Why the majority of Scots would, despite its flaws, vote to keep the monarchy

There were English people who found this a handy piece of political correctness. But there were also Scots who accepted the usage in token of their desire to turn their backs on their nation’s past and to espouse a Unionist future.

Relics of that sentiment survived into the 20th century. Real enthusiasts tried to start a fashion for referring to England as South Britain, and to Ireland as West Britain, but it never really caught on. The most delicate tests of Unionism came, then as now, in Scotland, and it was always necessary to get the terminology right.

This was not just a matter for the official UK, but also for the most loyal Scots, such as company directors whose profits depended on the openness of their country’s one border. There was the North British Railway with its North British Hotel in Edinburgh, right on the corner of Princes Street and North Bridge. Glasgow had the North British Locomotive Company at Springburn. To write NB on envelopes sent from England was an early version of the postcode.

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The practice has now died out, and in fact it never really took off, even while the UK was vaunting its strength as the globe’s leading imperial power. It somehow inevitably belonged to a world of official fantasy – which is no doubt why civil servants are now being instructed to watch their language when they refer to the four nations of which the UK consists. They are being told to write or speak of it as a single country, and on no account to follow the recent fashion for referring openly to the four nations as … four nations.

There is a hallowed tradition in these stilted circles that things lacking the laurel of an official term somehow do not exist. The idea of a revival was apparently put forward to a recent meeting in Number 10 Downing Street, called by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to find ways of strengthening the links between Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

His own personal contribution to date, of actually visiting Scotland, had apparently been perceived even in Whitehall as a bit of a flop. Hence, in these troubled times, the need for something bolder. Yet we must still wonder whether the right formula has actually been found.

It is also typical of Boris that, when caught in a tight spot, he will seek out somebody to shift the blame on to. And, when it comes to that, he is no respecter of persons. The chosen ones in the present case are Prince William and his wife Kate, who offer the advantage of having been educated in Scotland and awarded respectable degrees from St Andrews.

More than that, though. I suspect somebody had in the oblique way of the Windsors been signalling to Boris that they didn’t think much of his Scottish policy either. The news came amid reports Prince William hoped to intervene in the national debate in favour of the Union.

A source of leaks at Buckingham Palace was making clear how the royal family “think of it as their Union”, and politicians were “losing Scotland for them”. The source added: “What William is doing is a deliberately more muscular approach to the crown investing in the relationship with Scotland.”

And quite right too. Somebody should remind Boris that the royal family, unlike almost everybody else he has to deal with, do not owe their positions to him and therefore have no need of sycophancy towards him. Their roots in Scotland especially run far deeper than anybody else he knows. North of the Border, in fact, the royal line precedes the nation.

THIS institution of monarchy has drawbacks, too, just like aspects of any institution. Despite its flaws, which have often been connected with the personal failings of individual royals, overall it does its job well and provides what it is meant to provide, a solid basis for nationhood.

For the last few weeks, people have been recalling all sorts of entertaining quirks in Prince Philip, which we can enjoy for the last time before he fades into history.

We learned that he was against Scottish devolution – not a surprising fact, given his age and experience. By contrast, we learned also that Prince Charles supported devolution, at least in the 1990s. Whether this sentiment has endured we do not know, and he would never announce it during his mother’s reign anyway. But the time of his succession is coming, and then he will enjoy more freedom. Things could get interesting.

After that, it will come in useful to him if, a few years from now, we get a vote to decide whether Scotland should remain a monarchy.

Readers will not be surprised to learn I will vote yes to the question. What is more, there seems little doubt a majority of the nation will do the same. We have not had many opinion polls on the monarchy, but none of those I have ever heard of shows any great discontent with it.

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It may not be welcome news to the other people who write columns in The National, republicans to a man and woman, but I would say the majority of Scots support the monarchy. If not, where is the evidence?

I have several reasons for my opinion, but probably the strongest arises from my work as a historian. By the least hazy tradition, the Kingdom of Scotland dates from the time of Kenneth MacAlpin, who united the Scots and the Picts, probably by force, in about 843. His royal line is wiggly, but continues down to the present day. A monarchy that has survived for more than 1000 years is by any standards a successful monarchy.

In Scotland, its main achievement has been to provide a focus round which a nation could and can unite, and in that sense the monarchy of Scotland is the oldest of the national institutions. It offered the necessary focus for the Church, the law, the language, the literature, the cultural tradition, the social structure.

It brought them all together and shaped the nation during the centuries when this nationhood was at its strongest. So strong was it as to survive the end of Scotland’s legal independence in 1707.

Even now, legal independence can be resumed if we want it to be, and some people may vote for that because they want the monarchy as well. In any case, no other bond of the nation is so strong.