement the charge of gunpowder, instead of only throwing stones and debris into the air, operated downward and revealed a dungeon cut in the solid rock. There lay all that remained of the proud and daring Joanna, Countess of Strathearn and Princess of the Orkneys. A few gold and silver bracelets and ornaments, belonging to a lady's dress, were found among the black rubbish with another trinket, teaching the old, old lesson, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."