The 70-year view
A look back at the start of Queen's reign in Scotland shows statecraft, not constitutional debating points, are what matters in the end.
ANNIVERSARIES are always opportunities for reflection. As the country celebrates the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee this weekend, so thoughts turn back seventy years to the days when she ascended to the throne. How much have we changed? When it comes to Scotland, the answer can sometimes appear to be: well, not that much actually.
The mood in Scotland in 1952 and 1953, between the death of King George VI and the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, is set out best in Kenneth Roy’s “The Invisible Spirit”, his masterly blow-by-blow history of post-war Scotland. Every bookshelf in the country should have it.
In many respects, Roy’s history reveals a very different nation to our own: for example, only a few weeks after the King’s death in February 1952 did television finally come to Scottish sitting rooms. But the Scottish end of events around the Coronation 70 years ago contains more than a twinge of familiarity to us moderns.
First off, the weather was still rotten. On the day of the Coronation, the north of Scotland shivered in 45 degrees skies and 30 mph winds. Some poor soul, Roy recounts, was ordered up to the peak of Ben Nevis to broadcast a loyal message – in five feet of snow.
Perhaps the weather contributed to the rather muted public celebrations. An atmosphere of “Sabbath still” was detected in Edinburgh, with most residents choosing to stay indoors to watch the Queen on their new TV sets. That too will be reflected this weekend. A quick glance at the Platinum Jubilee map of “Big Lunch” events suggests that Scotland will mark the Jubilee with far fewer cakes and sandwiches than elsewhere in the UK. Perhaps cities like Glasgow and bunting-laden street parties just aren’t meant for each other.
But most striking of all when it comes to parallels with our own time is how the transfer of the throne from father to daughter provided the scene for – yes, you guessed it – a furious Scottish constitutional rammy. Nicola Sturgeon was not even a gleam in her father’s eye in 1952 but, as Roy’s book shows, even then, the country was capable of getting worked up into a right old lather over the fine details of the British state.
The problem was the Queen’s name. Or rather her number. In England, the new Queen Elizabeth was definitely the second. But in Scotland? What about here? It was only upon Elizabeth I’s death, in 1603, that the crowns of Scotland and England were united under her Scots cousin James VI. In Scotland, therefore, was it not Elizabeth the First?
As usual, it appears nobody in London had given it much thought. Within hours of the King’s death in 1952, the formal proclamation of the accession of Queen Elizabeth “the second” had been made. Without 24 hours of that, the Nationalist grievance volcano had blown.
It is all eerily familiar. As now, the Scottish Nationalists of the day opted for their favourite missive of choice: the Furious Open Letter to the Prime Minister. Playing Nicola was Scottish Nationalist lawyer John MacCormick. In Downing Street, the ageing Sir Winston Churchill got it full bore. “Do you acquiesce to the proclamation implicitly declaring that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland should be held no longer to exist, that Scotland should be treated as having been annexed to, and submerged in, England?” MacCormick thundered. A modern-day SNP spin doctor might these days erase “England” and replace it with “Westminster” but it otherwise stands the test of time admirably.
The telegram “divided Scotland”, recounts Roy. For, after MacCormick’s furious letter was published, the backlash from Unionists was equally vehement. Did these Nationalists really have to bring this up right now, what with the new Queen still mourning her father, asked some? What was it with these obsessive Nats? (who says the past is a different country?).
“When I read about people getting disturbed about such things as the numerals after the Queen’s name, I begin to think we are going daft,” declared Sir Patrick Dollan, chairman of the Scottish Fuel Efficiency Council, summoning up his inner Ruth Davidson. “One of the most despicable acts conceivable”, added a newspaper letter writer, summoning his inner Douglas Ross.
Yet it is hard to argue that, as with now, the Nationalists had managed to find a Unionist weak spot. Many other newspaper letter writers agreed with MacCormick. And, as Roy recounts, some civic leaders refused to read out “the Second” in official events. “It would have stuck in my throat”, declared C Stewart Black, the provost of Paisley “I would have hated myself for the rest of my life.” It’s reassuring to see that maudlin self-loathing is not a solely modern phenomenon.
There really is nothing much new under the sun. Today, it is still Scots Nats who are raising technical points of order about the nature of the Union. Our politics is still populated with modern-day Sir Patrick Dollans insisting they dump the dreary grievance and, instead, focus on the price of coal, or – these days - renewable energy. Of course, political nationalism in modern Scotland is far more widespread compared to when MacCormick ploughed his lonely furrow. But the story is a reminder of how a certain unresolvable tension is built into the very bones of Scotland’s relationship with the rest of the UK.
I think two further points can be made from the row, still relevant to today.
Firstly, this old row is a reminder of the continuing oddness of the Union. Let us concede that MacCormick did have a point. And let us concede too that it still holds. I think of those EU negotiators who three years ago went to Northern Ireland to work out a deal to deliver Brexit and came away scratching their heads at the sheer weird complexity of our country. Most of us don’t even know what to call it. Leaving aside the fact it has worked very well for most of the last three hundred years, it really doesn’t makes much sense at all.
But, secondly, I think the story reveals something more telling. Yes, the tensions have always been there. Yes, oddness is baked into the UK. But the wider lesson of the row over the Queen’s numerals is that, for all the points of order raised by nationalists over the years, time and again the majority of Scots appear unmoved by the fact. On the day of the Coronation, a lone nationalist in Largs tore down a banner which displayed what Roy describes as the “contentious numerals”. As discussed above, some civil leaders also grumbled. That, however, was about it. “Few other protests were recorded. Nothing was blown up”, Roy writes. MacCormick’s campaign petered out. Life went on. Then, a decade and a half later, Clydebank literally built a ship with the words “QEII” stamped on its rump. For all that the average Scot may well acknowledge the SNP’s well-crafted points about the wrinkles of the British state, it seems few care so much as to do anything about it, such as actually leave.
Today, seventy years on, Queen Elizabeth’s contentious numerals are redundant. Thanks to her longevity and unbroken years of service to the nation and the wider world, she has long since simply become The Queen. Perhaps this gives us the final lesson from this old constitutional row. For all that the fine detail of numbers and names may count for something, statecraft and character counts for more.
Rows over numerals and constitutional points of detail come and go. What lasts in public life are people and their actions. Even at the age of 96, the Queen continues to pay testament to that fact. It’s something today’s Scottish political leaders might do well to remember.
ENDS
This column first appeared in the Scottish Daily Mail 1st June 2022