In battle and hostile encounter their missile weapons were a lance and arrows. They used also a two-edged sword which, with the foot soldiers was pretty long, and short for the horse; both had it broad, and with an edge so exceeding sharp that at one blow it would easily cut a man in two. For defence, they used a coat of mail, woven of iron rings, which they wore over a leather jerkin, stout and of handsome appearance, which we call an aeton. Their whole armour was light, that they might the more easily slip from their enemies’ hands if they chanced to fall into such a strait. Their clothing was made for use (being chiefly suited to war), and not for ornament. All, both nobles and common people, wore mantles of one sort (except that the nobles preferred those of several colours). These were long and flowing, but capable of being neatly gathered up at pleasure into folds. I am inclined to believe that they were the same as those to which the ancients gave the name of brachal. Wrapped up in these for their only covering they would sleep comfortably. They had also shaggy rugs, such as the Irish use at the present day, some fitted for a journey, others to be placed on a bed. The rest of their garments consisted of a short woollen jacket with the sleeves open below for the convenience of throwing their darts, and a covering for the thighs of the simplest kind, more for decency than for show or a defence against cold. They made also of linen, very large shirts, with numerous folds and wide sleeves, which flowed abroad loosely to their knees. These, the rich coloured with saffron, and others smeared with some grease to preserve them longer clean among the toils and exercises of a camp, which they held it of the highest consequence to practise continually. In the manufacture of these, ornament and a certain attention to taste were not altogether neglected, and they joined the different parts of their shirts very neatly with silk threads, chiefly of a green or red colour.
Their women’s attire was very becoming. Over a gown reaching to the ancles, and generally embroidered, they wore large mantles of the kind already described, and woven of different colours. Their chief ornaments were the bracelets and necklaces with which they decorated their arms and necks.
George Buchanan (pub. 1582, thus translated by Monypenny 1612).
They delight in marled clothes, specially that have long stripes of sundry colours; they love chiefly purple and blew. Their predecessors used short mantles or plaids of divers colours sundry waies devided; and amongst some, the same custome is observed to this day; but for the most part now they are browne, more nere to the colour of the hadder; to the effect when they lie amongst the hadder the bright colour of their plaids shall not bewray them; with the which, rather coloured than clad, they suffer the most cruel tempests that blow in the open field in such sort, that under a wrythe of snow they slepe sound.... Their armour wherewith they cover their bodies in time of werre, is an iron bonnet and an habbergion side (long) almost even to their heeles. Their weapones against their enemies are bowes and arrowes. The arrows are for the most part hooked, with a bauble on either side, which once entered within the body cannot be drawn forth againe, unlesse the wounde be made wider. Some of them fight with broad swords and axes.
Nicolay d’Arfeville, Cosmographer to King of France, pub. 1583, a vol. on Scotland, speaks thus:—
They [wild Scots] weir like the Irish, a long large and full shirt, coloured with saffron, and over this a garment hanging to the knee, of thick wool, after the manner of a cassock. They go with bare heads, and allow the hair to grow very long, and they wear neither stockings nor shoes, except some who have buskins made in a very old fashion, which come as high as their knees. Their arms are the bow and arrow, and some darts, which they throw with great dexterity, and a large sword, with a single-edged dagger. They are very swift of foot, and there is no horse so swift as to outstrip them, as I have seen proved several times, both in England and Scotland.
In 1594, when Red Hugh O’Donnell, Lord of Tirconall in Ulster, was in rebellion against Queen Elizabeth, he was assisted for some time by a body of auxiliaries from the Hebrides. These warriors are described in the following terms in the Life of Hugh O’Donnell, originally written in Irish by Peregrine O’Clery, and since translated by the late Edward O’Reilly, Esq.
The outward clothing they (the auxiliaries from the isles) wore, was a mottled garment with numerous colours hanging in folds to the calf of the leg, with a girdle round the loins over the garment. Some of them with horn-hafted swords, large and military, over their shoulders. A man when he had to strike with them, was obliged to apply both his hands to the haft.
John Taylor, the Water Poet, made an excursion to Scotland in 1618, of which he published an amusing account under the title of The Pennylesse Pilgrimage. He describes the dress of the Highlanders in the following account he gives of his visit to Braemar for the purpose of paying his respects to the Earl of Mar and Sir W. Moray of Abercairney.