King Charles swapped affairs of state for a caber and a kilt this weekend, taking up his role as Chieftain of the Mey Highland Games in Caithness, on Scotland’s far northern coast. It is a duty with real family history behind it: the games were founded in 1970 to mark the 70th birthday of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and became a fixture she cherished. After her death in 2002, Charles stepped into the Chieftain’s role, and he has kept the tradition going ever since.
The King looked thoroughly at home. Dressed in a kilt, he watched the classic Highland disciplines play out — the tug of war, the caber toss — and took in a programme of Highland dancing, stopping to chat with the organisers and with participants from the Wounded Highlanders adaptive sports group. It is exactly the kind of relaxed, tradition-steeped engagement that suits him, a world away from the ceremony of official life in London.
The visit also marks the start of the royal family’s summer in Scotland. It comes just before the King’s traditional stay at Balmoral Castle with Queen Camilla, a stretch of the calendar the family has long guarded as private time. Among the guests expected over the coming weeks is the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, and his partner, with various family members due to pass through as August unfolds.
For Charles, days like this are as much about continuity as pageantry. Presiding over a games his grandmother started, in the corner of Scotland she loved, is a quiet act of remembrance folded into a public appearance — the sort of inherited ritual that means far more to the family than the caber tossing ever could.
