NOTES ON THE HIGHLAND DRESS AND ARMOUR.
THE notes on the Antiquity
of Tartan, which appeared in our last issue, suggested to us the
idea of publishing
the following notices of the Highland dress and armour, collected from various sources, and
arranged for the Transactions of the "lona Club." We give the translations only, where the
original was in Latin, from the Collectanea de Rebus Albanicis, now a very rare
and expensive work:-
No peculiarity of the Scottish Highlanders has
been the subject of so much controversy as their dress. It is not at present intended to
enter into a detail of the opinions that have been at different times
expressed on this subject, as it is conceived that, to enable the
enquirer to come to a
satisfactory conclusion, the best method is first to place before
him, in juxtaposition
and in chronological order, the various descriptions of the costume
of the Highlanders,
which can be gathered from books or manuscripts. To these will be
added the
descriptions of their armour, defensive and offensive, which it would
be difficult in most
cases to separate from the former.
The earliest allusion to the
Highland dress which the editor has met with is in Magnus Berfaet's Saga (the history
of that celebrated Norwegian King, written shortly after his death), under the year 1093,
being the year in which he conquered the Western Isles, or rather forced them anew to
acknowledge the supremacy of Norway, which some late Kings of the Isles had affected to
disclaim. The following passage is literally translated from the
Norse Saga:—
A.D. 1093.—It is said when
King Magnus returned from his expedition to the West, that he adopted the costume in use
in the western lands, and likewise many of his followers; that they went about barelegged,
having short tunics and also upper garments; and so many men called him Barelegged or
Barefoot.
A period of upwards of three centuries now
intervenes before we meet with any description of the Highland dress or
armour.
Andrew Wyntown, prior of Lochleven, who wrote
about 1420, speaks on more than one occasion in his metrical Chronicle of
"the wyld wykleyd Helandmen;" and under the year 1396, in reference to the celebrated
combat of thirty Highlanders against thirty, fought on the North Inch of Perth in that
year, in presence of King Robert III. and his Court, in order to settle the disputes of
two contending clans, he uses these words (vol. ii., p.374):—
At Sanct Johnestone besid
the Freria All thai
entrit in Barrens
Wyth Bow and Axe, Knyf and Swerd
To deil amang thaim thar last word.
Abbot Bower or Bowmaker (the
continuator of Fordun's Scotichronicon) wrote in the reign of James II. of Scotland; and,
in describing ,the arrangements for the above-mentioned noted combat in 1396, says (vol.
II, p. 420) that it was to be fought
By thirty men against thirty
of the opposite party, armed only with swords, bows and arrows, without mantles or
other armour except axes; and thus encountering that they should end their disputes,
and that peace should be established in the country.
The historian, John Major,
who wrote in 1512, notices the Highland dress in two different parts of his work. At p. 34
(Edit. Edinburgh, 1740, 40.), talking of the Highlanders generally, thus describes their
dress and armour:-
From the middle of the thigh to the foot they
have no covering for the leg, clothing themselves with a mantle instead of an upper
garment, and a shirt died with saffron. They always carry a how and
arrows, a very broad sword with a small halbert, a large dagger, sharpened on one side
only but very sharp, under the belt. In time of war they cover their
whole body with a
shirt of mail of iron rings, and fight in that. The common people of
the Highland Scots
rush into battle, having their body clothed with a linen garment
manifoldly sewed and
painted or daubed with pitch, with a covering of deerskin.
At p. 302, after mentioning
the defection of the Clan Chattan and Clan Cameron from Alexander Lord of the Isles,
who, in 1492, had raised the standard of rebellion against James I., Major thus
describes the customs of these clans, and it may be presumed of the
Highlanders at
large:-
They pass their days merrily in idleness, living
upon the goods of the poor. They use a bow and quiver, and a halbert well sharpened, as
they possess good veins of native iron. They carry large daggers placed
under the belt; their legs are frequently naked under the thigh;
in winter they carry
a mantle for an upper garment.
