Transcriber’s Notes

Because there are so many Footnotes, these have been moved to the end of the Introduction and renumbered in sequence from #1.

Extra page numbers have been added to the ‘TARTANS’ section so they can be linked to the ‘TARTANS: with descriptive notices’ section, numbered page 1a to page 45a.

Variant spelling of Scots words have been left as printed.

Changes made are noted at the [end of the book.]

OLD AND RARE
SCOTTISH TARTANS

Impression limited to Three Hundred copies:
250 on Dutch hand-made paper, demy 4to
of which this is number 162 and
50 on Whatman’s hand-made paper, royal 4to

OLD AND RARE
SCOTTISH TARTANS

WITH
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTICES

BY

DONALD WILLIAM STEWART

F.S.A. SCOT.

EDINBURGH: GEORGE P. JOHNSTON

MDCCCXCIII

EDINBURGH: GEORGE WATERSTON AND SONS, PRINTERS.

PREFACE.

TWO main objects have been kept in view in the preparation of the present volume.

The first was to render generally accessible some of those beautiful but comparatively unknown examples of old tartans represented in family portraits, miniatures, and relics, as well as in the few collections of tartans which exist in the country, and to set forth all that could be definitely ascertained regarding their origin and history. To carry this out efficiently, it was necessary to obtain the permission of the families possessing representations and examples of the tartans to inspect them, and to visit the different localities in Scotland in which they are preserved, for the purposes of examination and illustration. By the courtesy of the owners every facility and aid was given in the work of recording and identifying the setts, and in no case where permission was asked to reproduce a tartan was it refused. This preliminary work extended over a period of several years, in the course of which the Editor believes he allowed few collections to escape his notice. From the great number of setts now in his note-books he found the utmost difficulty in making the selection for the present work, and the exigencies of space alone have compelled him, to his regret, to omit many rare, beautiful, and historic examples he would willingly have included.

Having arranged as to the examples of tartan to appear in the volume, it became necessary to decide on the form of illustration. Hitherto the modes adopted in works of this description have been admittedly unsatisfactory, it being impossible, by the highest exercise of skill in colour printing, to render the shades correctly, particularly in those portions of the setts where the colours are crossed. Solid colours are generally rendered adequately by lithography, but when the most important and intricate portion of the design—viz., the representation of the interweaving of different shades—is in question, none of the processes of colour printing yet invented does justice to the great beauty of the actual fabric. The method adopted in the present work has been to weave the tartan to be represented in its proper colours in fine silk. The shades required for each specimen having been dyed, the weaving was executed by the hand-loom in exact proportion to the original. To ensure permanency the mounting was arranged so that no portion of the silk forming the illustration should come into contact with the adhesive.

The second object kept in view in the preparation of the work was to examine and present, in something like chronological order, the references in old writers to tartan and the Highland dress. The only attempt of the kind hitherto made was that by Donald Gregory and W. F. Skene, included in the Transactions of the Iona Club. Since that valuable work was published a great deal of interesting and original material has been discovered. But what may be termed the literature of the subject is so widely diffused, and contained in works so difficult of access to the general reader—many of them being in MS., and others rare and costly—that it seemed to be of importance to present these notices in a form which would render easy comparison between different ages and authors. Something of this kind the Editor has endeavoured to carry out in the Introduction. Particular attention has been paid to the accuracy of the extracts, which have been carefully verified by comparison with the authorities. One result has been the discovery of serious errors in quotations by previous writers, and the more important of these are pointed out. The Editor trusts that, considering the importance of the objects he had in view, the length to which several of the extracts have unavoidably run will be pardoned by his readers. He has omitted many references which he regarded as of minor consequence, while several of much importance are given for the first time.

There remains the pleasant duty of thanking those by whose aid the Editor has been enabled to produce the work.

Her Majesty the Queen permitted the Balmoral Tartan as used by the Royal Family to be reproduced, and communicated an account of its origin. Miss Dick Lauder placed at the disposal of the Editor the unique copy of the Vestiarium Scoticum made by her father at Relugas in 1828-29 from the manuscript in possession of the Messrs Hay, and also the correspondence between Sir Walter Scott and Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, so fully referred to in the Introduction. Mrs Charles Elphinstone Dalrymple kindly supplied transcripts of notes on tartans and the Highland dress made by the late Mr Charles Elphinstone Dalrymple, and lent several paintings and drawings, as well as a collection of tartans made by the Highland Society of London and the late Dr. W. F. Skene. To Mr Alexander Donald Mackenzie, Edinburgh, the Editor has been indebted for many valuable suggestions from the first inception of his work; and the fruits of Mr Mackenzie’s study of Gaelic literature and customs were freely placed at his disposal.

Opportunities of inspecting paintings and taking notes of the tartans depicted were kindly granted by His Grace the Duke of Sutherland, the Right Hon. the Earl of Eglinton, the Right Hon. the Earl of Ancaster, the Right Hon. the Countess of Seafield, the Right Hon. Lord Macdonald of the Isles, the Right Hon. Lord Donington, Macleod of Macleod, Cluny Macpherson, The Mackintosh of Mackintosh, the Hon. Mrs R. Baillie-Hamilton, Mr and Mrs Nisbet-Hamilton-Ogilvy, John Alastair Erskine Cunninghame, Esquire of Balgownie, Captain W. Home Drummond Moray of Abercairney, and Frederick Granville Sinclair, Esquire of Barrogill.

The collections of tartans preserved by several families were also placed at the disposal of the Editor.

Information and assistance on various points connected with the subject were accorded by the Most Hon. the Marquis of Ailsa, the Most Hon. the Marchioness of Breadalbane, Lord Archibald Campbell, Sir Arthur Halkett of Pitfirrane, Bart., Miss Fraser of Abertarff, Walter Douglas Campbell, Esquire of Blythswood, James Campbell, Esquire, representative of the Campbells of Craignish, Mr Godwin, Librarian to the Marquis of Bute, Mrs Tilly, London, and others.

To Dr. Thomas Dickson, Curator of the Historical Department H.M. Register House, and to Mr Andrew Ross, Marchmont Herald, the Editor is indebted for valuable direction in regard to many points contained in the Introduction.

DONALD WILLIAM STEWART.

EDINBURGH, May 1893.

CONTENTS.

The Figure stamped on the cover is from the painting known as “The Regent Moray,” at Langton, formerly at Taymouth. It is one of the oldest pictures in Scotland showing the Highland dress.

The Vignette on the title-page is from a painting in Armadale Castle, dated about 1750. It represents Sir James Macdonald of Sleat and his brother Alexander, afterwards first Lord Macdonald of the Isles.

INTRODUCTION.

OF the dress of the Highlanders of Scotland prior to the fifteenth century the descriptions available are few and meagre. True, there are many references to a style of costume which consisted mainly of a loose outer garment, but these are equally applicable to the wear of neighbouring countries, and contain no account of the distinctive features associated with the Highland dress. Probably the earliest reference to the latter is to be found in the Saga of Magnus Barefoot, King of Norway, 1093-1103, who led marauding expeditions to the west of Scotland in the first year of his reign and subsequently. Of his return from such a raid the historian chronicles:—

People say that when King Magnus came home from his viking cruise to the Western countries, he and many of his people brought with them a great deal of the habits and fashions of clothing of those Western parts. They went about on the streets with bare legs, and had short kirtles and over-cloaks; and therefore his men called him Magnus Barefoot or Bareleg.[1]

The word “kyrtlu” probably indicates a garment corresponding somewhat to the feilebeg or kilt, though it may also indicate one which covered the upper portion of the body as well, and thus formed a species of tunic.[2] Still, the description of the distinctive costume of the Western Islanders at this remote period is extremely valuable, especially as it is written by one who lived so near the time when the incidents narrated took place. In accordance with the custom of fosterage then prevalent in Norway, and continued in Scotland long afterwards, Snorro Sturleson, the author of the Saga, was reared with the children of the king’s daughter, and so had opportunity of hearing and noting the use of the strange costume.

The chartularies of Aberdeen attest the use not merely of the style of dress that figures in the Saga, but also of a parti-coloured cloth, which was probably tartan. In these ancient records are notes on early customs of the utmost importance to antiquaries. They contain, besides the charters of the lands belonging to the See, the canons of the Scottish Church, and the statutes of the Church of Aberdeen, framed in the thirteenth century; it is there provided that “all ecclesiastics are to be suitably apparelled, avoiding red, green, and striped clothing, and their garments shall not be shorter than to the middle of the leg.”[3] Of course, it cannot be held that this conclusively proves the existence of breacan or tartan, but striped clothing is as near an approach to an accurate description of it as can be expected at so early a period. The injunctions indicate a general use of parti-coloured garments in the northern districts of the country in the thirteenth century.

The famous clan battle on the North Inch of Perth took place in 1396, but only the slightest reference is made to the dress of the combatants in any of the accounts now extant. In the narrative by Abbot Bower, the continuator of Fordun, it is recorded that the battle was waged

By thirty men against thirty of the opposite party, armed only with swords, bows and arrows, without mantles or other armour except axes.[4]

The mantle is doubtless the over-cloak of Magnus Barefoot’s time, and the prototype of the plaid often so designated by writers of later date.

Borthwick in his Antiquities[5] prints the Accounts for 1474 of John, Bishop of Glasgow, Treasurer to James III., which contain the entry: “Halve ane elne of double tartan to lyne riding collars to the queen.” Pinkerton adopts Borthwick’s reading.[6] Pitcairn cites entries, under date October 1488, of a fabric called “tarter,”and he adds “this is evidently tartan.”[7] Had the conclusions of these antiquaries as to the identity of the words been correct, then these would be the earliest specific references to tartan hitherto discovered in our records; but that they are not is pointed out by the editor of the Treasurer’s Accounts, who writes:—

Tartar, the name of which bespeaks its Eastern origin, though it was no doubt imitated by the weavers of Italy and France, is described as “single” or “double,” according to texture, and as “variant” or shot, the warp and woof being of contrasted colours. This not uncommon word has been frequently misread “tartan,” and examples of its occurrence quoted from the Treasurer’s Accounts as illustrative of the early use of that material.[8]

The opinion of such eminent antiquaries has misled all subsequent writers of important works relating to tartans, with the exception of John Sobieski Stuart and W. F. Skene; even works appearing many years after the issue of the Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer continue to perpetuate the old errors.

There is a significant passage in the old Gaelic tale of “Curio,” describing the giant Anteus, which runs thus:—

Nibidh dono tuighi na craibheach, na pell, no brotrach, na brecan, na crocend anmanna, fui isin leapaidh sin acht a thaoebh fri sin talmain.

