After Elizabeth I died childless in 1603, her closest royal relative James VI of Scotland came down to take the throne and unite the two crowns, becoming James I of England. He only went back once.
More than four centuries later, Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond says that if his campaign for independence prevails in this week’s referendum, he would keep Queen Elizabeth II, the 12th monarch of the United Kingdom, and she would be “proud to be Queen of Scots.”
For Scottish nationalists who say they are on the cusp of achieving their ambition of unraveling the U.K. political union that dates back 307 years, ditching the monarchy is a step too far. Rather than a republic, they want to keep the queen as head of a newly independent state.
“It would be a very smooth transition as she is already the Queen in Scotland,” said Robert Hazell, director of the constitution unit at University College London. “It’s a country she knows very well and loves very well.”
The monarchy is the most enduring symbol of union between England and Scotland along with the pound sterling, which the nationalists also want to retain.
The current queen has a home built for Queen Victoria in northeast Scotland, Balmoral Castle. Her mother, also Elizabeth, was related to the Scottish Royal House with the family seat at Glamis Castle. The queen’s eldest son and heir, Prince Charles, is often pictured in a kilt.
Think Carefully
With the outcome of this week’s referendum impossible to predict, the queen’s status is one of the few things that wouldn’t be up for negotiation should politicians end up sitting down to hammer out a divorce settlement. The argument rather is over how the Queen might feel about the carving up of a country she’s ruled for more than six decades.
While royal convention keeps her from expressing an opinion publicly, she told a well-wisher after a church service near Balmoral that she hoped voters would “think very carefully about the future,” the BBC reported. “No” campaigners suggested the comment favored their side.
“As a constitutional monarch she is completely impartial on these matters, that has been stated many times,” Salmond said at a campaigning event in Edinburgh yesterday. “Nobody seriously, apart from the more frenetic unionist press would seek to persuade or tell people otherwise. And I look forward to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth being Queen of Scots.”