was no question of a criminal trial as MacDonald's alleged offence was not illegal in Ceylon.) MacDonald left London for Ceylon. Meanwhile, Ridgeway, coming under increasing pressure in the Legislature, revealed that "serious charges" had been laid and that the general was returning to a court martial. MacDonald, reading this in the morning newspaper over breakfast in the Hôtel Régina in Paris, returned to his room and shot himself. Aftermath The suicide of the war hero caused great public shock. Now made public was the discovery that MacDonald had a wife and a son. In 1884, aged 31, he had secretly married a girl of fifteen. They had seen each other only four times in the subsequent nineteen years. (Lady MacDonald died in 1911; MacDonald's son became an engineer and died in 1951.) MacDonald's funeral was held at Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh, conducted by Rev Wallace Williamson, and 30,000 people turned up to pay their last respects. In the weeks following thousands more from all over the world came to say farewell, James Scott Skinner wrote a tune in his honour called Hector the Hero, and Robert W. Service wrote his poem "Fighting Mac". The grave lies towards the north-east in the first northern Extension. A highly elaborate monument including a bronze bust of Sir Hector by William Birnie Rhind was erected on the grave the following year. The case file is thought to have been destroyed soon after his suicide; a Government Commission released a report on the tragedy on 29 June 1903: MacDonald remains a national hero in Scotland. A memorial was erected above Dingwall in 1907, as well as another memorial at Mulbuie on the Black Isle, near where MacDonald was born. In March 1911, the Ashburton Guardian reported that MacDonald had been seen in Manchuria, and another report that a non-commissioned officer who had served with MacDonald in India and Egypt had seen him breakfasting at the Astor House in Shanghai two years earlier. Conspiracy theories emerged after his death. It was rumoured that he had staged his suicide and had defected to Germany, taking up the identity of General August von Mackensen after the real Mackensen was supposed to have died of cancer. During the First World War the German High Command attempted to capitalise on his continuing popularity among Scottish rank and file in the British Army by fostering the rumours that MacDonald was von