Now he had not thatch, nor branches, nor hide, nor coverlet, nor breacan [i.e., tartan, or tartan plaid], nor skin under him in that bed, but his side to the earth.[9]

“Brecan,” literally a speckled or variegated cloth, has been employed in the Gaelic language as synonymous with tartan and the tartan plaid from earliest times, in evident allusion to the checked or spotted appearance of the garment. “Breac” signifies parti-coloured or spotted. It is a Gaelic name of the salmon and of the trout, conferred, no doubt, on account of their speckled aspect.

A curious fifteenth century reference to “hewyt,” i.e., coloured, striped, or variegated clothing, occurs in a sumptuary law of the Scots Parliament:—

Item it is statut that na yeman na comonner to landwarts wer hewyt clathes siddar na the kne na yit ragyt clathes bot allenarly centynal yemen in lords housis at rids with gentill men thar masters the quhilks sal haf narow slewis and litil poks.[10]

The introduction of printing naturally tended to produce and to preserve many descriptions of the Highland dress written in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by Scottish historians and by travellers from other countries. Of the more important of these, the earliest in chronological order is John Major (1469-1550), whose work was originally published in Latin in 1521. He writes:—

Just as among the Scots we find two distinct tongues, so we likewise find two different ways of life and conduct. For some are born in the forests and mountains of the north, and these we call men of the Highland, but the others men of the Lowland. By foreigners the former are called Wild Scots, the latter householding Scots. The Irish tongue is in use among the former, the English tongue among the latter. One half of Scotland speaks Irish, and all these as well as the Islanders we reckon to belong to the Wild Scots. In dress, in the manner of their outward life, and in good morals, for example, these come behind the householding Scots.... From the mid-leg to the foot they go uncovered; their dress is, for an over garment, a loose plaid, and a shirt saffron-dyed. They are armed with bow and arrows, a broadsword, and a small halbert. They always carry in their belt a stout dagger, single-edged, but of the sharpest. In time of war they cover the whole body with a coat of mail, made of iron rings, and in it they fight. The common folk among the Wild Scots go out to battle with the whole body clad in a linen garment sewed together in patchwork, well daubed with wax or with pitch, and with an over-coat of deerskin. But the common people among our domestic Scots and the English fight in a woollen garment.[11]

From these and other passages in Major’s work it may be inferred that the chiefs and upper classes of the Highlands alone wore the plaid, or any woollen clothing whatever, and that the lower orders were prevented by poverty from obtaining luxuries of this sort. Writing of the clan battle at Perth in 1396, Major states:—

Thirty men, naked but for a doublet that hung from one side, made for the field of battle, armed with bow and double-axe; and these forthwith met the encounter of a like number, armed in the same fashion.... One of the combatants made his escape from the fight.... And there was not found any man who would take the place of the runaway; and ’twas no marvel, since to fight for your life, naked but for a plaid, is no trifle.[12]

In his account of the revolt of Alexander, Lord of the Isles, against the king, describing the Wild Scots, and particularly Clan Chattan and Clan Cameron, Major observes:—

They lead a life of blissful ease; from the poor people they take what they want in victual; bows they have, and quivers, and they have halberts of great sharpness, for their iron ore is good. They carry a stout dirk in their belts; they are often naked from the knee down. In winter for an over garment they wear a plaid.[13]

Perhaps the first indisputable reference to the Highland breacan occurs in the Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland in August 1538:—

The Expensis on the Kingis Persoun Deliverit to Thomas Arthure.

The costume thus consisted of a short “variant cullorit” Highland coat, tartan hose—that is, trews and stockings combined—and three “syde” or low-hanging Highland shirts (each of which, it would appear, contained five ells), with ties of ribbons at the cuffs. The trews, described in the extract as “hoiss,” extended from the waist to the foot, and were tied with a garter below the knee.

Doubts have been cast, indeed, on the possibility of existence in the rigours of a northern winter with the scanty raiment attributed to the poorer classes, but these are dispelled by the evidence on the point. Preserved in the British Museum is a remarkable letter written in 1542 or 1543 by John Elder, clerk, a “Reddshancke,” to Henry VIII., proposing the union of Scotland with England. The following excerpt affords positive testimony of the hardihood of the people, and of the title “Reddshanckes” conferred upon them by the Lowlanders:—

Moreover, wherfor they call us in Scotland Reddshanckes, and in your Graces dominion of England roghefootide Scottis, Pleas it your Maiestie to understande, that we of all people can tolleratt, suffir, and away best with colde, for boithe somer and wyntir, (excepte whene the froest is mooste vehement,) goynge alwaies bair leggide and bair footide, our delite and pleasure is not onely in huntynge of redd deir, wolfes, foxes, and graies, wherof we abounde, and have greate plentie, but also in rynninge, leapinge, swymynge, shootynge, and thrawinge of dartis: therfor, in so moche as we use and delite so to go alwaies, the tendir delicatt gentillmen of Scotland call us Reddshanckes. And agayne in wyntir, whene the froest is mooste vehement (as I have saide) which we can not suffir bair footide, so weill as snow, whiche can never hurt us whene it cummes to our girdills, we go a huntynge, and after that we have slayne redd deir, we flaye of the skyne, bey and bey, and settinge of our bair foote on the insyde therof, for neide of cunnynge shoemakers, by your Graces pardon, we play the sutters; compasinge and mesuringe so moche therof, as shall retche up to our ancklers, pryckynge the upper part therof also with holis, that the water may repas wher it entris, and stretchide up with a stronge thwange of the same, meitand above our saide ancklers, so, and pleas your noble Grace, we make our schoois: Therfor, we usinge suche maner of shoois, the roghe hairie syde outwart, in your Graces dominion of England we be callit roghefootide Scottis; which maner of schoois (and pleas your Highnes) in Latyne be callid perones, wherof the poete Virgill makis mencioun, sayinge, That the olde auncient Latyns in tyme of warrs uside suche maner of schoos. And althoughe a greate sorte of us Reddshanckes go after this maner in our countrethe, yeit never the les, and pleas your Grace, whene we come to the courte (the Kinges grace our great master beinge alyve) waitinge on our Lordes and maisters, who also, for velvettis and silkis be right well araide, we have as good garmentis as some of our fellowis whiche gyve attendaunce in the court every daye.[15]

That the clothing of the Highlanders at this period was parti-coloured, or tartan, is evident from a foreign traveller’s record almost contemporaneous with John Elder’s epistle. Jean de Beaugué, who accompanied the expedition sent in 1548 by Henry II. of France under Montalembert, Sieur d’Essé, to aid the Scots against the English, wrote an account of his observations, printed in Paris in 1556. Of the appearance of certain Islanders among the troops at the siege of Haddington in the latter year he observes:—

Several Highlanders [or Wild Scots] followed them [the Scottish army] and they were naked except their stained shirts, and a certain light covering made of wool of various colours; carrying large bows, and similar swords and bucklers to the others, i.e. to the Lowlanders.[16]

Proof is thus supplied of the continued use of the Highland shirt, generally saffron-dyed; and the “light covering” was doubtless the mantle or breacan, the belted plaid, for this last is either identical with or a development of the over-cloak of Magnus Barefoot’s time.

In 1552 the Scottish Privy Council passed an Act for the formation of “tua ansaingyeis of fittmen,” to be raised in the Highland portion of Lord Huntly’s lieutenancy, for service in France. The instructions laid down for their equipment afford some idea of the dress of the Highland soldier of the period, since the levy was to be drawn from the north country. It is provided that the men are to be

Substantiouslie accomptirit with jack and plait, steilbonett, sword, bucklair, new hois and new dowblett of cannvus at the lest, and slevis of plait or splenttis, and ane speir of sax elnes lang or thairby.[17]

The trews (hois) and doublet are to be of canvas at least, presumably as a precaution against any shortcoming of woollen stuff; while the kilt or plaid appears to form no portion of the outfit on this occasion.

Of the dress of the common people another description, written about 1573, is given by Lindsay of Pitscottie. It is once more obvious that the belted plaid of latter days was then represented by a loose garment, which was probably plaited round the body to some extent. The chronicle sets forth:—

The other pairt [of Scotland] northerne, ar full of montaines, and verie rud and homlie kynd of people doeth inhabite, which is called the Reidschankis, or wyld Scottis. They be cloathed with ane mantle, with ane schirt fachioned (or saffroned) after the Irisch maner, going bair legged to the knie. Thair weapones ar bowis and dartes, with ane verie broad sword and ane dagger scharp onlie at the on syd.[18]

But the most detailed notice of the dress worn by the inhabitants of the Highlands and Islands in the sixteenth century is to be found in a work by John Leslie, Bishop of Ross, the devoted adherent of Mary Queen of Scots, originally published in Rome in 1578. From his conspicuous position, alike as historian and as statesman, his notes on the apparel of the men and women of his age are highly important. It appears that the belted plaid had become the wear of both rich and poor, through the extended manufacture of woollen fabrics and the increased prosperity of the people. He writes:—

In weiris quhen thay yokit the aduersar, thay invadet athir with ane arrow or a lance. Thay vsed ane twa edged sword lykwyse; the futmen a lang sword, the horsmen a schort sword bot baith vset a verie braid sword, with a scheiring sharpe edge that at the first straik, with little force, it walde scheir a man in twa in the waste or midle. Thay war harnest with Jacks al wouen throuch with yrne huikes, quhilkes habbirgeounis thay cal: This vpon, or as we say, abone a lathir cote, quhilke was na les stark than it was elegant, thay put on. Al thair harnesse was lycht, that gif thay fel in ony danger, the lychtlier thay mycht slip out of the handes of thair ennimies: for in swiftnes of fute, in quhilke thay walde ouirrin the swoftest horse, quhither the way war lang and plane, or gif it war cumirsum throuch hilis or hopes, in sik swoftnes, I say, thay obteined gret prais, athir quhen the ennimie flies to follow, or quhen the ennimie persues to flie, and gif mister be to declyne from perrel.... Thair cleithing was til necessitie, and nocht till decore, maist conuenient ay to the weiris; for thay al vset mantilis of ane forme, baith the Nobilitie and the commone people, excepte that the Nobilitie delyted mair in coloured claith and sindrie hewis, and thir mantilis war baith wyd and lang, notwithstandeng about the bosum, quhair thay walde decentlie losin. I can weil think thir same to be the kynd of cleithing quhilke in ald times in latin war called Brachæ. In thir only mantilis in the nyt seasone, thay rowit thame selfes, and in thame sleipit sound: this was thair maner, and this day the hilande men, and thay of Irland weiris even siklyke, bot now thay use ruch couirings, ane sorte to thair bed, another sorte to the Jornay conuenient. The rest of thair claithis, was a schorte cote of woll, with wyde and apne sleiues that the radier quhen thay walde thay myt schote or caste a darte, or ane arrow, breickis thay had verie slichte, and indeid mair to hyd thair memberis than for ony pompe or pryd, or to defend thame frome the calde was meit. Of linnine lykwyse thay maid wyd sarkis, with mony bosumis, and wide sleifes of negligence hinging doune evin to thair knies. Thir sarkis the mair potent amang thame vset to smeir with saffronne, bot vthiris with a certane fatnes, and this thay did to keip thame cleine frome al filthines. Nathing thay thocht worthier of counsel than to exercise thame selfes continuallie in the sueit of the Barresse, or in siklyke ane exercise. In makeng thame, appeirit na kair or trauel neglected athir in arte or decore: as with threid of silke, cheiflie greine, or rid, al the partes of the sarke maist artificiouslie thay sewit.

