For the first time, the public will be allowed into Balmoral on a series of special (now sold-out) summer tours. This Aberdeenshire manor symbolizes the Royal Family’s special relationship with Scotland, but Balmoral is more than that: it epitomizes the romantic image of Scotland familiar around the world, which the Royal Family played a key role in creating.
This ‘Balmoralisation’ is a crucial part of Scotland’s story. This is the story of how English and Scottish Unionists developed the idea of a new Scotland that linked these two arch-enemies. Nowadays, when foreign tourists think of Scotland, they often think of wild moors, rugged castles, bagpipes and, best of all, tartan. These elements have always been part of Scottish culture, but their ubiquity was due to a shrewd rebranding exercise in which the royals played a leading role.
This royal change took place 200 years ago, in 1822, under King George IV. It started with George’s visit to Edinburgh. This was the first visit to Scotland by an English monarch since the 17th century. There was a good reason for this long absence. There were three Scottish uprisings against the English in the 1700s; Three attempts were made to overthrow Britain’s Hanoverian monarchy and restore Stuart to the throne.
The Stuarts were Scottish, and Bonnie Prince Charlie was the last of these Scottish impersonators. Tartan was the uniform of Highland soldiers, so after the rebellion tartan was banned. The genius of the British monarchy was to transform this rebel outfit into the Unionist outfit of Scotland; rather than being a sign of rebellion, it was a symbol of loyalty to the crown.
Ironically, it was King Henry IV of Hanover who, with the help of Scotland’s greatest novelist, Sir Walter Scott, consolidated this appropriation of the Highland dress by the Unionist establishment. It was George. Scott’s historical novels were immensely popular; especially Waverley and IV, his dramatic tale of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s rebellion. When she was hired to stage manage George’s Scottish visit, she transformed Edinburgh into a sea of tartan.
To celebrate this royal visit, Scott organized a series of banquets and cavalcades and invited his lowland bourgeois guests to dress in traditional Highland dress. Many of these Plains townspeople were terrified. His ancestors had fought alongside the English against Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Highland rebels. Edinburgh was the capital of the Scottish Enlightenment; it was a city of doctors, lawyers and scholars, not of rural landowners and Highland chieftains. But after King George had his portrait painted in full Highland regalia, they obediently followed suit, and tartan became the household style for these festivities.
Following the example of George IV, tartan became mainstream in Scottish society as Scott’s novels fed a growing appetite for an idealized version of Scotland’s past. Never mind that the Highlands were much more densely populated before the Clearings. Never mind that the plains are now the cradle of the Industrial Revolution. Readers didn’t want bleak stories about industrialization. They preferred to read nostalgic fantasies about an untamed wilderness populated by wild warriors and flame-haired maidens.
One of Walter Scott’s many admirers was George IV’s niece, Queen Victoria. In 1842, she traveled to Scotland with her husband, Prince Albert, to visit the locations in Scott’s novels. In 1847 they holidayed at Adverikie, near Inverness, and in 1848 they discovered Balmoral. This was the beginning of a royal love affair with Aberdeenshire that continues to this day.
The most important feature of Balmoral was that, despite its ancient aesthetic, it was actually a completely modern creation. There was already a house on the land, but Victoria and Albert wanted a larger and more comfortable house, so they built another house next door. The architectural style was Scottish Baronial: faux-medieval on the outside, any variation on the inside, an apt metaphor for their intimate but sentimental relationship with Scotland.
Victoria’s family tree was predominantly German, but she had some Scottish blood, and so she decorated Balmoral in tartan to celebrate her (relatively superficial) Scottish ancestry: the green Hunting Stewart; white Dress Stewart and red Royal Stewart. He equipped his servants with skirts and sporrans. Lord Rosebery, one of his prime ministers, described the plaid sitting room as the ugliest room in the world.
Rosebery had a point; Victoria’s furniture was of rather poor quality, but some things are more important than taste. This artificial Caledonian decoration served a higher purpose. As Scottish historian Michael Lynch observes in his perceptive book ‘Scotland – A New History’, ‘Balmoral’s Scottishness helped give the monarchy a truly English dimension for the first time.’ Despite a few recent setbacks, this is a dimension that is here to stay.
