ROYALTY IN SCOTLAND
By GEORGE BLAKE -
WHEN the plans for next week's Royal visit to Scotland were published it was noted at once that Their Majesties were committed only to a relatively small number of public engagements. The issue of the programme, how- ever, was accompanied by a semi-official statement to the effect that, while in residence at Holyroodhouse, the King would rule his affairs much as he does when at Buckingham Palace.
This assurance was vastly pleasing to Scottish sentiment It suggested that the visit is to be much more than a convert'. tional condescension. It seemed to promise Scotland a larger share of ceremonial than it has enjoyed for a long time past. People recalled that the late Sir Alexander Grant recently gave a magnificent service of silver, glass, cutlery, linen and so forth for use in the Palace under Arthur's Sear, and assumed that his munificence had perhaps been the outcome of a tactful suggestion.
Holyroodhouse had served long enough as the lodging of the Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Its function as a regular Royal residence was restored to something like security only in the days of King George V. Queen Mary took an active and intelligent part in its re-furnishing. July Courts in Edinburgh became a feature of the Scottish year. Now it would seem as if the old home of the Scottish Kings is to be even more frequently used. The assumption, linked with the fact of Her Majesty's Scottish birth and the building of a huge block of Government buildings on the Calton Hill, is taken by some among us to mean the imminent recovery by Edinburgh of much of her ancient status as a true capital.
It is interesting historically that the British monarchy has regularly alternated in its apparent degree of interest in the northern kingdom. Balmoral is regarded as a private resi- dence and the autumn holidays of the Royal Family there are not intruded upon ; but such was Queen Victoria's attach- ment to the place, Scots folk were almost ready to claim her as one of themselves. In his turn Edward VII—reacting from the ghost of John Brown, they say—was not notably in love with the land of brown heath and shaggy wood. King George restored the ties—though it is significant that he seemed to us the most thoroughly, and adorably, English of recent monarchs. Rightly or wrongly, the Scots took it that the Duke of Windsor had no great love for the country or the people, even if he could surprise them by playing the bagpipe with a not negligible skill. Now the wheel turns again, and Scottish opinion, extremely sensitive to its relationship with central authority, still dreaming spasmodically of the implida- tions of the Act of Union, believes in the possibility of closer touch with the reality of monarchy than it has known since the days of Victoria.
One says " Scottish opinion "—and what is that in a country of excessive individualism and strangely divided loyalties ? Of our huge working-class population it simply must be said that, long denied the pageantry that is the Cock- ney's birthright, its attitude to regal display is detached. (No sounder comments on the Abdication were to be heard- than in any Glasgow tavern.) It is not a crowd that goes wild with excitement, except at football matches. A State procession is for it a rare show, as it might be Ben Hur on the movies. It would laugh sardonically at the sight of the Lord Mayor's coachman. But in its detachment it is by no means hostile ; and that is important. On the other hand, the attitude of the native aristocracy in this matter does not bear on the question of nationalism, since that aristocracy is thoroughly English in outlook by virtue of five generations of education and habit.
There remain two bodies of Scottish opinion with great potential influence on the question of Anglo-Scottish relationships ; which to the south may be no question at all but is to us still an uneasy consideration that cannot be dismissed by labelling it inferiority complex. There is on the one hand the solid, powerful bourgeoisie, bound by its sentiments and its commercial interests to the ideal of British solidarity, more exuberantly loyal than Tooting and Tring together. There: are on the other hand the Nationalists—all sorts and conditions of Nationalists.
There is the Nationalist of the antiquarian order, bitter about the use of " English " for " British," hot on the minutiae of heraldry, but usually plus royaliste que le roi. There is the " Here's tae us ! Wha's like us ? " Nationalist, who is virtually certain to be a member of a Burns Club, if not a Rotarian. There are more respect-worthy Nationalists who believe that the dream will be realised through Communism, through the economic notions of Major Douglas, or through isolation on the Scandinavian model. There is the non- political Nationalism, which is most exuberantly manifesting itself in the open-air movement, the increasing use of the kilt as an article of dress, the preservation of ancient buildings, the revival of native industry, and everything that answers the cry of " To your tents, 0 Israel ! " There is finally the Scottish National Party, working against many difficultin to canalise this new " consciousness of Scottishness," and its programme is neither anti-monarchical nor anti-imperial, seeking simply devolution within the existing fabric. Its bitterest men may mutter darkly of panem et circenses but Monarchy and Nationalism are in Scotland, by and large, neither interrelated nor necessarily antagonistic ideas.
It is perhaps a pity that we lack the ceremonial resources to make a Royal Visit a thundering success of production. It is a pity that Scots Guards, the band of the Royal Scots Greys, even a State Coach and a selection of the Windsor Greys have to be imported for the occasion. But we can at least supply the Royal Archers and an inimitable setting. Given the weather, it will be a great day, that of the State Entry. Our hope is that it will be really historic.
Since the Union of the Crowns, Scotland's intromissions with Royalty in its most formal shape have been apt to be faintly comic affairs. After all, we crowned the Merry Monarch at Scone long before England thought of a Restoration : the second Charles had the felicity of listening for three hours on end to sermons delivered by the Reverend Robert Douglas, Moderator of the General Assembly. That was in 1651. Some 15o years later George IV landed at the Pier of Leith in the kilt, but with tights wrinkling over his fat knees. The subsequent proceedings, stage-managed by Walter Scott, gave Lockhart the material for a dozen sardonic pages— down to the crashing climax of the smashing of the royal wine-glass in the Shirra's tail-coat pocket.
That bogus type of romanticism is now as dead as Malcolm Canmore and Alan Breck. King George VI will come among us next week on strictly contemporary terms. All the signs point, nevertheless, to an unusually successful visit.
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