How Charles could become the next King of Scotland

The Scottish National Party has always been a broad church, its members united only in wishing to see Scotland independent, with its own seat at the UN and the EU Council of Ministers (though there have been some nationalists who favoured a withdrawal from the EU also).

So it's no surprise that there are republicans in the party, like its former deputy leader Roseanna Cunningham (MSP for Perth), and also royalists. To some people's surprise, and others' dismay, the leader and First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond is now in the royalist camp - and not only because he shares the Queen's enthusiasm for racing.

Salmond may have had republican tendencies in his youth, even though his mother was, as he puts it, "a Winston Churchill Tory", but these have withered. It's some years since he started having conversations with Prince Charles (the Duke of Rothesay when he is in Scotland) about the possible future position of the Crown in an independent Scotland. (It was incidentally Charles who told Gordon Brown to stop sulking in May 2007 and telephone Salmond to congratulate him on his election victory.)

It would mean a return to the 17th century: one monarch, two kingdoms

Salmond's new-found royalism stems from more than good personal relations with members of the Royal Family. It is founded in commonsense. If he is ever to win a referendum on independence - and the present economic gloom makes this less likely than it seemed a year ago - then he has to win votes from people who don't yet vote SNP; from, for instance, Scottish Tories, most of whom are royalists, and from non-political people who retain a regard for the monarchy. It would be foolish to alienate them by advocating a republic. He can probably count on the republican vote anyway.

So the present SNP proposal is that the Queen would remain head of state after independence, but would exercise the functions of that position only when she was in Scotland. In effect this would mean a reversion to the 17th century situation before the 1707 Treaty of Union: one monarch, two kingdoms.
 
Admittedly this didn't work to the satisfaction of Scots then. Indeed it was because the arrangement seemed so detrimental to Scottish interests that many came to favour the parliamentary union, and the incorporation of Scotland and England in a United Kingdom. But things were very different then. The monarch was head of the government as well as head of state, exercising the political powers now ceded to the Prime Minister; and because the monarch was resident in London, his English ministers treated Scotland as a dependency. (There was, for instance, no Scottish foreign policy, and no Scottish army.)
 
Now that the Crown has virtually no political power, the government of an independent Scotland would be in the same position with regard to England as the government of Canada, Australia or New Zealand. There would, however, probably be no need, or desire, to appoint a Governor-General or Viceroy, and the monarch might be expected to spend rather more time at the Palace of Holyroodhouse than the Queen has been accustomed to do.

There would be another difference from the old Dominions. To emphasise the reality of independence, it might, probably would, be thought desirable when the Queen dies, to stage a coronation in Scotland as well as England - though no monarch has been crowned in Scotland since Charles II in 1651. That ceremony was held at Scone, the traditional crowning-place of Scottish kings (though several were crowned elsewhere).The ceremony used to include a roll-call of Scottish kings since the mythical Fergus. As a lover of tradition, the Duke of Rothesay might like to revive that practice.

Of course it may not happen. The SNP has to win its referendum first, and that doesn't look on the cards just now. Still in such matters one should never say "never".
 
By the by, if it does, then Charles would be crowned King of Scots, not Scotland - of the people, not the land. ·