out as the enemy of us all, as subverter of our rights, and shouldrnchoose another King to defend our freedom: for so long as arnhundred of us are left alive, we will yield in no least way to Englishrndomination. We fight not for glory nor for wealth norrnhonours; but only and alone we fight for Freedom, which norngood man surrenders but with his life.” hi her pamphlet “Onrnthe Declaration of Arbroath,” Agnes Mure Mackenzie wrote:rn”There, clearly put, is the basic principle of right government—rnto guard at all costs the fundamental thing that is the conditionrnof full human life.”rnThe pamphlet was given me by Owen Dudley Edwards,rnwho was kind enough to spend an afternoon walkingrnme through the streets of Edinburgh. Owen, as a true Chcstertonian,rnsupports all Celtic independence movements, and atrnhis suggestion I go to visit the headquarters of the Scottish NationalrnPartv.rnThe SNP, as might be expected, is weakest in Edinburgh.rnThe bar in my little hotel on the back of Calton Hill (dear reader,rnI am as thrifty as a Scot when I am spending your money) isrnthe neighborhood watering hole, where the talk is about everythingrnbut politics—small wonder, since many of the neighborsrnare Tories. Mv host is a genial man and speaks with affable contemptrnof Scottish nationalism, and none of his customers seesrnanything but a welfare scheme in its demands for economic justice.rnThis is the Tory argument one reads regularly in the Telegraph:rnScottish nationalism is only a combination of welfarismrnand oil greed; true Scotch patriotism is dead and gone, andrnthere is hardly a sincere Scot in the SNP. In local elections, thernparty hardly ran in Edinburgh, and their campaign posters,rnsome of which still remain, do not even list the names of candidates.rnAs one former member told me, the party had writtenrnoff Midlothian, where people are content with their comfortablernstatus as second-class Britons and deaf to the appeals ofrnnationalism.rnSNP headquarters on Chariotte Street symbolizes the problemrnof any modern political party that represents a national impulse,rnand the Scots Nats work very hard at being modern andrnup-to-date. It is hard not to be disappointed. The office is perhapsrneven more strictly business than, say, DNC headquarters,rnwhere the symbols of Jefferson and FDR and JFK might be displayedrnto lend an air of historical legitimacy. The SNP wasrnfounded as an amalgam of previous movements, including thernNational Party, whose members were described by ChristopherrnHarvic (in Scotland and Nationalism) as “a fusion of the sectariesrnof traditional nationalism, a few Catholic intellectuals,rnstudents, journalists, and discontented members of the IndependentrnI .abour Party, like Grieve” (a.k.a. the poet Hugh Mac-rnDiarmid), For all his narcissism and the real stupidity of hisrnStalinism, MacDiarmid is not only the most significant Scottishrnwriter since Scott, he is one of the really important poetsrnof the century. In his masterpiece, A Drunk Man Looks at thernThistle, he takes up everything from polities to metaphysics, butrnthe real core of the poem is the thistle itself, the symbol of thernScottish nation. Despite the poet’s near-fanatical nationalism,rnhe has little use for the ethnic rigmarole: “Ye canna gang to arnBurns supper even / Wiout some wizened scrunt o a knockkneern/ Chinee turns round to say ‘Him Haggis—velly goot!’ /rnAnd ten to wan the piper is a Cockney.” Strange sentimentsrnfrom a communist.rnAnother poet-activist, Douglas Young, went to jail ratherrnthan allow himself to be conscripted by the English Padiament.rnIn its erratic progress the SNP purged both Young and MacDiarmidrnand placed the 1320 Club, which the poets had joined,rnunder an interdict, apparently for the subversive activities ofrnsome of the club’s members. It may be a good sign when thernpoets and eccentrics arc dropped from the rolls of a movement,rnbut it cannot be good that Scotland, so far as poets are concerned,rnis fast turning into the songless land of which EdwinrnMuir despaired.rnThe SNP press secretary is very kind but seems at a loss as tornhow to help. Unexpected visitors cannot complain of theirrntreatment, and laden down with position papers and thernspeeches of SNP chairman Alex Salmond, I promise to attendrna press conference given the next day in Perth. After an eveningrnspent in reading why Scotland will bloom as a quasi-independentrnmember of the European Union, I rise early and take therntrain for Perth, but the train is late, and the press coiiference hasrnbroken up by the time I arrive. The SNP appears to combinernthe efficiency of poets with the imagination of bureaucrats.rnWith some time to kill before I can pick up a car, I set off tornsee the sights. I had been reading Scott’s The Fair Maid ofrnPerth, but I several times walk past the old glover’s hall withoutrnrecognizing it as the house of Scott’s heroine. Finally from arnparking lot, I look across the street to see an old house with thernlittle plaque. Fair Maid of Perth’s House, and in the window arngreat sign with bold letters: TO LET. Another omen.rnThe modern Scottish identity is in many ways a creation ofrnSir Walter Scott. It was he who broke into a room in Edinburghrncastle to discover the “Honors of Scotland,” and it was he whornpersuaded Ceorge IV to pay a visit to his northern kingdom.rnConverting the royal family, particularly Victoria to Jacobitism,rnwas an extraordinary accomplishment, considering the last rebellionrnwas as recent as 1745. The harsh treatment given thernHighlanders—today we should call the Highland clearancesrn”ethnic cleansing” and the proscription of Highland symbolsrn”cultural genocide”—had left a bitter taste in the mouth ofrnmany Scots that even generations of comparative affluencernhave not entirely rinsed away.rnRobert Burns may be Scotland’s national treasure—withrnclubs, dinners, and books of quotations to keep some bit of hisrnmemory green—^but Scott is both the eponymous hero of Scotlandrnand its epic poet, he is Romulus and Livy and Vergil all inrnone. Before Scott, the English and most Lowland Scots fearedrnand despised the Donalds who had periodically swept downrnfrom the Highlands for booty and honor. After Scott, thernHighlander came to symbolize the Scottish nation, and WalterrnScott, perhaps more than anyone, is responsible for graftingrnHighland legends onto Lowland business sense, creating thernhighly successful trade in tartans and symbolic paraphernaliarnthat continues to attract tourists. “The tartan tred wad gar yernlauch,” mocked Robert Carioch. “Your surname needna end inrn-och; / . . . A puckle dollar bills will aye / preive Hiram Teufelsdrochrn/ a septary of Clan McKay.” German-Americans arc onernthing, but what the Japanese make of all this I do not know,rneven after listening to them discuss British history with theirrntour guides.rnHow much of Scott’s legacy remains in Scofland, even outsidernof Edinburgh, where my landlord is gently witty atrnthe expense of “Sir Walter,” I do not know. I stay for severalrndays in Inveraray. It is Easter, and I am frustrated in my attemptrnto spend the holiday on lona. Oban, where I go to get a boat, isrncrowded with drunken Glaswegians who have given up Calvin-rn12/CHRONICLESrnrnrn