Echoes of Scott, 1822 spin doctor supreme

Published on Saturday 25 July 2009 19:28

THE Gathering coincides with the celebrations for the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns but it is another Scottish author – Sir Walter Scott – who is its presiding spirit. The whole idea of a celebration of Scottishness, with pageants, tartans and processions of clans, comes from Scott's stage-managing of the visit of George IV in 1822. The "King's Jaunt", as it was called, is at the root of the Gathering's own family tree.

In 1822 Scott was the most famous novelist in the world. In effect he was the spin doctor and PR stunt manager for the King. He organised clan chieftains to converge on Edinburgh, a march to the skirl of the pipes along the Royal Mile, historical masques that told Scotland's story and for the King to receive the Scottish regalia. It was an astonishing coup: no member of the ruling Hanoverian royal family had set foot in Scotland, with the exception of "Butcher" Cumberland at Culloden. The last time so many Highlanders descended on Edinburgh, they were an occupying force supporting the Jacobite Pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie, who was determined to remove George's grandfather from the throne. In the aftermath, the kilt was made illegal – and yet Scott persuaded George IV not just to wear a kilt, but a kilt in Royal Stewart tartan, associated with the Jacobites. It was a costly decision – George's attire cost the modern equivalent of 1,123,750.

The fact that "our fat friend", as Scott would later call him, was in Scotland at all was more opportune than deliberate. Many in London were worried about the outbreak of radical discontent in Glasgow. More were worried about the forthcoming Congress of Verona, where Russia, Austria, Prussia, France and Britain would decide the fate of other countries. Having the King away in Scotland while the top brass of European diplomacy hammered out a deal was essential – especially since he had slept with the Prussian representative's wife.

Scott turned a tinder-box into a triumph. His son-in-law even said it was a "cruel mockery" to put Highland culture at the centre of the display, given how many were being cleared. But somehow Scott managed to convince Edinburgh that the bloated, often blootered, 60-year-old king was the true heir to the dashing Prince Charlie. .

In 1822, two English brothers were in the throng. Although their name was Allen, the event inspired them to reinvent themselves as John and Charles Sobieski Stuart, the unacknowledged grandchildren of Bonnie Prince Charlie. They told Scott they had a 15th century book that detailed each clan's tartan, but Scott saw through it.

Once he was dead, they published their phoney Vestiarium Scoticum and many of their patterns adorned the haunches of visitors to the Gathering. A pair of Surrey chancers, a Scottish Tory Unionist baronet and an ageing divorcee monarch desperate for attention: from this came every international symbol of Scottishness, from Groundskeeper Willy to Braveheart.