Attitudes towards devolution, or even secession, are often path-dependent. Little is known, however, on the factors affecting this path. Possible critical junctures and their interaction with initial conditions can be expected to play their part, as well as certain other latent and historical factors defining the nature of a union or a federation. This paper aims to disentangle these dynamics of institutional change. What drives the demand for (more) devolution, or even secession, and do these attitudes lie on one and the same spectrum? In our online survey experiment, we hence distinguish between politically and historically-rooted factors on the one hand, and the effect of large, external and unexpected shocks on the other. To this end, we use the Covid-19 Pandemic as a proxy for an unexpected socio-economic shock, and investigate its impact on people’s attitudes to independence (Scotland) and devolution (England). The experimental design adopts a ‘difference-in-difference’ methodology that requires the Scottish (3000 respondents) and English (10000 respondents) samples to each be split into two groups. One sub-group is first asked a block of ‘treatment’ Covid-related questions (split across two sub-dimensions tackling the health and economic dimensions of the crisis) after which they are presented with a block of ‘outcome’ questions (eliciting attitudes towards devolution or independence, among others). The other sub-group is asked both blocks of questions the other way around, serving as the control group. In England, we find a negative treatment effect on institutional trust in England, especially for central government, and a positive treatment effect on attitudes in favour of devolution. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that these effects are stronger for those respondents identifying as English, and in areas where Westminster’s pandemic policies were more strictly enforced and policed. In Scotland, however, we find no effect on attitudes in favour of secession and no effects on trust. This suggests that when existing political fault lines run sufficiently deep, as is the case in Scotland where unionist and nationalist attitudes have all but crystallized, a buffer is thrown up against the effects of a crisis on political attitudes. Especially when the government is perceived to do well and maintains trust, as was the case for the Sturgeon government throughout much of the crisis. In England conversely, where devolution attitudes are less crystallised and the notion of regional autonomy is only beginning to take shape via the rise of combined authorities and their directly elected mayors, drops in trust in central government can go in tandem with a stronger wish for devolution.