In the Accounts of the Lord
High Treasurer of Scotland in August 1538, we find the following entries regarding
a Highland dress made for King James V., on the occasion of that Monarch making a
hunting excursion to the Highlands:-
The following passage, showing how the
Highlanders came to be denominated Reds/lanks, is extracted from the
curious letter of John Elder, a Highland priest, to King Henry VIII.,
anno 1543. The letter itself has been printed at full length in the
Coflectanea de Rebus Albanicis, vol. 1., pp. 23 to 32
Moreover, wherfor they call us in Scotland
Reddshankes, and in your Graces dominion of England, roghe footide
Scottis, Pleas it your Mjestie to unrIerstande, that we of all people
can tollerat, suffir, and away best with colde, for bjthe somer and
wyntir, (excepte whene the froest is most vehemonte,) goynge alwaies
ir leggide and hair footide, our delite and pleasure i9 not onely in
huotynge of redd deir, wolfes, foxes, and graies, whereof we abounde,
and have greate plentie, but also in rynninge, leapinge, swymmynge,
shootynge, and thrawinge of dartis: therefor, in so moche as we use
and clelite so to go alwaies, the tendir delicatt gentilimen of
Scotland call us Redsbankes. And agayne in wynter, whene the froest is
mooste vehement (as I have saide) which we can not suffir hair footide,
so veill 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 skync, hey and hey, and settinge of our hair foote on
the insyde thereof, for neide of cunnyge shoemakers, by your Graces
pardon, we play the sutters; compasinge and measuringe so moche
thereof, as shall retche up to our ancklers pryckynge the uppir part
thereof also with holis, that the water may repass when it entrcs, and
stretclüde up with a stronge thwange of the same, meitand above our
saide ancklers, so, and pleas your noble Grace, we make our shoois:
Therfor, we usinge such maner of shoois, the roghe hairie syde outwart,
in your Graces dominion of England, we be callit roghe footide Scottis;
which maner of schoois (and pleas your Highnes) in Latyn be caUit
perone.c, wherof the poet Virgin makis mencioun, saying, That the olde
auncient Latyns in tyme of wars uside suche maner of schoos. And
althoughe a greate sorte of us Reddshankes go after this maner in our
countrethe, )-cit never the lea, and pleas your Grace, whene we come
to the courte (the Kinges grace our greate master being alyve)
waitinge on our Lordes and maisters, who also, for velvetis and silkis
be right well araide, we have as good garmentis as some of our
fellowis whihe gyve attendance in the court every daye.
In the account of the campaigns of the French
auxiliaries in Scotland in 1548-1540, given by Monsieur Jean de
Beaugué, one of the French officers, and first published at Paris in
1556, under the title of "L'Historie de la Guerre d' Ecosse," the
dress and arms of some Highlanders who were present at the siege of
Haddington by the French in 1549 are thus described (fol. 22, b.):—
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.
In the year 1552, an Act of Privy Council was
passed for the levy of two regiments of Highlanders, to form part of a
body of Scottish auxiliaries about to proceed to the assistance of the
King of France; and the Earl of Huntly being Lieutenant of the North
Highlands, where these men were to be raised, was directed to see that
the Highland soldiers were:
Substantiouslie accompturit with jack and plait,
steillbonett, sword, hucklair, new hois and new doublett of canvouse
at the lest; and slevis of plait orsplenttis, and ane spear of sax
clue lang or thairby.
Lindsay of Pitscottie, who wrote his history
about the year 1573, says of the Highland dress :-
The other pairts (of Scotland) northerne ar fuh
of montaines, and very rud and homlie kyrid of people doeth inhabite,
which is called the Reidschankis or Wyld Scottis. They be cloathed
with ane mantle, with ane shirt sallroned after the Irisch manner,
going bair legged to the knee. Thair weapones ar bowis and dartes,
with ane verie broad sword and ane dagger scharp onlie at the on syde.
