I FOUND it interesting that the exhibition being mounted at the National Museum of Scotland next year on how the romantic images of Scotland prospered in the 18th and 19th centuries will include detail on the visit to Scotland in 1822 of George IV ("How romantic age gave Scotland visions of glens, heroes, and tartan", The Herald November 17).
That visit was the first visit to Scotland by a British monarch for just under 200 years and had significant implications for how Scotland is perceived well beyond the duration of its two-week stay. Sir Walter Scott was largely responsible for directing the proceedings, highlighting the alleged usages, habits, and dress of Highland people.
George himself got dressed up in belted plaid, Glengarry bonnet, sporran, dirk, and kilt in the bright Royal Tartan. It was as if life as lived in the Lowlands of Scotland did not exist. The kilt thereafter assumed the role as the national dress and the Company of Archers, with their bows and arrows, became the monarch's bodyguard in Scotland.
Some people were not persuaded by all the pomp, pageantry, and flummery: for example, Lord Macaulay, commenting some 30 years or so later, observed he found it hard to believe that the King would show his esteem for the Scottish people "by disguising himself in what, before the Union, was considered by nine Scotchmen out of 10 as the dress of a thief" .
Ian W Thomson,
38 Kirkintilloch Road, Lenzie.
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