Bot the cleithing of the women with thame was maist decent. For thair cotes war syd evin to the hanckleth, wyd mantilis abone, or playdes all embroudiret artificiouslie; bracelets about thair armes, iewalis about thair neck, broches hinging at thair halse, baith cumlie and decent, and mekle to thair decore and outsett.[19]

The editor in his notes to Book I. observes:—

The Latin braccæ is generally understood to be equivalent to our breeks. There are, however, traces of the Latin word being used in a wider sense to mean a loose flowing garment. Bishop Leslie here applies it to the plaid or tartan, and, as it would seem, on the ground of the variegated colours expressed by the Gaelic breac. This is felt even in the use of the Latin word. We find braccæ described as pictæ and virgatæ, coloured and striped. Perhaps the original braccæ, which so took the attention of the Romans when they met the Gauls, were striped and parti-coloured, and so gave rise to the name. In Irish breacan still means a plaid. It would seem, then, that the Latin word is borrowed from Celtic. The modern word breeks or breeches is a double plural, and stands for brec, plural of Anglo-Saxon broc. This last reminds us of Celtic brog, a shoe. Broc can hardly be derived from either breac or brog, for we find corresponding forms in all the Teutonic dialects. Neither can broc mean speckled, for we have freck, freckle, to represent breac. The Teutonic words, together with brog, may thus be cognate terms expressing the sense of cover or protect, perhaps allied to Anglo-Saxon beorgan. Comp. bark, the covering of a tree. Brock in modern English and Scots means a badger; but this is clearly the Gaelic broc. The animal was so named from its colour—pie or speckle.[20]

It has been held that this particular account, while establishing the use of tartans by the chiefs or nobles, proves them to have been by no means common wear. But, taken in conjunction with the writings of Buchanan, a few years later, the interpretation seems to be that, while the leaders preferred the more brilliantly coloured patterns, the rank and file had quieter designs, at once more economical and more serviceable.

George Buchanan in his History, published in 1582, furnishes a detailed account of the dress and arms of the Highlanders. He writes:—

They delight in variegated garments, especially stripped, and their favourite colours are purple and blue. Their ancestors wore plaids of many different colours, and numbers still retain this custom, but the majority, now, in their dress, prefer a dark brown, imitating nearly the leaves of the heather, that when lying upon the heath in the day, they may not be discovered by the appearance of their clothes; in these, wrapped rather than covered, they brave the severest storms in the open air, and sometimes lay themselves down to sleep even in the midst of snow. In their houses, also, they lie upon the ground; strewing fern, or heath, on the floor, with the roots downward and the leaves turned up. In this manner they form a bed so pleasant, that it may vie in softness with the finest down, while in salubrity it far exceeds it; for heath, naturally possessing the power of absorption, drinks up the superfluous moisture, and restores strength to the fatigued nerves, so that those who lie down languid and weary in the evening, arise in the morning vigorous and sprightly. They have all, not only the greatest contempt for pillows, or blankets, but, in general, an affectation of uncultivated roughness, and hardihood, so that when choice, or necessity induces them to travel in other countries, they throw aside the pillows, and blankets of their hosts, and wrapping themselves round with their own plaids, thus go to sleep, afraid lest these barbarian luxuries, as they term them, should contaminate their native simple hardiness. Their defensive armour consists of an iron headpiece and a coat of mail, formed of small iron rings, and frequently reaching to the heels. Their weapons are, for the most part, a bow, and arrows barbed with iron, which cannot be extracted without widely enlarging the orifice of the wound; but a few carry swords or Lochaber axes. Instead of a trumpet they use a bagpipe. They are exceedingly fond of music, and employ harps of a peculiar kind, some of which are strung with brass, and some with catgut. In playing they strike the wires either with a quill, or with their nails, suffered to grow long for the purpose; but their grand ambition is to adorn their harps with great quantities of silver and gems, those who are too poor to afford jewels substituting crystals in their stead. Their songs are not inelegant, and, in general, celebrate the praises of brave men; their bards seldom choosing any other subject.[21]

In the Acts and Proceedings of the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland for the year 1575 the following ordinance against the use of sumptuous clothing by Ministers and Readers of the Church is recorded:—

The Generall Assembly haldin and begun the 6 day of August 1575, in the Ovir Tolbuith of Edenburgh: wher ther was present the Bischops of Galloway, Dunkeld, Brechine, Dumblane, Glasgow, and the Bischop of the Yles, Superintendents of Angus and Lowthiane, Commissioners of Countreyes and Townes, with the Ministers. Mr Robert Pont (Provest of Trinity College), Moderatour.

The brether appointit to pen thair judgement anent the habite of the Ministers and thair wyfes, presentit the same to the Assemblie, quhilk was found good; and all the brether serving the functioun of the Kirk, ordaynes to conforme themselves and thair wyves therto, and ordainit effectuouslie to follow the same: Quherof the tenor followes in thir wordes.

Forsameikle as a comely and decent apparrell is requisite in all, namelie in the Ministers and sick as beares functioun in the Kirk: First we think all kynd of brodering vnseimlie, all bagaries of velvett on gownes, hoses, or coat, and all superfluous and vaine cutting out, steiking with silks; all kynd of costlie sewing on pasments, or sumptuous or large steiking with silks; all kynd of costlie sewing or variant hews in sarks, all kynd of light and variant hewes in cloathing, as red, blew, yellow, and sicklyke, quhilk declares the lightnes of the mynd; all wearing of rings, bracelets, buttons of silver, gold, or vther mettall; all kynd of superfluitie of cloath in makeing of hose; all vsing of plaids in the Kirk be Reidars or Ministers, namelie in tyme of thair ministry and vsing thair office: all kynd of gowning, coating or doubliting, or breiches of velvett, satine, taffettie, or sicklyke; all costlie gilting of whingers and knyves, or sicklyke; all silk hatts, or hatts of divers and light collours: Bot that thair haill habite be of grave collour, as black, russet, sad gray, sad broune or searges, wirssett chamlet, growgrame lytes wirssett, or sicklyke: and to be short, that the good word of God be them and thair immoderatenes be not slanderit; and thair wifes to be subiect to the same ordour.[22]

The Council Register of the Burgh of Aberdeen contains entries prohibiting the use of plaids, which appear to have attained considerable vogue in a district by no means Highland; and the reason annexed to the second of these seems to indicate a praiseworthy courtesy on the part of the city fathers:—

5th October 1576.—It is statut and ordanit be the provest, baillies, consell, witht consent of the communitie present for the tyme, being conuenit on the gill court day, and that na burges of gild nor dekin of craft quhatsumeuir withtin this burght, be fund werand ane plaid fra the feist of Sanct Martein nixt to cum in ony time thairefter withtin the burtht, under the pain of fourtie s. to be uptakin onforgewin fra the persouns apprehendit wering the said plaid efter the forsaid feist of Sanct Martein, and the plaid to be gewin to the hospitall to thair support, that ar pleset thairin.

6th June 1621.—The said day the prowest, baillies, and counsall considdering the inciuill forme of behaweour of a great manye wemen in this burght, of gude qualitie, quha resortis both to kirk and mercat with thair playddis about thair headis, and be thair exampill the meaner sort of wemen vses the samen forme of incivilitie, quhilk gewis offence to strangeris and occasioun to thame to speik reprochefullie of all wemen generallie within this burght; for remeid quharof, it is statute and ordanit that na wemen within this burght of quhatsumeuir rank, qualitie, or degrie they be of, presvme or tak vpon hand to resort to kirk or mercat with thair playddis about their heidis, vnder the paines following, to be exactit of the contravenar without fauour, toties quoties: viz. xiii. sh. iiij. d. of the wyiff of ilk burges of gild, and sex sh. aucht d. of ilk craftisman, and this act to be intimat out of the pulpit of baith the kirkis on Sonday nixt, and thaireftir to hawe effect and executioun in tyme comeing.[23]

In view of what the old writers point out, that the early dress of the Irish people bore a close resemblance to that of the Scottish Highlanders, the description given by John Derricke in 1581 is valuable as attesting the prevalence in his time of the two forms of the dress—the kilt and the trews. It runs thus:—

THE IRISHE KARNES APPARELL MOSTE LIUELY SET OUT.

With Jackettes long and large, which shroude simplicitie:

Though spitfull dartes which thei do beare importe iniquitie.

Their Shirts be verie straunge, not reachyng paste the thie:

With pleates on pleates thei pleated are, as thicke as pleates maie lye.

Whose sleues hang trailing doune almoste unto the Shoe:

And with a Mantell commonilie, the Irishe Karne doe goe.

Now some emongest the reste, doe use an other weede:

A coate I meane of strange device, whiche fancie first did breede.

