CARVINGS IN ROSSLYN CHAPEL

A.D. 1506–1582.—George Buchanan is the first to mention the bagpipe in connection with Gaelic-speaking people, and when he does mention it, it is solely as a military instrument. The harp was still the domestic musical instrument.

A.D. 1509–1547.—We have a curious set of wood-cuts of the time of Henry VIII., one of which represents a piper dancing to the Dance of Death clothed according to the fashion of that time. He is dancing with a jester, who has the tonsure of a monk and wears a sort of kilt.[[1]] We also know of a suit of armour made for Henry VIII. on which the figure of a piper is engraved.

[1]. See Chap. XV.

A.D. 1513.—It is on record that John Hastie, the celebrated hereditary piper of Jedburgh, played at the battle of Flodden. There is a painting of this date by the German artist, Albrecht Durer, which represents a shepherd boy playing to his sheep on the bagpipe, and another which shows a piper leaning against a tree with a naked dirk at the left side and a purse exactly like a sporran suspended in front. Olaus Magnus, a Swedish prelate of the same century, affirms that a double pipe, probably the bagpipe, was carried by the shepherds to the pastures that their flocks might feed better.

A.D. 1529.—At a procession in Brussels in 1529 in honour of the Virgin Mary, “many wild beasts danced round a cage containing two apes playing on the bagpipes.” This statement may be taken for what it is worth. It is difficult to construct a theory that will explain it.

A.D. 1536.—In this year the bagpipe was played at church service in Edinburgh.

GERMAN PIPER OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
From the Painting by Albrecht Durer.

A.D. 1547–1553.—Among the musicians of Edward VI. at the Court of England was “Richard Woodward, bagpiper,” who had a salary of £12 13s. 4d., not a princely sum. An entertainment was got up at court in this reign, part of which was a “maske of bagpypes.” An artist “covered six apes of paste and cement with grey coney skinnes, which were made to serve for a maske of bagpypes, to sit upon the top of them like mynstrells as though they did play.” The English of these ancient writers is often a bit obscure, but this seems to mean that there was an imitation of bagpipe playing by counterfeit apes. The Brussels incident of 1529 may probably be explained in the same way.