This distinction between people and country has long been the case with Scottish monarchs. Nationalist leaders of that time, including Alex Salmond, who was soon to be first minister, were enthusiastic about the use of this title. It was as “Queen of Scots” that she was addressed when she performed the formal opening ceremony of the Scottish Parliament in 2002 by Lord Steel of Aikwood, the presiding officer of the new assembly at the time – a description that he had “cleared” with Buckingham Palace beforehand.Īnd by no stretch of the imagination could Lord Steel, also a former leader of the Liberal Party – and its successor, the Liberal Democrats – be described as an anti-monarchist.
Namely, that she – and now he – is head of state of a people, not of a country. Instead, they seemed to be declaring their wish that the new king follows on from the title agreed with previous British monarchs and, in recent years, with his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II. Among the heckling that greeted the King as he descended from St Giles, the High Kirk of Scotland, were a number of what appeared to be protestors brandishing placards that declared: Charles, King of Scots.īut on closer inspection, the words that they held aloft were not anti-monarchist as some of those watching might have imagined.
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