When King George IV visited Edinburgh in August 1822, he was the first reigning British monarch to set foot in Scotland in almost 200 years. Stage-managed by literary superstar Sir Walter Scott, the royal visit included parades, processions, banquets and balls. The King attended a royal command theatre performance, went to Sunday worship in St Giles’ Cathedral and reviewed local militias on Portobello Beach.
There was tartan too, yards and yards of it. A lasting legacy of the visit was that the kilted highlander became the enduring global image of Scotland.
George IV was not a popular monarch. While his own lifestyle was self-indulgent in the extreme, he remained deaf to increasingly anguished pleas for desperately needed political and social reform. Weavers, millworkers, colliers and other workers were struggling to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads. Yet tens of thousands, rich and poor, lined the streets of Edinburgh in the hope of catching a glimpse of him.
In We’re Come to See the King, Scottish historian and novelist Maggie Craigtells the story of those colourful two weeks in the summer of 1822 when Scotland saw the King and the King saw Scotland.
There was tartan too, yards and yards of it. A lasting legacy of the visit was that the kilted highlander became the enduring global image of Scotland.
George IV was not a popular monarch. While his own lifestyle was self-indulgent in the extreme, he remained deaf to increasingly anguished pleas for desperately needed political and social reform. Weavers, millworkers, colliers and other workers were struggling to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads. Yet tens of thousands, rich and poor, lined the streets of Edinburgh in the hope of catching a glimpse of him.
In We’re Come to See the King, Scottish historian and novelist Maggie Craigtells the story of those colourful two weeks in the summer of 1822 when Scotland saw the King and the King saw Scotland.
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