Queen Victoria wrote poetically of Balmoral: “Everyone seemed to breathe freedom and peace, and forget the world and its sad turmoils.” Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth felt much the same. He visited frequently throughout his childhood with his father, King George VI, and his grandfather, King George V, and spent most of his summers there during his 70-year reign.
With so many residences to choose from, what attracted Elizabeth to Balmoral? The late Sir Malcolm Ross, Treasurer of the Royal Household, said it best. “This is the environment, this is the place, this is the atmosphere,” he explained. “They are wide open spaces. There are no distractions, no planes, no noise, no traffic; only he has this beautiful property where he can roam freely everywhere.” The estate covers 50,000 acres of pine forest, farmland and moorland, home to fallow deer, grouse and Highland Cattle. Elizabeth loved walking her dogs, horseback riding, and picnicking here.
Elizabeth remained true to Victoria’s Caledonian household style: the Queen’s Piper played the bagpipes every day at 9 a.m. (a tradition started by Victoria); the floors had heather and thistle motifs; Scottish landscapes hung on the walls and stag antlers were dotted around the grounds. But the lifestyle here was more informal than in London, and that was part of the appeal. Visiting Prime Ministers were pleasantly surprised to see Her Majesty tidying up after meals, stacking plates and washing dishes.
Balmoral was also a welcome retreat for the Duke of Edinburgh. Elizabeth’s devoted husband manned the grill at many Balmoral barbecues. He also helped maintain these gardens by adding herbaceous borders and water features. During the pandemic, the devoted couple quarantined at Balmoral, where they celebrated their 73rd (and last) wedding anniversary.
Both had close relations with Scotland, albeit for different reasons. Prince Philip’s love for Scotland dated back to his school days at Gordonstoun. Queen Elizabeth was actually half Scottish; his mother came from an ancient Scottish clan and grew up at Glamis Castle, one of Scotland’s most historic stately homes and the site of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
Elizabeth’s love for Scotland extended far beyond Balmoral and encompassed the entire country. As he opened the Scottish Parliament in 2021, he spoke of his deep and abiding love for “this great country”, a country his family had done so much to shape its public image.
So does it matter that this public image is partly fantasy? Does it matter that Scotland isn’t all about grouse, stags and Highland game? Not exactly. All travel, all tourism, is partly an act of imagination. We see what we want to see, we find what we want to find. Of course, there is much more to Scotland than Balmoral, but it is still part of Scotland and what it represents, what Elizabeth stood for, is real.
The King’s Scottish roots run as deep as those of his late mother. Educated at Gordonstoun, like his father, his love of Balmoral stems from his charming children’s story The Old Man of Lochnagar, named after the highest peak on the estate, one of the seven Munros (peaks above 900 metres) within its boundaries. it reflects.
Like his late mother, Charles’ love of Scotland is not limited to Balmoral. There are countless examples of his philanthropy, but Dumfries House is a particularly good example. Built by John and Robert Adam and furnished by Thomas Chippendale, Dumfries House is one of Britain’s most perfectly preserved Palladian houses, and when it went up for sale in 2007 it looked as if its priceless collection would be lost forever until Charles II. he led a consortium that purchased it for the nation.
Thanks to Charles’ charitable foundation, Dumfries House remains open to the public and its valuable contents remain where they are, but it’s not just a dusty old museum. The home also provides employment and training for many local young people in an area with high unemployment. Dumfries House shows that ‘Balmoralization’ is more than mere nostalgia at its best. As Charles showed, it can also be a progressive force.
The Balmoralisation of Scotland was a clever PR exercise designed to integrate a turbulent country into the UK, but like all the best PR campaigns, it was used to sell a great product. Plaid clichés may be corny, but they’re rooted in reality. Much of Scotland remains a wilderness area and its cultural heritage remains unique.
Queen Elizabeth was right about Scotland, as she was right about many things. “It is the people who make a place,” he said, “and there are few places where this is more true than in Scotland.” How appropriate that he died at Balmoral, the home he loved more than anything else.
This article was first published in September 2022 and has been revised and updated.