His skirtes be verie shorte, with pleates set thicke about,

And Irishe trouzes more to put their straunge protractours out.[24]

Sir Walter Scott, writing of the verse, makes this comment:—

This second sort of dress, namely, a short woollen jacket, with plaited skirts, and long trowsers, made tight to the body, and chequered with various colours, was precisely that of a Highland gentleman, the plaid coming in place of the mantle.[25]

Of the dress and arms of the Highlanders at the close of the sixteenth century some details are furnished by M. Nicolay d’Arfeville, Cosmographer to the King of France, in an account of a visit to Scotland, published at Paris in 1583. The following is a translation of a portion of his description:—

Those who inhabit Scotland to the south of the Grampian chain, are tolerably civilized and obedient to the laws, and speak the English language; but those who inhabit the north are more rude, homely, and unruly, and for this reason are called savages [or Wild Scots.] They wear, like the Irish, a 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 their 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.[26]

One of the most striking and specific references to tartan is to be found in the year 1587, and it occurs in connection with the lands of Norraboll, in the island of Islay. In the Crown charter of Novodamus, dated 19th March 1587-8, granted to Hector Makclene, son and heir-apparent of Lauchlan Makclene of Dowart, the feu-duty for these lands is specified as:-

Pro Nerrabollsadh 60 ulnas panni, albi, nigri, et grosei coloris respective, et ulnam panni in augmentationem rentalis (vel 8 den pro qualibet ulna).[27]

John Sobieski Stuart, who first drew attention to this entry,[28] quotes the word “grosei” as “grisei,” and adds “in this enumeration there appears a slight error, from a presumption that the third colour should have been green. The word undoubtedly in each case is “grosei,” and is so printed in the Record Issue. What was meant by “grosei” we learn from two sources. In the signature upon which the Crown charter above quoted proceeds, the lands and the feu-duty exigible are thus described:—

All and haill the foirnamit fyve merk landis of Nerrabolsadh with the pertinentis the sowme of lx ellis claith quhite blak and grene cullouris respective or viii^d vsuall money of this realme for ilk ell at the optioun of the said Hector and his foirsaidis at the termes foirsaidis be equal portiounis and ane el claith or viii^d for the price thereof in augmentation of the rentale mair nor euir the same payit of befor.[29]

These lands formerly belonged to the “Abbot of the Isle of Iona.” They were annexed to the Crown at the period of the alteration of the State religion in Scotland in the sixteenth century, and feued out to Makclene of Dowart on the conditions referred to, and they appear in the Register of Temporalities belonging to the Crown in this form:—

Charge. Argile and Tarbart. Item, the comptar charges him with the fewmaillis of the fyve merk lands of Narraboll liand within the said shirefdome set in few to Hector M^cClane of Dowart extending yeirlie in claith of quhite blak and grene cullouris respective to lx elnis. The eln sauld be infeftment at viii^d with the new augmentation of the same extending to 1 eln of clayth sauld as said is Inde the yeir comptit in money to xls. viiid.[30]

John Sobieski Stuart’s transcriber had failed to give him the full reference by omitting the words “et ulnam panni in augmentationem rentalis,” which, taken in connection with the two contemporary vernacular readings above given, settles that the cloth was not to be of three separate pieces, each of an individual colour, but cloth in which the dyes specified were interwoven.

But more remains to be said about this remarkable feu-duty. About 1617 Makclene of Dowart appears to have got into difficulties. At all events, in that year a Crown charter of the lands was granted to Rorie M’Kenzie of Cogeauche. The reddendo is identical with that in the charter of 1587-8 already quoted, but the signature is in these words:—

And lykewise for the foirsaid fyve merk land of Narrobolsydh with the pertinentis thriescoir ellis of quhyte blak and gray claith respective or viii^d money foirsaid for euerie elne in the optioun of the said Rory M^cKenzie his airis maill and assignais foirsaidis at the termes abone specifiet be equall portiones as the auld meill. And lykewise ane elne of claith or aucht penneis for the price thairof in yeirlie augmentatioun of the rentall gif it beis askit.[31]

When the lands were restored in 1630 to Makclene of Dowart, while the Latin charter remains unchanged, the signature is in these words:—

For the foirsaid fyve merk land of Morrabulsadtir with the pertinentis, thriescore elnis of claith quhyte blak and gras cullour respective or aucht penneis vsuell money of the said realme of Scotland for ilk elne at the will of the said Lauchlane his aires male and assignais foirsaidis at twa termes in the yeare Witsounday and Mertinmas in winter be equall portiounis as the auld fewferme. Ane elne of claith or aucht penneis for the price thereof in augmentatioun of the yeirlie rent gif it beis askit.[32]

The explanation is simple enough. White and black and green are the only colours in the oldest authenticated Mac Lean tartan.

The evidence of all accounts of the costume of the people inhabiting the northern and western portions of Scotland in the sixteenth century attests the use of the yellow saffron-dyed shirt, and the cloak, cassock or plaid, reaching to about the knee, as the ordinary dress. A reference to a yellow coat, which appears to have been a garment distinct from the yellow shirt, is found at this period. It occurs in a History of the Gordons, preserved in the Advocates’ Library, which states that in 1590:—

Angus, the son of Lachlan, chiefe of the Clanchattan, with a great party attempts to surpryze the Castle of Ruthven in Badenoch, belonging to Huntly, in which there was but a small garrison; but finding this attempt could neither by force nor fraude have successe, he retires a little to consult how to compasse his intent. In the meanetyme, one creeps out under the shelter of some old ruines, and levells with his piece at one of the Clanchattan cloathed in a yellow warr coat (which, amongst them, is the badge of the cheifetaines or heads of clans). And, peircing his body with the bullet, stricks him to the ground, and retires with gladness into the castle. The man killed was Angus himselfe, whom his people carry away, and conceill his death for many years, pretending he was gone beyond seas.[33]

On account of the proximity of the Western Isles of Scotland to the northern portions of Ireland there was frequent intercourse between the inhabitants, and aid in seasons of disturbance was a mutual courtesy. During the last years of the sixteenth century the Red Earl of Ulster, Hugh O’Donnell, was in arms against the English Crown; and in 1594 a body of warriors was despatched from the Western Isles to his assistance. Peregrine O’Clery’s description of these troops, as translated from the Irish by Edward O’Reilly, is as follows:—

These (the auxiliaries from the isles) were afterwards mixed with the Irish militia, with the diversity of their arms, their armour, their mode, manners, and speech. The outward clothing they 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. Others with bows, well polished, strong and serviceable, with long twanging hempen strings, and sharp-pointed arrows that whizzed in their flight.[34]

The tartan belted plaid is undoubtedly here described, since no other garment could have been so disposed as to afford the requisite protection.

In 1596 Sir Duncan Campbell of Glenvrquhay granted in heritage to his third son,

John Campbell of Auchinryre, the lands of Auchynrere, Drumnavoke, and Condolych, respectively of the old extent of six, four, and two marks, for the yearly payment of £10 Scots at the usual terms, and one gallon of sufficient aquavite “et optimam chlamidem coloratam, vulgo ane fyne hewed brakane” [i.e., breacan or tartan plaid] at Martinmas.[35]

In connection with the plantation of Ulster by Scots colonists towards the end of the sixteenth century, there is evidence that tartan was manufactured in Ireland at that period. Concerning Lady Montgomery, wife of Sir Hugh Montgomery of the Eglinton family, who was a daughter of the Laird of Greenock, we read:—

She set up and encouraged linen and woollen manufactory which soon brought down the prices of the breakens [i.e., tartans] and narrow cloths of both sorts.[36]

Of seventeenth century writings one of the earliest to provide a notice of the Highland dress is Camden’s Britannia, printed in 1607, which mentions that:-

This country is inhabited by a rough, warlike, and very mischievous sort of people, commonly called Highlandmen, who are the true offspring of the ancient Scotch, speak Irish, call themselves Albinnich, are set and tight moulded, of great strength and swiftness, high spirited, bred up in war or rather robbery, and extremely prone to revenge and deep resentment. They wear after the Irish fashion striped mantles and thick long hair, and live by hunting, fishing, and plunder.[37]

Doubtless there was greater intercourse between the English and their conquered dependants in Ireland than between the English and the Scots, and hence the dress in Ireland ranks before that in Scotland in the comparison instituted by the writer.

Peculiar interest attaches to the description of John Taylor in The Pennyless Pilgrimage; for his observations, carefully noted down in 1618, in view of the fact that they would come under the cognisance of the king (James VI.), are full and important, as this extract illustrates:—

Thus with extreme travell, ascending and descending, mounting and alighting, I came at night to the place where I would be, in the Brea of Marr, which is a large country, all composed of such mountaines, that Shooter’s hill, Gads hill, Highgate hill, Hampsted hill, Birdlip hill, or Malvernes hill, are but mole-hills in comparison, or like a liver, or a gizzard under a capon’s wing, in respect to the altitude of their tops, or perpendicularitie of their bottomes. There I saw mount Benawne [Benavon in Braemar] with a furr’d mist upon his snowie head instead of a night cap: for you must understand, that the oldest man alive never saw but the snow was on the top of divers of those hills, both in summer, as well as in winter. There did I finde the truely noble and right honourable Lords John Erskin Earle of Marr, James Stuart Earle of Murray, George Gordon Earle of Engye, sonne and heire to the Marquesse of Huntly, James Erskin Earle of Bughan, and John Lord Erskin, sonne and heire to the Earle of Marr, and their Countesses, with my much honoured, and my best assured and approved friend, Sir William Murray knight, of Abercarny, and hundred of others knights, esquires, and their followers; all and every man in generall in one habit, as if Licurgus had beene there, and made lawes of equality. For once in the yeere, which is the whole moneth of August, and sometimes part of September, many of the nobility and gentry of the kingdome (for their pleasure) doe come into these high-land countries to hunt, where they doe conforme themselves to the habite of the High-land-men, who for the most part, speake nothing but Irish; and in former time were those people which were called the Red-shankes. Their habite is shooes with but one sole apiece; stockings (which they call short hose) made of a warm stuffe of divers colours, which they call Tartane: as for breeches, many of them, nor their forefathers, never wore any, but a jerkin of the same stuffe that their hose is of, their garters being bands or wreathes of hay or straw, with a plead about their shoulders, which is a mantle of divers colours, much finer and lighter stuffe than their hose, with blue flat caps on their heads, a handkerchiefe knit with two knots about their necke; and thus are they attyred. Now, their weapons are long bowes and forked arrowes, swords and targets, harquebusses, muskets, durks, and Loquhabor-axes. With these armes I found many of them armed for the hunting. As for their attire, any man of what degree soever that comes amongst them, must not disdaine to weare it: for if they doe, then they will disdaine to hunt, or willingly to bring in their dogges: but if men be kind unto them, and be in their habit; then are they conquered with kindnesse, and the sport will be plentifull. This was the reason that I found so many noblemen and gentlemen in those shapes. But to proceed to the hunting.

My good Lord of Marr having put me into that shape, I rode with him from his house, where I saw the ruines of an old castle, called the castle of Kindroghit. It was built by King Malcolm Canmore (for a hunting house) who raigned in Scotland when Edward the Confessor, Harold, and Norman William raigned in England: I speak of it, because it was the last house I saw in those parts; for I was the space of twelve days after, before I saw either house, corne-field, or habitation for any creature, but deere, wilde horses, wolves, and suche like creatures, which made me doubt that I should never have seene a house againe.[38]

The attachment of the Highlanders to their distinctive attire is conspicuously evident in this account, which deserves careful study in consequence of its profusion of detail. Trews (breeches) were not worn, but in their stead was a tartan “jerkin”; and this had no connection with the plaid, for the people had a “plead about their shoulders, which is a mantle of divers colours, much finer and lighter stuffe than their hose.” Being coarser and thicker than the plaid, the “jerkin” could scarcely have been the shirt, and it was most probably the feilebeg, or little kilt, used as a separate garment.

