Dragsholm Castle

OVERVIEW

Dragsholm Castle stands in Zealand, Denmark. There has been a building on the islet by the 'drag' for about eight hundred years: an episcopal palace, then a medieval castle, and finally the baroque house standing now, which runs today as a hotel and restaurant.

HISTORY

James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, third husband of Mary Queen of Scots, fled Scotland after Carberry Hill and was seized in Norway. He was brought to Denmark and held at Dragsholm from 1573, by tradition chained to a pillar in the cellar, and he died there in April 1578 — by the usual account having gone mad in confinement. His body was kept at Fårevejle church nearby.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

The house counts three: a grey lady, said to have been a servant girl who was helped through toothache and stayed on out of gratitude; a white lady, held to be a daughter of the house walled up in the castle for falling in love with a commoner — a story that gained some ground when, in the early twentieth century, workmen taking down a wall are said to have found the remains of a woman in a white dress; and Bothwell himself, reported riding through the courtyard with horse and carriage. The tradition is the house's own and it publishes it. The history beneath it — Bothwell's imprisonment and death on the premises — is not in doubt.

VISITING

A working hotel and restaurant in Odsherred; rooms and dining bookable. Bothwell's remains are at Fårevejle church, a short distance away.