An Act of Parliament, anno 1574, under the
Regency of the Earl of Morton, directing a general weapons/zawing
throughout Scotland, makes a distinction between the arms of the
lesser gentlemen and yeoman in the Lowlands and those in the
Highlands, as under:-
Lawland Arms.—Brigantinis, jakkis, steilbonettis,
slevis of plate or mailye, swerdis, pikkis, or speris of sex elnis
lang, culveringis, halbertis or tua handit swerdis.
Highland Arms.—Habirschonis, steilbonettis,
hektonis, swerdis, bowls and tiorlochis or culveringis.
John Lesley, Bishop of Ross, who published his
work "De origine, moribus et rebus gestis Scotorum," at Rome in 1578,
thus describes the arms and dress of the old Scots, which were still
in his time used by the Highlanders and Islanders (pp.56-58):—
In battle and hostile encounter their missile
weapons were a lance or arrows. They used also a two-edged sword,
which with the foot soldiers was pretty long, and short for the horse;
both had it broad, and with an edge so exceeding sharp that at one
blow it would easily cut a man in two. For defence, they used a coat
of mail woven of iron rings, which they wore over a leather jerkin,
stout and of handsome appearance, which we call an acton. Their whole
armour was light, that they might the more easily slip from their
enemies' hands if they chanced to fall into such a strait.
Their
clothing was made for use (being chiefly suited to war) and not for
ornament. All, both nobles and common people, wore mantles of one sort
(except that the nobles preferred those of several colours). These
were long and flowing, but capable of being neatly gathered up at
pleasure into folds. I am inclined to believe that they were the same
as those to which the ancients gave the name of brachae. Wrapped up in
these for their only covering, they would sleep comfortably. They had
also shaggy rugs, such as the Irish use at the present day, some
fitted for a journey, others to he placed on a bed. The rest of their
garments consisted of a short woollen jacket, with the sleeves open
below for the convenience of throwing their darts, and a covering for
the thighs of the simplest kind, more for decency than for show or a
defence against cold. They made also of linen very large shirts, with
numerous folds and wide sleeves, which flowed abroad loosely to their
knees. These, the rich coloured with saffron, and others smeared with
some greese to preserve thdm longer clean among the toils and
exercises of a camp, which they held it of the highest consequence to
practife continually. In the manufacture of these, ornament and a
certain attention to taste were not altogether neglected, and they
joined the different parts of their shirts very neatly with silk
thread, chiefly of a green or red colour.
Their women's attire was very becoming. Over a
gown reaching to the andes, and generally embroidered, they wore large
mantles of the kind already described, and woven of different colours.
Their chief ornaments were the braclets and neck. laces with which
they decorated their arms and necks.
George Buchanan in his history of Scotland,
first published in 1582, gives the following description of the dress
and armour of the Highlanders (Edit. Ultrajecti, 1669, 8vo, p. 24).-
They delight in marled clothes, specially that
have long stripes of sundry colours; they love chiefly purple and
blew. Their predecessors used short mantles or plaids of divers
colours sundry waies devided; and amongst some, the same custom is
observed to this day: but for the most part now they are browne, most
nere to the colour of the hadder; to the effect, when they lie amongst
the hadder, the bright colour of their plaids shall not bewray them;
with the which, rather coloured than clad, they suffer the most cruel
tempests that blowe in the open field in such sort, that under a
wrythe of snow, they sleepe sound. . . . Their armour wherewith they
cover their bodies in time of warre, is an iron bonnet and an
habbergion, side almost even to their heeleF. Their weapons against
their enemies are howes and arrowes. The arrowes are for tl;e most
part booked, with a barbie on either side, which, once entered within
the body, cannot be drawne forth againe, unless the wounde be made
wider. Some of them fight with broad swords and axes.
