It has become Scotland’s largest public event of modern times; hundreds of thousands of people gathered on roadsides, in farm fields and on bridges as the Queen’s funeral cortege drove 170 miles from Balmoral to Edinburgh.
The crowd in Edinburgh’s Old Town as her hearse passed along the Royal Mile on Sunday was the densest the city has seen. That display of compassion, curiosity and, for some, fealty could suggest the support for monarchism in Scotland is deeper than many suspected.
The observance was understated, restrained. There were very few union flags or saltires on display; only a handful of flowers were thrown under the hearse’s wheels. Applause could be heard occasionally but chiefly the crowds were silent.
Unionists among the 1.4 million Scots who vote for anti-independence parties are likely to draw strength from that. “I think this will establish how strong the feeling is for being part of the UK. That’s part of the reason I’m here,” said Elizabeth Alexander, watching the cortege pass with her grandchildren in Ballater, Aberdeenshire, on Sunday.
That may be misplaced. The question facing unionists and the new monarch, King Charles III, is whether the deep affection for his mother translates into support for him and for the institution.
Recent polling suggests it may not. In May this year, the thinktank British Futures found that only 45% of Scottish voters wanted to keep the monarch, versus 60% at UK level, while 36% of Scots said the end of the Queen’s reign would be the right moment to establish a republic – a figure nearly replicated by a Panelbase poll the previous year.
That presents Charles and his son Prince William, now heir apparent, with a challenge: how to convert that outpouring on the Queen’s death into enduring support for the institution, and for the King personally.
Charles, despite his popularity at the Braemar Highland Games this month, and his own deep affection for Balmoral – exemplified by his children’s book based there, The Old Man of Lochnagar – has failed to insert himself into Scotland’s psyche in the way his mother did.
There is a second question: does support for the monarchy translate necessarily into support for Scotland remaining in the union? Before the 2014 independence referendum, Alex Salmond, then first minister, stressed that the Queen would remain head of state if Scotland voted yes.
There were hints she was nervous about the prospects of a yes vote. Four days before referendum day, she told an onlooker outside Crathie kirk, close to Balmoral: “I hope people will think very carefully about the future.” That day, the Sunday Times published a poll wrongly predicting 51% of Scots would vote yes. Now, however, support for independence hovers close to that point.
Salmond, who relished his weekend stays at Balmoral with his wife, Moira, during the Queen’s summer residencies there, was desperate to demonstrate continuity. That was in part to avoid unnecessarily alienating the majority of Scots who do not think a republic should be established, at a delicate time.
Nicola Sturgeon, his successor as Scottish National party leader and first minister, appears much less of a monarchist, but has shored up that position. Sturgeon, who appeared genuinely delighted to meet the Queen earlier this year, told MSPs in June, when Holyrood marked the platinum jubilee, that she believed the Queen to be “an extraordinary woman” who deserved “deep gratitude and respect” for her dedication.
But there is a deep undercurrent of republicanism within Scottish nationalism and the wider yes movement. Research published in 2012 by Prof James Mitchell, Lynn Bennie and Rob Johns, for Oxford University Press, showed 57% of SNP members believed strongly or very strongly that the monarchy had no place in a modern society. That republicanism is deprioritised by the SNP for pragmatic and electoral reasons. SNP politicians rarely even hint that they disapprove of the monarchy.
Republicanism is present in today’s Scottish government: two pro-independence Scottish Green party junior ministers, Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater, who are also the party’s co-leaders, boycotted Holyrood’s debate to commemorate the Queen’s platinum jubilee in June.
Slater contrived to be away from Edinburgh on government business; Harvey and two other Green MSPs walked out of the chamber before the debate began. They were also absent on Sunday when Sturgeon and other party leaders gathered in the parliament for the proclamation of the new king, avoiding giving the royal oath. And on Sunday there was a small republican demonstration by the Radical Independence Campaign on the Royal Mile, with one arrest.
“The SNP leadership and the crown have danced around each other, each hoping the other will not prove a problem,” Mitchell, from the University of Edinburgh, wrote for Holyrood magazine on Sunday. “Nicola Sturgeon will not want to pick a fight, indeed [is] keen to show her loyalty to the crown. Much will depend on what comes next. Charles has inherited the crown but not the public affection felt for his mother nor her political sensibility.”
Prof Tom Devine, regarded as Scotland’s foremost historian, agrees with Mitchell. “My speculation would be that there will be two phases to the UK’s response to the death of the Queen,” he said. “For a period of time there will be tremendous good wishes and also sympathy for the royal family in general and Charles in particular, having lost his mother, because of the affection the British people had for her. After that, I think there will be little chance of him attracting that same level of affection.”
• This article was amended on 13 September 2022. The British Futures poll was in May this year, not in 2021. And a reference in an earlier version to “the majority of Scots who support the monarchy” should have referred instead to a majority of Scots not thinking a republic should be established; this figure includes poll respondents who did not have a view, or who rejected the available options.