That the form of the feilebeg was known to the Highlanders before the civil wars of the seventeenth century, and that the belted plaid was thrown occasionally into the form of the feilebeg, is proved by the following extract:—

As for their Apparel; next the skin, they wear a short linnen Shirt, which the great Men among them sometimes dye of saffron Colour. They use it short, that it may not incumber them, when running or travelling. Major says the common People among them went out to Battle, having their Body cover’d with Linnen of many Folds sewed together and done over with Wax or Pitch, with a covering of Hart’s Skin; but that the English and common lowland Scots fought in Clokes. In the sharp Winter weather the Highland Men wear close trowzes, which cover the Thighs, Legs, and Feet. To fence their feet they put on Rullions or raw leather shoes. Above their Shirt they have a single Coat, reaching no farther than the Navel. Their uppermost Garment is a loose Cloke of several Ells, striped and party colour’d (the tartan plaid), which they gird breadth-wise with a Leathern Belt so as it scarce covers the knees, and that for the above-mention’d Reason, that it may be no Lett to them, when on a Journey or doing any Work. Far the greatest part of the Plaid covers the uppermost parts of the Body. Sometimes it is all folded round the Body about the Region of the Belt, for disengaging and leaving the Hands free; and sometimes ’tis wrapped round all that is above the Flank. The trowzes are for Winter use; at other Times they content themselves with short Hose, which scarce reach to the knees. When they compose themselves to Rest and Sleep, they loose the Belt, and roll themselves in the Plaid, lying down on the bare Ground, or putting Heather under them nicely set together after their Manner; or, for want of that, they use a little Straw or Hay.[39]

It has been already noted that the Scottish auxiliaries who went to France in 1552 were in trews (“hois”), and, similarly, when the northern army invaded England in 1639, no reference is made to the kilt or to the bare legs, the first peculiarity to impress strangers. It would thus appear that the kilt did not at this time form part of the military dress. The following description is extracted from Defoe’s Memoirs of a Cavalier, which evinces considerable acquaintance with military habits and equipments:—

I confess, the soldiers made a very uncouth figure, especially the highlanders: the oddness and barbarity of their garb and arms seemed to have something in it remarkable. They were generally tall swinging fellows; their swords were extravagantly and I think insignificantly broad, and they carried great wooden targets, large enough to cover the upper part of their bodies. Their dress was as antique as the rest; a cap on their heads, called by them a bonnet, long hanging sleeves behind, and their doublet, breeches, and stockings, of a stuff they called plaid, striped across red and yellow, with short cloaks of the same. These fellows looked, when drawn out, like a regiment of merry-andrews, ready for Bartholomew Fair. They are in companies all of a name and therefore call one another only by their christian names, ... and they scorn to be commanded but by one of their own clan or family.... There were three or four thousand of these in the Scots’ army, armed only with swords and targets; and in their belts some of them had a pistol, but no musquets at that time among them.[40]

Here again there appears to be evidence of the plaid, under the designation of “short cloak,” as a separate garment, which, taken in conjunction with Taylor’s description in 1618, affords a strong presumption that its use, along with, but detached from, kilt or trews, was quite common.

In the act and decreet in favour of Thomas M’Kenzie of Pluscardin against a band of Highlanders who had plundered him and his tenants in the month of June 1649, there are enumerated as among the articles taken away or destroyed:—

Item ane whyt plaid worth eight punds With coat and trews and shoes worth four pund scots with four pair of lining sheits worth four pund the pair, ane pair of bed plaids worth twentie four punds tuo coverings worth four punds the peice Ten elne of new lining worth twentie shilling the elne. Item ten elnes of tartan at threttie shilling the elne.[41]

In 1669 the Rev. James Brome, M.A., Rector of Cheriton in Kent, visited Scotland, and in 1700 he published his work. His description of Highland dress and arms is largely adapted from Buchanan, whose work is, indeed, appropriated by many other writers. Brome’s note is as follows:—

The Highlanders, who inhabit the West part of the Country, in their Language Habit and Manners agree much with the Customs of the Wild Irish, and their chief City is Elgin, in the County of Murray, seated upon the Water of Lossy, formerly the Bishop of Murray’s Seat, with a Church sumptuously built, but now gone to decay. They go habited in Mantles striped, or streaked with divers colours about their Shoulders, which they call Plodden, with a Coat girt close to their Bodies, and commonly are naked upon their Legs, but wear Sandals upon the Soles of their Feet, and their Women go clad much after the same Fashion: They get their Living mostly by Hunting, Fishing, and Fowling; and when they go to War, the Armour wherewith they cover their Bodies, is a Morion or Bonnet of Iron, and an Habergeon, which comes down almost to their very Heels; their Weapons against their Enemies are Bows and Arrows, and they are generally reputed good Marks-Men upon all occasions; their Arrows for the most part are barbed or crooked, which once entred within the Body cannot well be drawn out again, unless the Wound be made wider; some of them fight with broad Swords and Axes, and in the room of a Drum make use of a Bag-pipe. They delight much in Musick, but chiefly in Harps and Clarishoes of their own Fashion, the strings of which are made of Brass-Wire, and the strings of their Harps with Sinews, which strings they strike either with their Nails growing long, or else with an Instrument appointed for that use.[42]

Thomas Kirk, of Cookridge, Yorkshire, who made an extensive tour in Scotland in 1677, kept a journal of his observations, and, thanks to his minute description, it becomes possible to demonstrate that the story of the modern invention of the feilebeg or kilt as a separate article of dress is a fabrication. For not only does he describe the kilt precisely, but he notes with great exactness the manner of wearing the plaid, which corresponds in every particular with its use at the present time. Writing at Inverness, he says:—

Here we may note the habit of a Highlander: their doublets are slashed in the sleeves, and open on the back; their breeches and stockings are either all on a piece, and straight to them, plaid colour; or otherwise, a sort of breeches, not unlike a petticoat, that reaches not so low, by far, as their knees, and their stockings are rolled up about the calves of their legs, and tied with a garter, their knee and thigh being naked. On their right side they wear a dagger, about a foot or half-a-yard long, the back filed like a saw, and several kinnes (? skeans) struck in the sheath of it; in either pocket a case of iron or brass pistols, a sword about a handful broad, and five feet long, on the other side, and perhaps a gun on one shoulder and a sack of luggage on the other. Thus accoutred, with a plaid over the left shoulder and under the right arm, and a cap a-cock, he struts like a peacock, and rather prides in than disdains his speckled feet.[43]

It is somewhat remarkable that this testimony, which decides the vexed question of the separate use of kilt and plaid prior to the eighteenth century, has hitherto escaped the notice of all writers on the subject.

During the turbulent period of the wars of Montrose and Dundee many bodies of armed Highlanders were imported into the Lowlands. One of the largest, known as the Highland Host, consisted of ten thousand men employed in the repression of the Western Shires. A letter in the Wodrow MSS., Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh, written under date 1st February 1678, states:—

We are now all quartered in and about this town [? Ayr], the Highlanders only in free quarters. It would be truely a pleasant sight, were it at an ordinary weaponshaw, to see this Highland crew. You know the fashion of their wild apparel, not one of ten of them hath breaches, yet hose and shoes are their greatest need and most clever prey, and they spare not to take them every where: In so much that the committee here, and the Counsel with you (as it is said) have ordered some thousands of pairs of shoes to be made to stanch this great spoil. As for their armes and other militarie acoutrements, it is not possible for me to describe them in writing; here you may see head-pieces and steel-bonnets raised like pyramides, and such as a man would affirme they had only found in chamber-boxes; targets and shields of the most odde and anticque forme, and pouder hornes hung in strings, garnished with beaten nails and plates of burnished brass. And truely I doubt not but a man, curious in our antiquities, might in this host finde explications of the strange pieces of armour mentioned in our old lawes, such as bosnet, iron-hat, gorget, pesane, wambrassers, and reerbrassers, panns, leg-splents, and the like, above what any occasion in the Lowlands would have afforded for several hundereds of yeers. Among their ensignes also, besides other singularities, the Glencow men were very remarkable, who had for their ensigne a faire bush of heath, wel-spred and displayed on the head of a staff, such as might have affrighted a Roman eagle.[44]

This letter is especially noteworthy as containing an early reference to the badge or ensign used to distinguish particular clans. The “Glencow” men—no doubt the Mac Ians of Glencoe, a sept of the Clan Mac Donald—“had for their ensign a fair bush of heath,” and the badge of the Mac Donalds is still Fraoch or heath. The writer’s description implies that the rank and file of the Highland Host wore the kilt or the belted plaid; those who did not being, of course, the officers, who would wear the trews. That such was the fact is confirmed by what follows.

A sarcastic and amusing description of the Highlanders concerned in the expedition of 1678 was written by Lieut.-Colonel William Cleland (1661-1689), of the Cameronian or Earl of Angus’s Regiment, who was killed fighting the remnant of Viscount Dundee’s army. Not only does it confirm the description in the Wodrow letter, but it furnishes information of a detailed character as to dress and accoutrements, as the following quotation shows:—

But to discrive them right surpasses

The art of nine Parnassus Lasses.

* * * * *

Their head, their neck, their leggs and thighs:

Are influenced by the skies,

Without a clout to interrupt them

They need not strip them when they whip them;

Nor loose their doublet, when they’re hang’d

If they be miss’d, its sure they’re wrong’d.

* * * * *

Their durks hang down between their leggs

Where they made many slopes and geggs;

By rubbing on their naked side,

And wambling from side to side.

But those who were their chief Commanders,

As such who bore the pirnie standarts,

Who led the van, and drove the rear,

Were right well mounted of their gear;

With brogues, trues, and pirnie plaides,

With good blew bonnets on their heads,

Which on the one side had a flipe

Adorn’d with a tobacco pipe.

With durk, and snap-work, and snuff-mill,

A bagg which they with onions fill,

And, as their strick observers say,

A tupe horn fill’d with usquebay;

A slasht out coat beneath her plaides,

A targe of timber, nails and hides;

With a long two handed sword,

As good’s the country can affoord;

Had they not need of bulk and bones,

Who fight with all these arms at once?

It’s marvelous how in such weather,

Ov’r hill and hop they came together;

How in such stormes they came so farr;

The reason is, they’re smear’d with tar,

Which doth defend them heel and neck,

Just as it doth their sheep protect;

But least ye doubt that this is true,

They’re just the colour of tar’d wool.[45]

Here we have two distinct forms of dress—that of the men, the kilt or the belted plaid, and that of the “chief Commanders,” who “were right well mounted of their gear; with brogues, trues, and pirnie plaides.”

