The Queen attended a church service near her home in Scotland yesterday, accompanied by Prince Charles and Prince William. In case that was too subtle for some, after the service Her Majesty “took the highly unusual step of stopping to converse with wellwishers outside the church — while aides pointedly invited surprised photographers to come and take pictures of her exchanges with the locals.”

One exchange is making quite a bit of news. From the Daily Mail:

The Queen yesterday issued an extraordinary call for caution in the Scottish independence referendum, urging Scots to consider ‘carefully’ whether they want to leave the United Kingdom.
In the strongest indication yet that Her Majesty wants the Union to stay together, she told a member of the public: ‘I hope everybody thinks very carefully about the referendum this week.’
Her remark came after she made what was seen as a carefully choreographed and highly symbolic appearance at a final church service in Scotland before Thursday’s knife-edge poll.

More:

Buckingham Palace did not deny she had made the remark, and insisted she was entirely impartial in constitutional matters. But No campaigners were in little doubt that the Queen, who is thought to be strongly in favour of the Union, had made a deliberate effort to send voters a message about the magnitude of breaking up the UK.

True, chatting with folks after church is not issuing a royal proclamation from the throne, or even a press release. It is soft power. But it is very powerful nonetheless.

— Michael R. Strain is a resident scholar and economist at the American Enterprise Institute. You can write to him on Twitter at twitter.com/MichaelRStrain.