land as they
respect Scotland, it would come out in a hundred small ways. For
instance, there are crack regiments in the British Army which wear the
kilt--the kilt which, as Macaulay says with perfect truth, was regarded
by nine Scotchmen out of ten as the dress of a thief. The Highland
officers carry a silver-hilted version of the old barbarous Gaelic
broadsword with a basket-hilt, which split the skulls of so many English
soldiers at Killiecrankie and Prestonpans. When you have a regiment of
men in the British Army carrying ornamental silver shillelaghs you will
have done the same thing for Ireland, and not before--or when you
mention Brian Boru with the same intonation as Bruce.

Let me be considered therefore to have made quite clear that I believe
with a quite special intensity in the independent consideration of
Scotland and Ireland as apart from England. I believe that, in the
proper sense of the words, Scotland is an independent nation, even if
Edward VII. is the King of Scotland. I believe that, in the proper sense
of words, Ireland is an independent nation, even if Edward VII. is King
of Ireland. But the fact is that I have an even bolder and wilder belief
than either of these. I believe that England is an independent nation. I
believe that England also has its independent colour and history, and
meaning. I believe that England could produce costumes quite as queer as
the kilt; I believe that England has heroes fully as untranslateable as
Brian Boru, and consequently I believe that Edward VII. is, among his
innumerable other functions, really King of England. If my Scotch
friends insist, let us call it one of his quite obscure, unpopular, and
minor titles; one of his relaxations. A little while ago he was Duke of
Cornwall; but for a family accident he might still have been King of
Hanover. Nor do I think that we should blame the simple Cornishmen if
they spoke of him in a rhetorical moment by his Cornish title, nor the
well-meaning Hanoverians if they classed him with Hanoverian Princes.

Now it so happens that in the passage complained of I said the King of
England merely because I meant the King of England. I was speaking
strictly and especially of English Kings, of Kings in the tradition of
the old Kings of England. I wrote as an English nationalist keenly
conscious of the sacred boundary of the Tweed that keeps (or used to
keep) our ancient enemies at bay. I wrote as an English nationalist
resolved for on