But perhaps the most striking evidence that two forms of dress were in use in the Highlands at this time is that supplied by the supporters of the arms of Skene of that Ilk. The blazon of the supporters in the Lyon Register is:—

On the dexter by a highland man in his proper garb holding a skene with his right hand in a guarding posture, and on the sinister be another in a servill habit his target on the left arm and the darlach by his side.[46]

In the Introduction to the Nisbet Plates,[47] the work from which the illustration is taken, it is pointed out that in the Nisbet MS. the description of the supporters runs as follows:—

Supported on the dexter by a highland gentleman in his proper garb, holding a skein with his right hand in a guarding posture, and on the sinister by another highlandman in a servill habit, with his target on his left arme and his dorloch be his side.[48]

It is impossible to conceive of evidence of a more conclusive and satisfactory character than that here adduced of the existence of both modes of dress at this period and of the rank of the respective wearers. The original illustration is the work of Robert Wood, an Edinburgh engraver, and in Mr Ross’s Opinion was executed, and Alexander Nisbet’s description above quoted written, 1695-1704.[49]

The Grameid, written in 1691, contains many references to the clothing and uniforms of the Highland army serving under Viscount Dundee. From the shoulder of Keppoch “hung the tartan plaid.” The inhabitants of the Hebrides are clothed “in yellow and blue.” Dundee, addressing the leaders, bids them “draw out your clans in their saffron array upon the plain,” and speaks of “the plaided race of Grampian giants.” General Mackay is represented as concluding “that he had subdued the tartaned bands of ancient Albion.” A most explicit description is that of the followers of Glengarry, “three hundred illustrious youths in the first flower of vigorous manhood, each of whom a tartan garb covers, woven with Phrygian skill in triple stripe, and as a garment clothes their broad chests and flanks. A helmet defends the temples of the men. A coloured plaid veils their shoulders, and otherwise they are naked.... Following him closely comes his brother Allan, the brave, with a hundred men all clothed in garments interwoven with the red stripe, their brawny calves bound with the red buskin.” Of Locheil, the poet says, “his tartan hose are gartered round his calf.” M’Martin in “variegated array advances with lofty mien”; the garter ribbons “hanging at his leg were dyed with Corycian saffron, and with the tint of the Tyrian shell, as was his plaid.” Of Mac Lean of Duart and his brother Alexander “the flowing plaid with yellow stripe covers the shoulders of both the brothers.” Mac Neill of Barra “displays as many colours woven into his plaid as the rainbow in the clouds shows in the sunlight.” The Mac Leods of Raasay advance “with plumed heads erect, and shoulders covered with girded plaid.” The Dougals of Craignish “all carry the brazen-hilted sword, and wear the girded plaid.” “The whole plaided forces of the Highland chiefs, both horse and foot, the entire body take post.” Dundee beholds his “bands gleaming with brass, and admires the companies in their brilliant colours, and is refreshed by the sharp note of the pipe.” The “tartaned host” pours itself out upon the field. In sight of their opponents the Highland warriors “draw their swords, and, extended on the plain, they move in ordered ranks; they cast their brogues of bull’s hide, and make a pile of their plaids, and thus stripped, prepare for the battle.” General Mackay takes counsel how he “will overwhelm the tartaned lines of the target-bearing Scot”; while the poet writes of the march of his opponents, “the whole body of the Highlanders is formed into one column, and forthwith the cavalry mount their horses, and the whole plaided army, with floating banners, went forth from the deserted camp into the open plain.”[50]

It appears from various references that the trews and the belted plaid were sometimes worn together. On a powder-horn which belonged to the late James Drummond, R.S.A., and now in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries in Edinburgh, there are figures in the Highland dress, and one of these seems to illustrate this mode. As to the age of the relic, Mr Drummond, in a communication to the Society in April 1872, gave various reasons for believing it to have been the property of Sir George Mackenzie of Tarbat, who was born in 1630. Again, in an extract from a MS. stated to have been in the possession of Dr. Mac Lean, Oban, giving an account of the battle of Killiecrankie, it is stated that John Macrae of Inversheil, having been struck in the thigh by a musket shot—

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.

But Persons of Distinction wear the Garb in Fashion in the South of Scotland.

The Plad wore only by the Men, is made of fine Wool, the Thred as fine as can be made of that kind; it consists of divers Colours, and there is a great deal of Ingenuity requir’d in sorting the Colours, so as to be agreeable to the nicest Fancy. For this reason the Women are at great pains, first to give an exact Pattern of the Plad upon a piece of Wood, having the number of every Thred of the Stripe on it. The Length of it is commonly seven double Ells; the one end hangs by the Middle over the left Arm, the other going round the Body, hangs by the end over the left Arm also; the right Hand above it is to be at liberty to do any thing upon occasion. Every Isle differs from each other in their Fancy of making Plads, as to the Stripes in Breadth, and Colours. This Humour is as different thro the main Land of the Highlands, in-so-far that they who have seen those Places, are able, at the first View of a Man’s Plad, to guess the Place of his Residence.

When they travel on foot, the Plad is tied on the Breast with a Bodkin of Bone or Wood (just as the Spina wore by the Germans, according to the Description of C. Tacitus:) the Plad is tied round the middle with a Leather Belt; it is pleated from the Belt to the Knee very nicely: this Dress for Footmen is found much easier and lighter than Breeches, or Trowis.

The antient Dress wore by the Women, and which is yet wore by some of the Vulgar, called Arisad, is a white Plad, having a few small Stripes of black, blue, and red; it reach’d from the Neck to the Heels, and was tied before on the Breast with a Buckle of Silver, or Brass, according to the Quality of the Person. I have seen some of the former of an hundred Marks value; it was broad as any ordinary Pewter Plate, the whole curiously engraven with various Animals, &c. There was a lesser Buckle, which was wore in the middle of the larger, and above two Ounces weight; it had in the Center a large piece of Chrystal, or some finer Stone, and this was set all round with several finer Stones of a lesser size.

The Plad being pleated all round, was tied with a Belt below the Breast; the Belt was of Leather, and several Pieces of Silver intermix’d with the Leather like a Chain. The lower end of the Belt has a Piece of Plate about eight Inches long, and three in breadth, curiously engraven; the end of which was adorned with fine Stones, or Pieces of Red Coral. They wore Sleeves of Scarlet Cloth, clos’d at the end as Mens Vests, with Gold Lace round ’em, having Plate Buttons set with fine Stones. The Head-dress was a fine Kerchief of Linen strait about the Head, hanging down the Back taper-wise; a large Lock of Hair hangs down their Cheeks above their Breast, the lower end tied with a Knot of Ribbands....

The antient way of Fighting was by set Battles; and for Arms some had broad two-handed Swords and Head-pieces, and others Bows and Arrows. When all their Arrows were spent, they attack’d one another with Sword in hand. Since the Invention of Guns, they are very early accustomed to use them, and carry their Pieces with them where-ever they go: They likewise learn to handle the broad Sword and Target. The Chief of each Tribe advances with his Followers within shot of the Enemy, having first laid aside their upper Garments; and after one general Discharge, they attack them with Sword in hand, having their Target on their left Hand (as they did at Kelicranky) which soon brings the Matter to an Issue, and verifies the Observation made of ’em [by] your Historians:

Aut Mors cito, aut Victoria læta.[53]

Certainly this is evidence of the employment of fixed designs and special colours in the tartans, as well by the Islanders as by the Highlanders of the mainland; and many have held it to settle the question of their use as clan distinctions at that period. At all events, it shows that district tartans were in use in Martin’s day, and that their colourings furnished an indication of the localities whence the wearers came.

It is out of the question to suppose that the tartans described by Martin sprang into being in his day. On the contrary, all the evidence we possess—proving, as it does, the extremely conservative character of the inhabitants of the Western Islands—points to the conclusion that Martin was the witness, at the end of the seventeenth century, of habits and customs in use long previously.

Of the existence of a uniform clan pattern at the very commencement of the eighteenth century there is a complete chain of evidence. Captain Hamilton writes from Inverness, 23rd July 1703, to Brigadier-General Maitland, Governor of Fort-William:—

I wrote to you Tuesday last in answer to your last letter to me, but I neglected to acquaint you of our news here. The thing is there is a match of Hunting to be as is said against 2nd of next month amongst several of our great folks, particularly the Duke of Hamilton is to be there, the Marquis of Athole, and our neighbour the Laird of Grant, who has ordered 600 of his men in arms, in good order, with Tartane Coats all of one colour and fashion. This is his order to his people in Straithspey. If it be a match at Hunting only I know not, but I think it my duty to acquaint you, whatever may fall out, of any such body of men in arms, particularly in our Northern Parts.[54]

The following entries in the Court Books of the Regality of Grant, 1703-1710, are given in full, because they are of the utmost importance, and have never hitherto been accurately quoted. Among others, Sir William Fraser, in his Chiefs of Grant, refers merely to the second entry, and that incorrectly:—

Court of the Lordship of the parochine of Duthell holden at Duthell the 20 July 1704 be Duncan Grant of Mullochard bailie constitute be the Right Hono^ll Alex^r Grant of that Ilk your bailie principall of the Regalitie of Grant David Blair notar and clerk to the said Regalitie Court of the District of Duthell. Suites called and the Court lawfullie fenced and affirmed.

The said day Ronald Makdonald of Gelloway and Archibald Makdonald of Tulloch Crombie wassales of Lugan in Badzenoch to the Right Hono^ll Ludovick Grant of that Ilk and the tennantes and indwellers on these landes are ordained to have readie tartan short coates trewes and short hose of red and grein set dyce all broad springed betuixt and the eight of August nixt and to be readie upon 48 hours advertisement to rendevouze when the Laird of Grant shall call them for his hosting or hunteing under the failie of fyve pounds sterling.

(Signed) D. GRANT, B.

Court of the Landes of Tulchine and Skeiradvey, holdine at Delay upon the 27 July 1704 be William Grant of Delay bailie of the saids lands constitute be the Right Hono^ll the Laird of Grant heretor of the saidis landis, David Blair notar and clerk; James Gedlie officer. Suites called and the court lawfully fenced and affirmed.

