Old and rare Scottish tartans

by Donald William Stewart

The Highland field-dress of the men was of a coarser texture, and thickened by fulling; it was called cadda (cath da’, the war colour), and was a tartan of such colours as were least likely to betray the wearer, among the woods and heaths, either to the game he was in quest of, or to his enemies. The dyes were mostly extracted from woad, when it could be got, and from heath-tops, the bark and tender twigs of the alder, and other vegetable substances. As to the ancient form of the dress, nothing could be more simple: the gentlemen, having less frequent occasion to use their full suit as a blanket, wore a yellow shirt, a vest, trowsers, and mantle, of the same fashion as their neighbours. In Ireland, a few centuries ago, the lower class seldom encumbered themselves with dress of any kind within doors; and there is every reason to suppose that this was also the case among their brethren in Scotland. When they went out, they threw a light blanket round their shoulders, the upper part made tight with skewers, and the lower gathered up into folds, which they secured under the girdle, from which the sword, dagger, purse, &c., were suspended; this they called feile, a word of the same origin with the Scotish fell, English, peel; Old English, pilche; German and Northern, peltz, pels, &c.; and the Latin, pellis, all which signified an external surface, skin, or covering of any kind. Skins, in the modern acceptation of the term, were, no doubt, the first covering; and the name was afterwards properly enough applied to a covering of cloth. At night they took out the skewers, unbuckled the girdle, and reduced the feile to its primary form of a blanket, to sleep in. The women wore a petticoat, or trowsers, of skin, cloth, or what they could get, and a cloth thrown round their bodies when they went out. As civilization advanced, a shirt, with a tunic, or short jacket, was introduced; the plaits of the feile were rendered permanent by sewing, and the plaid, to be used either as a mantle or blanket, was added. The kilt, feilebeg (little feile), or petticoat, now worn, has succeeded to the folded-up ends of the original blanket; it is all that remains of the ancient costume, and was reduced to its present form some time in the beginning of the last century. The bonnet, or flat, blue thrum cap, is of a very modern date, and was introduced from the Lowlands. The gentlemen of the Highlands wore such hats and caps as were worn by gentlemen of their times in neighbouring countries; and, in the days of our grandfathers, the lower class of Highlanders were, by their Lowland neighbours (in the north-east Lowlands, at least), denominated humblies, from their wearing no covering on their head but their hair, which, at a more early period, they probably matted and felted, for horror and defence, as the Irish did in Queen Elizabeth’s time. The helmet-looking bonnet, now worn, was introduced within the memory of persons still living.

From this simple account of the Highland dress, it will be seen that it has in itself nothing peculiar to one country more than another; as the different improvements upon the manner of girding the loins, and trussing up a blanket, can hardly be called a national costume. The dress of the Romans began in the same manner, and went through nearly the same varieties of form; but, for a long time after the Romans left Britain, it can hardly be imagined, that the inhabitants of the more remote Highlands had either wool or cloth of their own produce. Scattered as their sheep, if they had any, must have been upon the mountains, they had no means of protecting them from the wolves; and they had not then patient industry enough to look after tame animals that could not take care of themselves.

The names of the different parts of this dress are all conformable to what has been said above. The feilebeg is, by the Lowlanders, called a kilt, from its having been kilted, quilted, or trussed up under the girdle. The meaning of the Latin toga is found in the Gaëlic toga’; in English, to tuck up, from the same circumstance; and a square body-cloth, still worn round the shoulders by the Highland women, is called a tunic, or tonnac. Plaid (which is always misapplied in England), in its primary sense, means simply any thing broad and flat, and thence, a broad, unformed piece of cloth, and, in its secondary and modern acceptation, a blanket; in which last import alone it is now used by the Highlanders. The trews, or trowsers, formerly worn only by the gentry, and by the lower classes, after the philibeg was proscribed by act of parliament, are so denominated, from the Gaëlic trusa’, to truss up, as they supplied the place of the end of the feile which was trussed under the girdle.[63]

During the period following the Union of the Kingdoms of Scotland and England (1707), tartan plaids were worn in the Lowlands by all classes. The significance of this universal display of a simple article of dress consisted in the fact that its wear was regarded as a sort of sumptuary protest against the Union and the surrender of Scottish independence. Certain it is that up to the prohibition of the use of tartans and of the Highland dress by the Act of 1747 the tartan plaid continued in general use throughout Scotland. Many references to the prevalence of the habit in the Lowlands as well as in the Highlands might be quoted. One interesting contribution is that of Ramsay of Ochtertyre, who, writing in 1795 of the congregation of the Rev. John Skinner’s church at Linshart, in Buchan, observes:—

In point of mode and plainness their dress reminded me of that of our country-people more than forty years ago, bonnets and parti-coloured plaids being frequent.... In those days every lady in an undress wore a plaid when she went abroad. It was sometimes of one colour, scarlet, crimson, &c., but more commonly tartan or variegated. People fond of finery had silk ones, others wore woollen lined with silk; whilst the lower classes were satisfied with plain worsted.... In 1747, when I first knew Edinburgh, nine-tenths of the ladies still wore plaids, especially at church. By this time, however, silk or velvet cloaks of one form or another were much in request among people of fashion. And so rapidly did the plaid wear out, that when I returned to Edinburgh in 1752 one could hardly see a lady in that piece of dress.[64]

Of the extensive manufacture of tartans in Scotland during the eighteenth century some evidence may be obtained from a reference to the newspapers of the period. For example:—

Last Saturday the Agatha and Jane, Thomas Christie [master] cleared out from Leith for London, having on board the following Scots manufactures, viz., 53,381 yards of Linen, 3006 yards of Tartans.[65]

Leith, Feb. 18.—The Edinburgh Merchant, John Dick, cleared out for London with the following Scots manufactures, viz., 41,400 yards of Linen, 6400 yards of Tartan.[66]

In the same newspaper, and side by side with the orders issued by Prince Charles Edward, then at Holyrood, appears the following:—