The Crowns

In The Heart of Edinburgh This Week we witnessed an ancient ritual in the modern age.

As The Queen 's cortege made its way up the Royal Mile from The Palace of Holyroodhouse to St Giles' Cathedral, The Streets were a sea of smartphones.

It was a vivid reminder that this nation changed beyond measure in The Time of Elizabeth , a monarch whose affection for Scotland was, in her own words, deep and abiding.

Descended from Stewart kings and Scottish aristocracy, Elizabeth 's roots here ran deep.

From childhood summers at her mother's ancestral home, Glamis Castle in Angus, to formal duties at The Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, she spent a great deal of her long life in Scotland.

Staff on The Balmoral estate recall A Woman with a love of horses, hunting and hurtling around in Land Rovers.

Historian Prof Sir Tom Devine says the late monarch showed respect for Scotland as a nation and many Scots, In Return , showed respect for The Crown .

The long queues and lengthy waits to view The Queen 's coffin in Edinburgh's St Giles' Cathedral, and the huge crowds her cortege drew in as it travelled from Balmoral Castle , underline that affection.

Sir Tom says the late Queen's clear " love of the land" - a blood relationship running all The Way back to the 14Th Century King Robert The Bruce - and her evident pride in being " Queen of Scots as well as Queen of the UK" helped to sustain support for Elizabeth in her lifetime.

At times though there were complications.

Within weeks of The Coronation in 1953, the newly-enthroned monarch and her husband arrived in the Scottish capital where 30,000 people packed into Murrayfield Stadium .

Although the welcome was warm, her Title - Elizabeth Ii - left some cold. She was in fact The First Elizabeth to rule Scotland.

It was only on the death of Elizabeth I in 1603 that The Crowns of Scotland and England had been united.

The Tudor queen was succeeded by The First Stuart monarch who was styled James I of England and James VI of Scotland.

And so when the young princess became Elizabeth Ii on the death of her father there was slightly unusual trouble.

Post-boxes in Scotland bearing the inscription EIIR were vandalised, Even blown up, until the Royal Mail switched the design to a crown emblem instead.

It was an early hint of constitutional tension which would resurface a quarter of a century later.

The UK monarch is supposed to be politically neutral which made The Queen 's 1977 silver jubilee address to MPs and peers in London's Westminster Hall controversial, Even shocking to some.

The issue of The Day was Labour's plan to devolve power to Scotland and Wales.

Perceptively perhaps The Queen spoke of a growing " awareness of historic national identities in these islands" which she described as driving discussion about devolution.

" I number Kings and Queens of England and of Scotland, and Princes of Wales among my ancestors and so I can readily understand these aspirations. . " she explained.

Then came the controversial caveat: ". . But I cannot forget that I was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . Perhaps this jubilee is a time to remind ourselves of the benefits which union has conferred, At Home and in our international dealings, on The Inhabitants of all parts of this United Kingdom . "

Sir Tom Devine says: " I think it's almost certain that she must have been a unionist, emotionally. "

He describes The Queen as probably " The Most significant and influential British monarch since The Union of 1707" when Scotland and England's parliaments were united to form Great Britain .

Opinion polls often suggested that Elizabeth was more popular than the institution she led.

Now under King Charles III, argues Sir Tom, it is " almost inevitable" that Scotland's relationship with The Monarchy will change.

The new king, he says, " will have the hardest of hard tasks to follow The Queen ".

The Polling expert and professor of politics at Strathclyde University, Sir John Curtice , says polling conducted before her death indicated a clear majority in England and Wales would choose retaining The Monarchy over setting up a republic.

In Scotland, however, while monarchy was Still the preferred option of the two, support for it was below 50%.

The institution could not be described as unpopular north of The Border , says Sir John, But it is " definitely less popular in Scotland" than it is in England.

That, combined with a feeling that The Constitution may now be in flux, must surely be a concern for King Charles .

Perhaps he will follow the example of His Mother who demonstrated flexibility when faced with public support for political change.

By The End of The Century the devolved Scottish Parliament which Labour had failed to secure in the late 1970s had become a reality and This Time the monarch enthusiastically embraced it.

As she inaugurated the new institution in 1999 she spoke with warmth and affection in praise of The National character of the Scots, a people with whom she made clear she strongly identified.

By now it was obvious that The Revival of separate national identities which The Queen had discerned in her realm two decades earlier was transforming politics.

Within eight years of devolving powers over many domestic policy areas to the new parliament and executive in Edinburgh, The Nation entered a period of Scottish National Party hegemony, Scottish Labour began to wander into the political wilderness, and a date was fixed for a referendum on Independence - 18 September 2014.

The monarch was hosting Tory Prime Minister David Cameron at Balmoral less than Two Weeks before the vote when a poll in the Sunday Times suggested Scotland was on The Brink of seceding from England, Wales and Northern Ireland .

It was apparently an awkward meal.

A week later, just days before polling stations opened to consider the question " Should Scotland be an independent country? " The Queen was reported to have told an onlooker at Crathie Kirk near Balmoral: " Well, I hope people will think very carefully about The Future . "

The Palace denied The Comment was political But those denials were later undermined by Mr Cameron in a

The former PM admitted that he then asked Buckingham Palace for " just a raising of the eyebrow Even . . a quarter of an inch, " because he and his team believed The Queen could " make a difference".

If she did, the SNP leadership was careful not to blame her. In fact it was a mark of her relative popularity in Scotland, at least In Comparison to The Monarchy as an institution, that The Party abandoned, or at least played down, republican tendencies.

The SNP plan for an independent Scotland set out before the referendum involved retaining The British monarch as head of state. It Still does. It's a position which appears to be aimed more at winning over supporters of other parties to The Nationalist cause than keeping its own voters happy.

As Prof Ailsa Henderson , of Edinburgh University, points out support for The Monarchy in Scotland varies depending on voting preferences.

Among Conservatives support is in The High 70s in percentage terms, for Labour and Liberal Democrat voters it is in the 60s, and for SNP supporters it is " much lower" - in The High 20s.

" There's a distinction between what The Party leadership has said and what supporters of Independence actually want and there you find more tepid support for The Monarchy , " she explains.

But Even some republicans, such as the former deputy leader of the SNP, Jim Sillars , are comfortable with The Party 's position on the topic.

Does Charles's accession to The Throne affect the constitutional debate in Scotland?

" Not One Bit , " says Mr Sillars.

Economic difficulties and political divergence with England are The Key factors, he argues, adding " no disrespect to the new King But he's irrelevant in the constitutional issue".

" My advice to the Independence Movement is put that aside, that is not The Most relevant matter that faces us at The Present time, " he adds.

But if the United Kingdom as we know it is to be preserved, argues Sir Tom Devine , who has previously expressed support for Independence himself, then the sovereign does have a role to play.

" The monarch will obviously want to try to maintain what has been there for centuries, " he argues.

That may be harder after the death of The Queen , a moment which represents the unravelling of one thread which bound The Nation together.

In many ways Elizabeth embodied stability and national unity, both in her wartime service and survival of The Blitz , and in her link to a Shared - and controversial - Imperial enterprise which many Scots enthusiastically joined or supported.

In the decade of Her Birth , her grandfather King George V Still ruled over the widest empire The World had ever known, an empire on which it was said The Sun never set.

Nearly a century later she dies in a time of uncertainty about the UK's future relationship with Europe and the wider world and amid enormous economic and social turmoil.

All around us there are reminders of The Changes The Nation underwent in the Elizabethan Age, and reminders too that as King Charles III ascends to The Throne , it is changing Still .

Source of news: bbc.com