The said day by ordor from the Laird of Grant younger the said bailie ordanes and enacts that the haill tennantes cottars malenders tradesmen and servantes within the saidis landis of Skearadvie Tulchine and Calender that are fencible men shall provyd and have in readiness against the eight day of August nixt ilk ane of them Heighland coates trewes and short hoes of tartane of red and greine sett broad springed and also with gun sword pistoll and durk, and with these present themselves to ane rendewouze when called upone 48 hours advertisement within the country of Strathspey, for the said Laird of Grant or his faither their hosting and hunteing. And this under the failie of twenty poundes Scotis ilk ane that shall faill in the premisses. And the Master to outrig the servantes in the saids coates trewes and hose out of their fies.[55]

A very curious and somewhat puzzling state of affairs is disclosed by a minute examination of the fine series of family portraits preserved at Castle Grant.[56] Of these portraits no fewer than ten were painted by Richard Waitt, namely, Brigadier Grant of Grant and Donald Grant of Glenbeg, in 1713; Patrick Grant of Miltown, Mungo Grant of Mulloch-hard, —— Grant of Delbuaick, David Grant of Delbuaick, Patrick Grant of Tullochgriban, Alister Grant “Mohr,” and the Piper to the Laird of Grant, in 1714; and John Grant of Burnside, in 1725. Besides these, Waitt painted other Grant portraits in tartan attire. By permission of the Countess of Seafield, coloured drawings of these have been made, and comparison discovers a variety of design well-nigh as great as would be the case in an equal number of examples selected at random from as many different families. In one particular alone do they agree, and that is in the absence of any completely dark-coloured sett, such as is usually designated “uaine” or green. It is not till after the ’45 that there is an instance of any member of the clan wearing the so-called undress Grant tartan, now the familiar “Forty-Second” or Black Watch pattern.

Similar remarks might be made concerning other family portraits. For example, in the Mac Donald portraits at Armadale there are at least six distinct setts of tartan. The Campbell portraits at Loudoun Castle and Langton House exhibit equal diversity, while differing at the same time from any of the Campbell setts at present in use. In the same way the pictures of the Sutherland family at Dunrobin and Barrogill, the Mac Donell portraits at Balgownie, the Mac Leod at Dunvegan, the Drummond at Gordon Castle and Drummond Castle, the Macpherson at Cluny, the Frasers in Inverness-shire, show remarkable variety of arrangement and colouring. Whatever the reason of this, it assuredly did not arise from carelessness or ignorance on the part of the artists employed. On the contrary, in the great majority of the pictures referred to, painful attention has been paid to minuteness and accuracy in details of the dress, and the sett of a tartan is reproduced in different portions of the costume with a faithfulness which leaves no room for doubt that the artists were studiously copying distinct patterns.

The importance of the tartan manufacture to Scotland in the beginning of the eighteenth century is evident from the following:—

In this place it’s proper to mention their Plaids, a Manufacture wherein they exceed all Nations, both as to Colour and Fineness. They have of late been pretty much fancy’d in England, and are very ornamental as well as durable for Beds, Hangings, Window-Curtains and Night-Gowns for Men and Women; so that Attempts have been made in England to resemble them, at Norwich and elsewhere, but they fall much short both in Colour, Fineness, and Workmanship, as is evident at first sight. A good improvement may be made of this manufacture for domestick use and export, now that the prohibition is remov’d by the Union. The stronger sort of those Plaids is the usual Cloathing for their Men in the Highlands, where they never alter the form of their Habit, which, to other People, seems uncouth, because not us’d elsewhere; yet it must be own’d, that as they are us’d by those of the better sort in the Highlands, they make a manly as well as a decent Habit.[57]

In A Journey through Scotland, undertaken between 1716 and 1723, occurs this description of the cattle fair at Crieff and of the dress of the Highland gentlemen and their followers, which confirms in all particulars the other accounts of the use of tartan at the period, and the distinction between the dress of the upper and lower orders:—

The Highland Fair of Criff happening when I was at Stirling, I had the Curiosity to go see it. There were at least Thirty Thousand Cattle sold there, most of them to English Drovers; who paid down above Thirty Thousand Guineas in ready Money to the Highlanders; a Sum they had never seen before, and proves one good Effect of the Union. The Highland Gentlemen were mighty civil, dress’d in their slash’d short Wastcoats, a Trousing, (which is, Breeches and Stockings of one Piece of strip’d Stuff) with a Plaid for a Cloak, and a blue Bonnet. They have a Ponyard Knife and Fork in one Sheath, hanging at one side of their Belt, their Pistol at the other, and their Snuff-Mill before; with a great broad Sword by their side. Their Attendance [attendants] were very numerous, all in belted Plaids, girt like Womens Petticoats down to the Knee; their Thighs and Half of the Leg all bare. They had also each their broad Sword and Ponyard, and spake all Irish, an unintelligible Language to the English.[58]

It appears from the regulations issued to the retainers of the Clan Grant anent the wearing of a uniform tartan that distinctive patterns were in use, at least for military purposes, or on occasions of great gatherings, early in the eighteenth century. That widespread attention was at that period bestowed upon particular arrangements of tartan appears from a letter quoted by Sir Walter Scott, dated from the Manse of Comrie, 2nd July 1717:—

I give your lady hearty thanks for the highland plaid. Its good cloath but it does not answer the sett I sent some time agoe with M^cArthur.

This implies, at the least, in a district on the southern border of the Highlands, adhesion to particular patterns, just as in Martin’s account of the Western Islands, already quoted, the existence of district setts is proved by the use of the words “able, at the first view of a man’s plad, to guess the place of his residence.”

Alexander Nisbet, the great herald, referring to the supporters of Macpherson of Cluny, writes:—

The family has been in use to have their arms supported with two Highland men with steel helmets on their heads and cut out short doublets azure, thighs bare, their shirts tied between them, and round targets on their arms, being the dress wherein those of this clan were wont to fight in many battles for the crown being always loyal.[59]

That the dress thus described by Nisbet was intended by him to represent what we know to be the usual dress of the Highlanders at that period, viz., the belted plaid, is proved by another allusion of his to the Cluny arms in a portion of his work not yet published, and preserved in the Lyon Office, in which, treating generally of supporters, he writes:—

M^cPherson of Clunie two highlandmen in their belted plaids with targets.[60]

An almost contemporary example of the peculiar mode of wearing the dress, described as “shirts tied,” is to be found in the portrait of Sir Stuart Threipland of Fingask, by Delacour, painted about this period.[61]

Without exception the most complete description of the Highlands and the dress worn there, written during the eighteenth century, is that given by Burt. The account has been frequently the subject of criticism, but it is now generally accepted as presenting a faithful picture of the state of the country at the period to which it relates. As it traverses a wide field, a lengthened extract is given, for the purpose of comparison with earlier descriptions of the costume and manners of the people already quoted:—

The plaid is the undress of the ladies [writing of Inverness]; and to a genteel woman, who adjusts it with a good air, is a becoming veil. But as I am pretty sure you never saw one of them in England, I shall employ a few words to describe it to you. It is made of silk or fine worsted, chequered with various lively colours, two breadths wide, and three yards in length; it is brought over the head, and may hide or discover the face according to the wearer’s fancy or occasion; it reaches to the waist behind; one corner falls as low as the ankle on one side; and the other part, in folds, hangs down from the opposite arm.

I have been told, in Edinburgh, that the ladies distinguish their political principles, whether Whig or Tory, by the manner of wearing their plaids;—that is, one of the parties reverses the old fashion, but which of them it is, I do not remember, nor is it material.

As I was travelling in a very wild part of the country, and approaching the house of one of those gentlemen, who had notice of my coming, he met me at some distance from his dwelling, with his Arcadian offering of milk and cream, as usual, carried before him by his servants. He afterwards invited me to his hut, which was built like the others, only very long, but without any partition, where the family was at one end, and some cattle at the other. By the way (although the weather was not warm), he was without shoes, stockings, or breeches, in a short coat, with a shirt not much longer, which hung between his thighs, and just hid his nakedness from two daughters, about seventeen or eighteen years old, who sat over against him. After some compliments on either side, and his wishing me good weather, we entered into conversation, in which he seemed to be a man of as good sense as he was well-proportioned. In speaking of the country, he told me he knew I wondered how any body would undergo the inconveniences of a Highland life.

The Highland dress consists of a bonnet made of thrum without a brim, a short coat, a waistcoat, longer by five or six inches, short stockings, and brogues, or pumps without heels. By the way, they cut holes in their brogues, though new made, to let out the water, when they have far to go and rivers to pass: this they do to preserve their feet from galling.

Few besides gentlemen wear the trowze,—that is, the breeches and stockings all of one piece, and drawn on together; over this habit they wear a plaid, which is usually three yards long and two breadths wide, and the whole garb is made of chequered tartan, or plaiding: this, with the sword and pistol, is called a full dress, and, to a well-proportioned man, with any tolerable air, it makes an agreeable figure; but this you have seen in London, and it is chiefly their mode of dressing when they are in the Lowlands, or when they make a neighbouring visit, or go anywhere on horseback; but when those among them who travel on foot, and have not attendants to carry them over the waters, they vary it into the quelt [kilt], which is a manner I am about to describe.

The common habit of the ordinary Highlanders is far from being acceptable to the eye: with them a small part of the plaid, which is not so large as the former, is set in folds and girt round the waist, to make of it a short petticoat that reaches half way down the thigh, and the rest is brought over the shoulders, and then fastened before, below the neck, often with a fork, and sometimes with a bodkin or sharpened piece of stick, so that they make pretty nearly the appearance of the poor women in London when they bring their gowns over their heads to shelter them from the rain. In this way of wearing the plaid, they have sometimes nothing else to cover them, and are often barefoot; but some I have seen shod with a kind of pumps, made out of a raw cow-hide, with the hair turned outward, which being ill made, the wearer’s foot looked something like those of a rough-footed hen or pigeon: these are called quarrants, and are not only offensive to the sight, but intolerable to the smell of those who are near them. The stocking rises no higher than the thick of the calf, and from the middle of the thigh to the middle of the leg is a naked space, which, being exposed to all weathers, becomes tanned and freckled, and the joint being mostly infected with the country distemper, the whole is very disagreeable to the eye. This dress is called the quelt; and, for the most part, they wear the petticoat so very short, that in a windy day, going up a hill, or stooping, the indecency of it is plainly discovered....

Various reasons are given both for and against the Highland dress. It is urged against it, that it distinguishes the natives as a body of people distinct and separate from the rest of the subjects of Great Britain, and thereby is one cause of their narrow adherence among themselves, to the exclusion of all the rest of the kingdom; but the part of the habit chiefly objected to is the plaid (or mantle), which, they say, is calculated for the encouragement of an idle life, in lying about upon the heath, in the day-time, instead of following some lawful employment; that it serves to cover them in the night when they lie in wait among the mountains, to commit their robberies and depredations; and is composed of such colours as altogether, in the mass, so nearly resemble the heath on which they lie, that it is hardly to be distinguished from it until one is so near them as to be within their power, if they have any evil intention; that it renders them ready, at a moment’s warning, to join in any rebellion, as they carry continually their tents about them: and, lastly, it was thought necessary, in Ireland, to suppress that habit by act of parliament, for the above reasons, and no complaint for the want of it now remains among the mountaineers of that country.

