Balmoral Castle in the context of River Dee (Aberdeenshire)

Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms, died on 8 September 2022 at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, at the age of 96. Elizabeth's reign of 70 years and 214 days was the longest of any British monarch. She was immediately succeeded by her eldest child, Charles III.

Elizabeth's death set in motion the final version of Operation London Bridge, a funeral plan first devised in the 1960s, and Operation Unicorn, the plan for the Queen's death in Scotland. Elizabeth's coffin lay at rest in St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh from 12 to 13 September, after which it was flown to London, where it lay in state in Westminster Hall from 14 to 19 September. An estimated 33,000 people filed past the Queen's coffin in Edinburgh, and approximately 250,000 people queued to pay their respects in London. The United Kingdom observed a national mourning period of 10 days.

Castles are buildings that combine fortifications and residence, and many were built within the borders of modern Scotland. They arrived in Scotland with the introduction of feudalism in the twelfth century. Initially these were wooden motte-and-bailey constructions, but many were replaced by stone castles with a high curtain wall. During the Wars of Independence, Robert the Bruce pursued a policy of castle slighting. In the Late Middle Ages, new castles were built, some on a grander scale as "livery and maintenance" castles that could support a large garrison. Gunpowder weaponry led to the use of gun ports, platforms to mount guns and walls adapted to resist bombardment.

Many of the late Medieval castles built in the borders were in the form of tower houses, smaller pele towers or simpler bastle houses. From the fifteenth century there was a phase of Renaissance palace building, which restructured them as castle-type palaces, beginning at Linlithgow. Elements of Medieval castles, royal palaces and tower houses were used in the construction of Scots baronial estate houses, which were built largely for comfort, but with a castle-like appearance. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the military significance of castles declined, but they increasingly became tourist attractions. Elements of the Scots Baronial style would be revived from the late eighteenth century and the trend would be confirmed in popularity by the rebuilding of Balmoral Castle in the nineteenth century and its adoption as a retreat by Queen Victoria. In the twentieth century there were only isolated examples of new castle-influenced houses. Many tower houses were renovated, and many castles were taken over by the National Trust for Scotland or Historic Scotland and are open to the public.

The office of the Surveyor of the King's/Queen's Pictures, in the Royal Collection Department of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom, is responsible for the care and maintenance of the royal collection of pictures owned by the Sovereign in an official capacity – as distinct from those owned privately and displayed at Sandringham House and Balmoral Castle and elsewhere. The office has only been full-time since 1972. It now operates in a professional capacity with a staff of a dozen people.

Although the office dates from 1625, during the reign of Charles I (a noted art connoisseur), there has always been someone responsible for pictures in the Royal Household. Notable recent office-holders have included Sir Lionel Cust (1901–1927), Sir Kenneth Clark (1934–1944), Professor Anthony Blunt (1945–1972), one of the Cambridge Five Soviet spies, and Sir Oliver Millar (1972–1988). The current surveyor is Anna Reynolds, who was appointed in December 2023. She is the first woman to hold the position.

The River Dee (Scottish Gaelic: Uisge Dhè) is a river in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It rises in the Cairngorms and flows through southern Aberdeenshire to reach the North Sea at Aberdeen. The area it passes through is known as Deeside, or Royal Deeside in the region between Braemar and Banchory because Queen Victoria came for a visit there in 1848 and greatly enjoyed herself. She and her husband, Prince Albert, built Balmoral Castle there which replaced an older castle.

Deeside is a popular area for tourists, due to the combination of its scenery and historic royal associations. It is part of the Cairngorms National Park, and the Deeside and Lochnagar National Scenic Area. The Dee is popular with anglers and is one of the most famous salmon fishing rivers in the world.

Estate houses in Scotland (or Scottish country houses) are large houses usually on landed estates in Scotland. They were built from the sixteenth century, after defensive castles began to be replaced by more comfortable residences for royalty, nobility and local lairds. The origins of Scottish estate houses are in aristocratic emulation of the extensive building and rebuilding of royal residences, beginning with Linlithgow, under the influence of Renaissance architecture. In the 1560s the unique Scottish style of the Scots baronial emerged, which combined features from medieval castles, tower houses, and peel towers with Renaissance plans, in houses designed primarily for residence rather than defence.

After the Scottish Restoration in 1660, the work of the architect Sir William Bruce introduced to Scotland a new phase of classicising architecture, in the shape of royal palaces and estate houses incorporating elements of the Palladian style. In the eighteenth century Scotland produced some of the most important British architects, including the neo-Palladian William Adam and his son Robert Adam, who rejected the Palladian style and were two of the European initiators of neoclassical architecture, embodied in a series of estate houses in Scotland and England. The incorporation of "Gothick" elements of medieval architecture by William Adam helped to launch a revival of the Scots baronial in the nineteenth century, given popularity by its use at Sir Walter Scott's Abbotsford House and Queen Victoria's retreat at Balmoral Castle. In the twentieth century the building of estate houses declined as the influence of the aristocracy waned, and many were taken over by the National Trust for Scotland and Historic Scotland.