EDINBURGH — Cities such as this one, the elegant, disheveled, uppity, cultured, ancient, whisky-soaked, touristy-but-with-good-reason capital of Scotland, are living proof that most other advanced (and unadvanced) countries in the world spent most of their existence under the rule of a king.

Or a queen.

Or czar, shah, emperor, grand poobah, nabob, whatever.

We didn’t, in America, not for our nearly 250 years of existence, except when we were a colony of this very Great Britain, for which the Scots deserve little blame, as they will be glad to tell you about the English, who once ruled them as well, and partially do to this day.

Anyway, the main drag here is famously the Royal Mile, a cobbled big street leading down a long hill from the imposing Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood, the resid

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