Source : Printed pamphlet, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, Waugh and Innes, and John Robertson, 1822 [Walter Scott]: Hints Adressed to the Inhabitants of successfully opposed by any ebullition of mere feeling — Edinburgh, and others, in Prospect of His Majesty’s visit. By however chivalric — however free from all stain of selfishness an Old Citizen. 1 that feeling may be. The two first Princes of the House of Hanover; could Nothing can be more pleasant than to witness the effect which has never regard Scotland in any other light than that of a been produced among every order of our fellow-citizens, by the disaffected province. George III early showed how completely announcement of his Majesty's approaching visit to this the an- his mind had got rid of the natural prejudices of his family; and cient capital of the most ancient of his kingdoms. A long series of surely never did confidence meet with a better return than years has elapsed since a King was seen in Hollywood. No real joy, attended his reliance on the loyalty of Scotland. Nevertheless, indeed, has attended upon, any royal visit to these walls, ever since that revered Prince never visited this part of his dominions. the period when James VI left his native soil for the wealthy The agitated state, not of this island only, but of all Europe, inheritance of Elizabeth. That Monarch, although he retained during by far the greater part of his: reign, rendered it well nigh through all his life a warm partiality for Scotland, derived but small impossible for him to make any excursion to so great a enjoyment from the brief and hurried progress which he made distance from the seat of government. It has been reserved for through her disturbed territory after his accession to the English his son, during a period of universal peace, to set his foot upon Crown. The people were divided, and the good-tempered but our shores; and there can be no doubt that the reception he is indolent Prince had neither the tact to appease their dissensions, to meet with will be one calculated to gratify all those feelings nor the spirit to overrule them. His unfortunate son was twice in with which it is natural to suppose THE FIRST PRINCE and THE Scotland; but on neither occasion was his visit one of pleasure. FIRST GENTLEMAN in the world must be filled upon such an Charles II and James II were almost equally the objects of dislike occasion. to by far the greater part of our population, on account of the It is well known, that, when the King visited Ireland religious tenets which they respectively held. The grandson of last summer, he was received by our fellow-subjects of that James, the Prince Charles Edward Stuart, was here, at the head of island with all the overflowing enthusiasm which forms so a desperate party, whose zeal, although most honourable to them, distinguished a feature in their character. Their loyal devotion was pregnant with danger to the best interests of Britain ; and to their Sovereign cannot be more, perfect than ours but we whose heroic efforts, for they deserve no humbler epithet, served are comparatively a quiet people, and. we may be assured the only to heap ruin upon themselves and their families, and to show King will not like us the worse because we express our feelings that the fixed resolution of a great and wise nation can never be in our own way. He himself is well known to be one of the most accomplished and best informed men in England; and. he 1 In 1822, George IV visited Edinburgh; the first British monarch to do so since the will never expect to see the grave Scot plunging into the sea, parliamentary Union of 1707, with many disaffected Scots still unreconciled to the Hanover dynasty (which had ousted the native Stuarts), and with English-Scottish relations still raw from and swimming out to shake hands with him ere he touches our the 1745 Jacobite rebellion. Walter Scott, already famous as a poet and antiquary and widely soil. He knows that he is about to visit a nation whose suspected to be the author (as yet unacknowledged) of the Waverley Novels, devised the occasion to become a great reconciliation ritual between England and Scotland, with Scottish character and manners have been formed and settled for many Highland culture prominently and proudly displayed as as distincrtive feature of Scottish centuries; and so far from pleasing him by assuming what is SPIN source text on nationality. This pamphlet, published anonymously, was one of the ways in which Scott the history of cultural propagandistically worked on public opinion in preparation of the visit. [SPIN note] not our own, there can be no question we should be, in doing so, just depriving him of the chief pleasure to which he looks nationalism in Europe www.spinnet.eu Source : Printed pamphlet, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, Waugh and Innes, and John Robertson, 1822 forward on this occasion. We used of old to be reckoned a proud violently, and they make violent speeches; but pamphlets and race: let us show our honest pride now; and let this pride consist orations act the part of safety valves, and in private life Whig in appearing just as we are. Let our King see us as nature and and Tory mingle together without the smallest approach to any education have made us — an orderly people, whose feelings, feeling of unkindness. Without descending to particulars, there however warm, are rarely suffered to outspring the restraint of can be no doubt that such is not the case here; and whatever judgment — whose blessings have always been (like their curses) may be said by the rancorous adherents of either party, the “not loud, but deep.” Let us not forget, moreover, that Ireland calm bye-stander can most certainly discover no reason why was, after all, no more than a lordship for almost a thousand years this should be the case. Both parties have erred. Both have after Scotland had taken her place among the kingdoms of carried matters too far. Men alike amiable in their domestic Europe. No king had ever before set foot on Ireland, but as a lives, alike honourable in their private behaviour, alike warrior, or as a conqueror, or as a tyrant. King George IV comes distinguished by their talents and accomplishments, have, by hither as the descendant of a long line of Scottish Kings. The gradual and imperceptible steps; been led to regard each other blood of the heroic Robert Bruce — the blood of the noble, the as every thing that is abominable. Of all the gentlemen whose enlightened, the generous James I is in his veins. Whatever honour names have been; so continually in the mouth of the public — Worth and Genius can confer upon Ancestry, his Scottish who have been so cried up by the one party, and cried down by Ancestry possesses. Still more, he is our kinsman. While our the other, — where is there one, either on the one side or on Douglases our Stewarts, our Hamiltons, our Braces, all our high the other, against whose real character as a relation, a friend, or nobility, are his acknowledged relations—it is not too much to say, a citizen, one whisper was ever breathed? It is really too much that there is scarcely a gentleman of any of the old Scottish to have people divided in this manner, where there is no true families who cannot, in some way or other, “count kin” with the reason why they should be so. And every welldisposed, every royal house from which our Sovereign is descended. Nay, in this right-thinking person, must be ready to echo my words, when I small country, blood has been so much mingled that it is not to be express my most deep and sincere desire, that the presence of doubted by far the greater part of our burgesses and yeomen are our King may be the signal for burying in oblivion that which entitled to entertain similar pretensions. In short, we are THE is past, and the pledge of better things in the time to come. CLAN , and our King is THE CHIEF . Let us, on this happy occasion, Having said so much by way of preamble, I hope I remember that if is so; and not only behave towards him as a shall how be pardoned for proceeding to offer a few plain father, but to each other, as if we were, in the Words of the old suggestions as to the probable course of things during his song, “ae man's bairns.” Majesty's stay amongst us, and the part which citizens of all When the King went to Ireland, one great object of his orders may be called upon to take in the different arrange- visit was to allay those violent political feuds by which the Irish are ments fixed-upon. divided. We, who have no pretences such as they have for political disunion, are nevertheless not altogether free from it. Party feeling, There can be no doubt that his Majesty is to land in a to say the truth, has of late years risen much higher in this remote public manner, within sight of the inhabitant's, of .Edinburgh. part of the empire than any sensible person, living within the very At first it was very generally imagined that the: King would SPIN source text on focus of government, could possibly imagine. In England people have landed somewhere about Musselburgh or Prestonpans, the history of cultural keep their politics for Parliament and public meetings.