Royal affection for the piper plays on - Scotsman comment

Even the most ardent of Scots might resist the sound of the bagpipes as their morning alarm call.

The Piper to the Sovereign was first created by Queen Victoria following a trip to the Highlands in 1842. PIC: PA.

But for King Charles, it’s how he begins a new day with a centuries-old tradition of the monarch’s piper playing a few early morning tunes now following the new monarch to Clarence House for the first time.

It was a daily ritual first started by Queen Victoria after her first visit to the Highlands in 1842, when she stayed with the Marquis of Breadalbane at Taymouth Castle.

Letters home to her mother detail how she was “so fond” of the pipes that that she wanted a piper to play every night when back at Frogmore.

It is believed both Queen Victoria’s father and uncle had pipers play at Kensington Palace, but her overt appreciation of the music of the Gael, once seen as part of a hostile culture, brought the sound into the establishment and helped symbolise Scotland’s interests in the British Crown.

Some consider the role of Piper to the Sovereign as one of the most coveted in the piping world with the job taking the musician to the heart of the Royal Household and into quarters at Buckingham Palace. The piper is also the only person outwith the Royal Family who is allowed to wear the Balmoral Tartan.

Queen Elizabeth II’s appreciation of Scottish music is well documented, with private shows of fiddlers and singers at Balmoral a summer toe-tapping ritual. One of her former pipers, Pipe Major Scott Methven, was known as Pipes.

With King Charles having a piper at his window, the Royal affection for the bagpipe – and Scotland - plays on.