On the other hand, it is alleged, the dress is most convenient to those who, with no ill design, are obliged to travel from one part to another upon their lawful occasions, viz.—That they would not be so free to skip over the rocks and bogs with breeches as they are in the short petticoat; that it would be greatly incommodious to those who are frequently to wade through waters, to wear breeches, which must be taken off upon every such occurrence, or would not only gall the wearer, but render it very unhealthful and dangerous to their limbs, to be constantly wet in that part of the body, especially in winter-time, when they might be frozen: and with respect to the plaid in particular, the distance between one place of shelter and another, is often too great to be reached before night comes on; and, being intercepted by sudden floods, or hindered by other impediments, they are frequently obliged to lie all night in the hills, in which case they must perish, were it not for the covering they carry with them. That even if they should be so fortunate as to reach some hospitable hut, they must lie upon the ground uncovered, there being nothing to be spared from the family for that purpose.

And to conclude, a few shillings will buy this dress for an ordinary Highlander, who, very probably, might hardly ever be in condition to purchase a Lowland suit, though of the coarsest cloth or stuff, fit to keep him warm in that cold climate.

I shall determine nothing in this dispute, but leave you to judge which of these two reasonings is the most cogent.

The whole people are fond and tenacious of the Highland clothing, as you may believe by what is here to follow.

Being, in a wet season, upon one of my peregrinations, accompanied by a Highland gentleman, who was one of the clan through which I was passing, I observed the women to be in great anger with him about something that I did not understand: at length, I asked him wherein he had offended them? Upon this question he laughed, and told me his great-coat was the cause of their wrath; and that their reproach was that he could not be contented with the garb of his ancestors, but was degenerated into a Lowlander, and condescended to follow their unmanly fashions.[62]

To the edition of the Letters from which the above is quoted the editor appended some notes on the Highland dress, which, though open to criticism on many points, are sufficiently interesting to justify their insertion here:—

The chequered stuff, commonly worn by the Highlanders, by them called breacan (parti-coloured), and by the Lowlanders tartan (Fr. tiretaine), is neither peculiar to Celts nor Goths, and is to be found, at this day, although not in such general use, among many of the Sclavonic tribes, who have no connection with either. The wife of every Russian boor, in the north-western provinces at least, who can make her such a present at her marriage (and it is often a sine quâ non), has a tartan plaid, which she wears just as the Scotish women, in our author’s time, did theirs: it is of massy silk, richly varied, with broad cross-bars of gold and silver tissue, and makes a very splendid appearance.

That the Lowlanders had their tartan from the French, at a time when it was fashionable in other countries, may be presumed from the name; and to imagine that the manufacture began among the Highlanders would be ridiculous.

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:—

Gairdner and Taylor, in their Warehouse at the Sign of the Golden Key, opposite to Forrester’s Wynd, Lawn-Market, Edinburgh, continue to sell, in Wholesale and Retail, at lowest Prices, all sorts of Woollen Narrow and Broad Cloths of the Manufacture of Scotland, in same manner as was done by the late Andrew Gairdner, who was one of the first Introducers of an extensive Manufactory of this Kind, so very beneficial to, and so much wanted in this Country.... At above Warehouse to be sold at lowest Rates, great Choice of Tartans, the newest Patterns, Cotton Checks and Sarges, of which they are also Makers.[67]

This advertisement, it may be urged, is a stumbling-block in the way of those who argue for the antiquity of clan patterns; for it seems peculiar that, when the city was filled with Highlanders of all ranks and many clans, they should be offered, not their ancient setts, but “great choice of the newest patterns.”

A statement which points in exactly the contrary direction appears in the Lockhart Papers to the following effect:—

It was necessary for us [i.e., the troops under the command of the Duke of Perth and the Earl of Cromarty in the Prince’s army], in order to come at him [i.e., Lord Louden, who commanded a detachment in the Duke of Cumberland’s army], to go about by the head of Tyne,[68] through Torendonel, about ten miles’ march, and accordingly Glengary’s, Clanronald’s, Ardsheal’s, Glengyle’s, and Barisdale’s battalions were ordered after them, under the command of the Duke of Perth and Lord Cromarty. Those under Lord Louden’s command were the M’Loads, Sir Alexander M’Donald’s men, the Makays and Monroes, and the Grants—about three thousand in all.... We M’Donalds were much perplex’d, in the event of ane ingagement, how to distinguish ourselves from our bretheren and nighbours the M’Donalds of Sky, seeing we were both Highlanders and both wore heather in our bonnets, only our white cocades made some distinction.[69]

The inference from the passage is, that the opposing battalions being of the same great family, with dress and badge alike, the sole remaining difference between them was the cockade.

One result of the civil war of 1745-6 was the proscription by Act of Parliament of the Highland dress:—

19 George II., Cap. 39, Sec. 17, 1746.

From and after the first day of August one thousand seven hundred and forty-seven, no man or boy within that part of Great Britain called Scotland, other than such as shall be employed as officers and soldiers in his Majesty’s forces, shall, on any pretence whatsoever, wear or put on the clothes commonly called Highland Clothes (that is to say) the Plaid, Philibeg, or little Kilt, Trowse, Shoulder belts, or any part whatsoever of what peculiarly belongs to the Highland garb; and that no Tartan or party-coloured plaid or stuff shall be used for great coats, or for upper coats; and if any such person shall presume, after the said first day of August, to wear or put on the aforesaid garments, or any part of them, every such person so offending, being thereof convicted by the oath of one or more credible witness or witnesses before any court of justiciary, or any one or more justices of the peace for the shire or stewartry, or judge ordinary of the place where such offence shall be committed, shall suffer imprisonment, without bail, during the space of six months, and no longer; and being convicted for a second offence before a court of justiciary, or at the circuits, shall be liable to be transported to any of his Majesty’s plantations beyond the seas, there to remain for the space of seven years.

“It is impossible,” writes General Stewart of Garth, “to read this latter Act without considering it rather as an ignorant wantonness of power than the proceeding of a wise and a beneficent Legislature. To be compelled to wear a new dress has always been found painful. So the Highlanders found; and it certainly was not consistent with the boasted freedom of our country to inflict on a whole people the severest punishment short of death for wearing a particular dress. Had the whole race been decimated, more violent grief, indignation, and shame could not have been excited among them than by being deprived of this long-inherited costume. This was an encroachment on the feelings of a people whose ancient and manly garb had been worn from a period remote beyond all history or even tradition.”[70] The spirit in which the Act was carried out may be gathered from the following extract from the General Orders to the Army in Scotland in 1748:—

By the act passed last session of Parliament, the time for the general abolishing the Highland dress is enlarged to the 1st day of August 1749.

But that the wearing and use of such parts thereof as are called the plaid, philibeg, or little kilt, is absolutely prohibited and abolished from and after the 25th day of this instant December, and as to these particulars the law takes place from that day.

His grace the Duke of Newcastle has therefore signified to me his majesty’s commands, that the same be punctually observed throughout the Highlands, and that I should give orders to all the troops quartered in those parts to be particularly attentive to this service, and to take all due care that the act be punctually executed and observed, and the offenders brought to punishment according to law.

In obedience to these his majesty’s commands, you are to seize all such persons as shall be found offending herein, by wearing the plaid, philibeg, or little kilt, and carry them before a civil magistrate, in the same dress, that he may be convinced with his own eyes of their having offended, in order to their being punished for the same according to law; in the performance of which, let no insult or abuse be offered to the person or persons of those who shall be so taken up and carried before the civil power, who are solely authorised to inflict the punishment as the act directs; but in case the magistrate before whom such offenders are carried shall refuse or neglect putting the law in execution, in that case let me know immediately the name of such magistrate, with the reason of his not doing it, that I may acquaint the Duke of Newcastle with it, who will no doubt send immediately orders to the lord advocate of this country to prosecute him to the utmost for his contempt of the said act, by not putting it in execution.

That the people in the Highlands might have no excuse by pleading ignorance, the lord chief justice clerk wrote to the sheriffs depute of the Highland counties, ordering them to give notice at every parish church, that they must quit the plaid, philibeg, or little kilt on Christmas-day, as the act directs, otherwise they would be carried before the civil magistrate and punished for it accordingly.

I must likewise desire you will let me know from time to time what obedience the people pay to this act, for they must and shall obey it, with the names of those magistrates who are industrious in putting the laws in execution, that I may take an opportunity of thanking them for performing their duty, and acquainting the Duke of Newcastle with it.

You may acquaint the magistrates and justices of the peace in your neighbourhood with the contents of this letter, since it may be the means of inciting them the more readily to perform their duty.

P.S.—Let a copy of this letter be sent to the officers commanding the general detachments of your regiment respectively.[71]

All manner of ingenious evasions were thought of and practised to defeat the law. “The tight breeches,” observes General Stewart, “were particularly obnoxious. Some who were fearful of offending, or wished to render obedience to the law, which had not specified on what part of the body the breeches were to be worn, satisfied themselves with having in their possession this article of legal and loyal dress, which, either as the signal of their submission, or more probably to suit their own convenience when on journeys, they often suspended over their shoulders upon their sticks; others, who were either more wary or less submissive, sewed up the centre of the kilt with a few stitches between the thighs, which gave it something of the form of the trowsers worn by Dutch skippers. At first these evasions of the Act were visited with considerable severity.”[72] It was most probably for conniving at some such breach of the law that a young grenadier of the 20th Foot narrowly escaped a tremendous punishment.

The court-martial has judged the crime of Rigby, the grenadier, to be of so pernicious a nature that they have sentenced him to receive six hundred lashes. His youth and former good behaviour are the only considerations that could induce the lieutenant-colonel to pardon him: but if hereafter any sergeant or corporal is known to receive a bribe from a Highlander, or from any person whatever, found or known to transgress the laws, and does not seize the person or report such transgression, he, the non-commissioned officer guilty of so heinous a crime, will be instantly broke and severely punished: and if any private soldier ever takes money, or a reward of any kind, that may lead him to betray his trust, such soldier will be whipped without mercy.[73]

The harsh and bitter administration of the law continued for many years—for a long enough period, indeed, to stamp out the use of the dress, at least among the lower orders. In the south the wear of tartan does not seem to have been interfered with. For instance, we read:—