Scottish crowds show their love for the departed monarch

The Queen’s final journey has been literal and symbolic one through Britain.

Her Majesty died in her beloved Balmoral estate, which she typically visited from mid July through to September.

The monarch had a deep affection for Scotland and it returned the feeling. The late sovereign’s mother was a Scottish aristocrat who spent much of her childhood north of the border.

And yet for centuries relations between England and Scotland have been changeable. They have only had the same monarch for the last 400 years, and only became one kingdom in 1707 (three decades before this newspaper launched, which had plenty of Scottish news from its first editions).

The last 200 years has been a period of stable relations north and south of the Scottish border, such that the Union never seemed to be peril. Latterly, and in keeping with separatist surges in other nations such as Spain, Scottish nationalism has soared in popularity. When campaigning began in 2013 for the independence referendum the following year, support for staying in the UK was ahead by a more than two-to-one margin. Suddenly that lead evaporated, resulting in an uncomfortably narrow majority for the status quo.

The SNP is by far the biggest political movement in Scotland. Over the last decade, this shift in sentiment called into question the popularity of the Queen there. Was she so traditional in her style and approach that a younger generation of Scots would move yet further from the ‘stuffy’ British link?

We might have some glimpse of an answer. In Scotland, as in Ireland and indeed around the world, people have set aside their views in admiration for the departed sovereign. As our photographs show, crowds have flocked to line the route of the Queen’s last journey from Balmoral, towards England.

Queen Elizabeth really did help to bind the nation she loved together. But that success reminds us that there is something that is more than capable of being bound.