The Highland bagpipe

by W. L. Manson

A.D. 1662.—A Kirkcaldy man, who shot his father in 1662, sought liquor from an acquaintance to help to wile away his melancholy, and “there comes a piper, and this wretched man went and did dawnce.” The music evidently was enough to dispel all the terrors of the law.

A.D. 1700.—About the beginning of the nineteenth century the big drone was added to the bagpipe, distinguishing it henceforth from the Lowland and Northumbrian.

A.D. 1741.—On a political occasion in 1741 the Magistrates of Dingwall were welcomed home by the ringing of bells, “while young and old danced to the bagpipe, violin, and Jewish harp.” Rather a curious medley they would make.

A.D. 1745.—Prince Charlie had a large number of pipers with him in his rebellion of 1745. After the battle of Prestonpans his army marched into Edinburgh, a hundred pipers playing the Jacobite air, “The King shall enjoy his ain again:” and when he marched to Carlisle he had with him a hundred pipers. Perhaps it was because of its prominence in his rebellion that the bagpipe was afterwards classed by the ruling powers as an instrument of warfare, the carrying of which deserved punishment.

A.D. 1775.—In this year we find the first reference to a professional maker of bagpipes. In the Edinburgh Directory for 1775, a book that could be carried in the vest pocket, “Hugh Robertson” is entered as “pipe maker, Castle Hill, Edinburgh.” It was this same Hugh Robertson who made the prize pipes competed for at the meetings inaugurated by the Highland Society of London some time later, and an instrument of his make which took first prize at one of the competitions was recently in the possession of Mr. David Glen, Edinburgh. Where it now is cannot be discovered, as Mr. Glen parted with it to one of whose whereabouts he is not aware.

It is not necessary to trace the instrument farther down through the years. In Scotland, after it overcame the setback of the ’45, it became more popular year by year until at last in 1824, we find an English traveller saying that “the Scots are enthusiastic in their love for their national instrument. In Edinburgh the sound of the bagpipe is to be heard in every street.” The Lowland, the Northumberland and the Irish pipes lost favour, and the Lincolnshire—that referred to by Shakespeare—has been totally extinct since about 1850. The Great Highland Bagpipe is the only form that has held its own.

The early history of the Celts affords abundant room for controversy, and the origin of the pipes, their introduction into, or evolution in, the Highlands, will always be debateable matter. The weight of evidence, however, goes to show that the pipes and pipe music are far more likely to have been evolved out of the life of the Highland people than imported from any other country. The fact that the instrument is not mentioned in early Scottish history is no proof that it did not exist. Besides, we have now got away from the habit of trying to find the origin of things peculiarly Scottish outside of Scotland. It used to be the fashion to decry everything local to Scotland, and our clans, even, traced their origin to Norman and Norwegian sources. That time, however, is past, and now Highlanders pride themselves on an ancestry which, however far back it is traced, is still Scottish. So with the pipes. They have been in Scotland from all time, and it is in Scotland that they have been brought to the highest degree of perfection. The importation theory will not stand the test of inquiry. If the pipes came from Norway, or Rome, or any part of the Continent, or even England, how is it that in these places they have deteriorated almost to the point of disappearance, while in Scotland they have been continually developing? Ireland, indeed, can put forward a good claim—Christianity came from there, the peoples are the same, and the relations between the two countries in early days were very close—but there is less to uphold the claim than there is to show that the pipes are native to the Highlands. They are not mentioned in Ossianic poetry. In these times, however, the pipes would be so subordinate to the harp that their passing-by by the poet is a fact of little significance. If the Celts were the original inhabitants of the Highlands, and can be identified with the Picts—a theory for which there is very strong argument indeed—there is surely nothing more likely than that the pipes were always in existence among the people. Robertson, in his Historical Proofs of the Highlanders, shows clearly that there has never been a radical change of race or customs in the Highlands, that the music of the Great Highland Bagpipe has ever been peculiar to the Gael of Alban, and that the Irish Scots must have learned it from the Caledonian Picts. It is strong presumptive evidence in favour of his contention that in no other country has the instrument been developed in the same way, that it is one of the very few national musical instruments in Europe, and that in no other country is there such a quantity of peculiar music of such an age, composed solely for the instrument, and fitted only for interpretation by it.

There is nothing in the music that connects it with any part of the Continent, or that shows that it was borrowed from any particular place. The pibroch cannot possibly have come from the Tyrol or Italy, neither can the reels and other popular melodies. The importation theory grew out of the ideas entertained of the rude and uncivilised state of Scotland at an early period, which was considered altogether incompatible with the delicacy of taste and feeling its poetry and music displayed. But the student of Highland history soon discovers that, with all the rudeness, there existed among the people just that delicacy of taste and feeling which found expression in the music, and he at once concludes that the music is a real growth of the home soil. The race were always in the land: why not their language, their music, their customs, in a more or less rude form?

Passing from debateable ground, the result of our assorting of quotations seems to be that the first thoroughly authentic reference to the bagpipe in Scotland dates from 1406, that it was well known in Reformation times, that the second drone was added about 1500, that it was first mentioned in connection with the Gaelic in 1506, or a few years later, that it was classed in a list of Scottish musical instruments in 1548, that in 1549 and often afterwards it was used in war, that in 1650 every town had a piper, that in 1700 the big drone was added, and that in 1824 the Scots were enthusiastic about the pipes. There is not the slightest doubt, of course, that the instrument was used in Scotland for many years, probably for centuries, before we can trace it, but previous to the dates given we have only tradition and conjecture to go by.

From 1700 till 1750 was perhaps the most critical time in the story of the Great Highland Bagpipe. The disaster at Culloden nearly spelt ruin for the pipes as well as for the tartan. The Disarming Act was very stringent, and the pipes came in for almost as strict a banning as did the kilt. The Jacobites were outlawed, the tartan was pronounced a mark of extreme disloyalty to the House of Hanover, and the life of a professed piper was hardly worth living. The Celt was crushed by the severity of his defeat and broken by the inrush of innovation that followed. Clanship, as such, ceased, and the chiefs, from being the fathers of their people, became the landlords. The Highlander lost his reckless passions, but he also lost his rude chivalry and his absorbing love for the old customs. Traditional history and native poetry were neglected, and theological disputes of interminable duration occupied much of the time formerly devoted to poetic recitals and social meetings. Poverty and civilisation did their work; taste for music declined, and piping died away. Absentee landlordism took the place of resident chieftainism, and Gaelic seemed likely to become a dead language, for the people seemed willing to let it die. The destruction of the crofter system completed the work of ruin begun by the destruction of the clan system. What this meant for Highland feelings and customs is vividly shown by the following extract from the writings of the elder Dr. Norman Macleod, Caraid nan Gaidheal, as he was called. The speaker is “Finlay the Piper.”