August 1822 saw one of Scotland’s biggest ever public events, comparable to 2021’s COP26 in Glasgow or the 2005 G8 Summit at Gleneagles; for the first time in nearly 200 years, a reigning monarch visited Scotland. IV was the monarch, Edinburgh was the venue – and it put on a spectacular show whose cultural legacy is still felt today.
The historical context of the visit is important. Napoleon had been subdued, but those in power now worried about ‘enemies’ closer to home. Britain’s working classes were becoming educated and organised and were increasingly demanding economic security and political rights. In 1819, a peaceful gathering of workers at St Peter’s Field in Manchester was charged by cavalry and fifteen people died; it is now memorialised as the Peterloo massacre.
Two events in Scotland in 1820 underpinned the 1822 royal visit. Scotland had seen outraged protests about Peterloo and in 1820 the ‘Radical War’ erupted. 60,000 workers went on strike and there was widespread agitation across the industrialising central belt. At
