Prague Castle, seat of Wenceslas andmore latterly, Vaclav Havel. Roger Scruton's major early book was his The Meaning of Conservatism: a pre-Thatcher era defence of the intellectual grounds for a conservative approach to political, social, national and family life.
He targets especially the social contractarian liberals for their sheer voluntarism. The family itself is a naturally occuring unit in which authority is to be found without it needing to be imposed from outside. Likewise, the society is not a voluntary association of free individuals who may withdraw at any time: it is 'naturally' occuring, having its origins beyond human choosing. And authority appears within it, of course. Why should we have to provide a theoretical justification for it, as liberals try to do? Such a justification always appears artificial. Power is always already there in these 'natural' affiliations, by means of a 'transcendent bond' which exists outside the realm of individual choices.
As with all political philosophers, he wants to say something about the self (even if, like Rorty, you want to say 'there is no self!' you still want to say it):
There is, to put it bluntly, something deeply self-deceived in the idea of a fulfilled human being whose style of life is entirely of his own devising; The cult of 'authenticity' - emphasizing the truth that the individual self is in some sense an artifact - espouses the self-contradictory position that it is by himself that he is made. This myth of self as causa sui is one to which few people now subscribe....I shall argue that, once we have rejected the cult of 'authenticity' we shall be forced to abandon the attempt to erode whatever is 'established', whatever has a versted power to overcome opposition, which is the first principle of liberal as of socialist thought... p. 38
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