Old and rare Scottish tartans

by Donald William Stewart

The ball having carried into the wound the cloth of his belted plade, and the trewes that he wore under them, the woolen did so wrankle the flesh, that with his hard travail, and need of a chirurgeon, it was long after before he got cured.[51]

In fact, so late as 1746, when Prince Charles Edward embarked on his return to France, a letter written by Colonel Warren, and preserved among the Stuart papers, records that he was dressed in “a threadbare coat of coarse black frieze, tartan trews, and over them a belted plaid.”

In 1688 William Sacheverell, Governor of the Isle of Man, visited Mull and other Western Islands, and his account is valuable and interesting because it is fair in its criticism and accurate in its description; and it affords evidence of the general use of the belted plaid, to the exclusion of the trews, among the common people. Sacheverell superintended the efforts made to recover the guns and other fittings of the Florida, one of the scattered vessels of the Spanish Armada, blown up, according to the traditions of the Mac Leans, by Donald Glas, son of Mac Lean of Morvern, in Tobermory Bay in 1588. Thus he had ample opportunity of noting the costume and manners of the natives of Mull and other Highlanders, of whom he writes:—

During my stay I generally observed the men to be large-bodied, stout, subtle, active, patient of cold and hunger. There appeared in all their actions a certain generous air of freedom, and contempt of those trifles, luxury and ambition, which we so servilely creep after. They bound their appetites by their necessities, and their happiness consists, not in having much, but in coveting little. The women seem to have the same sentiments with the men; though their habits were mean and they had not our sort of breeding, yet in many of them there was a natural beauty and a graceful modesty, which never fails of attracting. The usual habit of both sexes is the pladd; the women’s much finer, the colours more lively, and the squares larger than the men’s, and put me in mind of the ancient Picts. This serves them for a veil, and covers both head and body. The men wear theirs after another manner; especially when designed for ornament, it is loose and flowing, like the mantles our painters give their heroes. Their thighs are bare, with brawny muscles. Nature has drawn all her strokes bold and masterly; what is covered is only adapted to necessity; a thin brogue on the foot, a short buskin of various colours on the legg, tied above the calf with a striped pair of garters. What should be concealed is hid with a large shot-pouch, on each side of which hangs a pistol and a dagger; as if they found it necessary to keep those parts well guarded. A round target on their backs, a blew bonnet on their heads, in one hand a broadsword, and a musquet in the other, perhaps no nation goes better armed; and I assure you they will handle them with bravery and dexterity, especially the sword and target, as our veteran regiments found to their cost at Gille Crankee.[52]

In the closing years of the seventeenth century the Western Isles of Scotland were visited by a traveller, who has left the most complete account of the people and their manner of life which had been written up to that date. The author, Martin, undertook the journey with the specific purpose of recording particulars concerning the people; and, as his work evinces careful observation, reliance may be placed on his description of their dress at the time of his visit. It supplies the first indication, in any book of travel, of the use of special colours or setts for tartans used in different localities.

The first Habit wore by Persons of Distinction in the Islands, was the Leni-Croich, from the Irish word Leni, which signifies a Shirt, and Croich Saffron, because their Shirt was dyed with that Herb: the ordinary number of Ells us’d to make this Robe, was twenty four; it was the upper Garb, reaching below the Knees, and was tied with a Belt round the middle: but the Islanders have laid it aside about a hundred Years ago.

They now generally use Coat, Wastcoat, and Breeches, as elsewhere; and on their Heads wear Bonnets made of thick Cloth, some blue, some black, and some grey.

Many of the People wear Trowis: some have them very fine woven like Stockings of those made of Cloth; some are colour’d, and others striped: the latter are as well shap’d as the former, lying close to the Body from the middle downwards, and tied round with a Belt above the Haunches. There is a square Piece of Cloth which hangs down before. The Measure for shaping the Trowis is a Stick of Wood, whose Length is a Cubit, and that divided into the Length of a Finger, and half a Finger; so that it requires more Skill to make it than the ordinary Habit.

The Shoes antiently wore, were a piece of the Hide of a Deer, Cow, or Horse, with the Hair on, being tied behind and before with a Point of Leather. The generality now wear Shoes, having one thin Sole only, and shaped after the right and left Foot; so that what is for one Foot, will not serve the other.