Nicolay d' Arfeville, Cosmographer to the King
of France, published at Paris, in the year 1583, a volume entitled,
"La Navigation du Roy d' Ecosse Jaques Cinquicsme du nom, autour de
son Royaume, et Isles Hebrides and Orchades, soubz la conduicte d'
Alexandre Lyndsay, excellent Pilote Ecossois." There is prefixed a
description, evidently by d' Arfeville himself, of "the Island and
Kingdom of Scotland," from which the following is an extract:
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-eged dagger. They are very swift of foot,
and there is no horse so swift as to outstrip them, as I have seen
proved several times, both in England and Scotland.
In a MS. History of the Gordons, by W. R,,
preserved in the Advocates' Library (Jac. 5th, 7, ii), the following
anecdote is given, as occurring about the year 1591 or 1592 :-
Angus, the son of Lauclan Macintosh, Chiefe of
the Clanchattan, with a great party attempts to surprise 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 compass
his intent. In the meantime, one creeps out under the shelter of some
old ruins, and levels with his piece at one of the Clanchattan
cloathed in a yellow warr coal (which amongst them is the badge of the
cheiftains 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 himself, whom his people carry away, and
conceills his death for many yeirs, pretending he was gone beyond
seas.
In 1594, when Red Hugh O'Donnell, Lord of
Tirconall in Ulster, was in rebellion against Queen Elizabeth, he was
assisted for some time by a body of auxiliaries from the Hebrides.
These warriors are described in the following terms, in the Life of
Hugh O'Donnell, originally written in Irish by Peregrine O'Clery, and
since translated by the late Edward O'Reilly, Esq. The curious extract
from Mr O'Reilly's translation which follows was communicated to the
editor by John D'Alton, Esq., barrister-at-law, Dublin :-
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.
Camden in his Britannia, first published in
1607, gives the following description of the Highland dress and armour:-
They are clothed after the Irish fashion, in
striped mantles, with their hair thick and long. In war they wear an
iron head-piece and a coat of mail woven with iron rings; and they use
bows and barbed arrows and broad swords.
John Taylor, "the King's Majestic's Water Poet,"
made an excursion to Scotland in the year 1618, of which he published
an amusing narrative under the title of "The Pennylesse Pilgrimage."
He describes the dress of the Highlanders in the following account he
gives of his visit to Braemar for the purpose of paying his respects
to the Earl of Mar and Sir William Moray of Abercaimey (Taylor's
Works, London, 1633, folio) :-
Thus, with extreme travell, ascending and
descending, mounting and alighting, I came at night to the place where
I would be, in the Brae of Marr, which is a large country, all
composed of such mountaines, that Shooter's lull, or Malvernes Hills,
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 Benawue with a
furrd'd mist upon his snowy 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 find the trudy noble and Rigbt Honourable Lords John
Erskine, Earle of Marr, James Stuart, Earle of Murray, George Gordon,
Earle of Engye, sonne and heire to the Marquise of Huntley, James
Erskin, Earle of Bughan, and John Lord Erakin, sonne and heire to the
Earle of Marr, with their Countesses, with my much honoured, and my
best assured and approved friend, Sir William Murray, Knight, of
Aberca.rny, and hundred of others, knights, esquires, and their
followers; all and every man in general in one habit, as if Licurgus
had been 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 Highland countries to hunt, where they doe
conforme themselves to the habite of the Highland men, who, for the
rnoste part, speake nothing but Irish; and in former time were those
people which were called red-shanks. Their habite is shooes with but
one sole apiece; stockings (which they call short hose) made of a
warme stuff 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 plaed about their shoulders,
which is a mantle of divers colours, much finer and lighter stuffe
than their hose, with blue fiat caps on their heads, a handkerchiefe
knit with two knots about their uecks; and thus are they attyred. Now,
their weapons are long bowes and forked arrowes, swords and targets,
harquebusses, muskets, durks, and Loquhabor-ases. With these arms 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 bring in their dogges; but if men be kind unto them, and be
in their habite, then are they conquered with kindnesses and 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 mines 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, Harrold, 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 dayes after, before I saw either house, come-field, or
habitation for any creature, but deere, wild horses, wolves, and such
like creatures, which made me doubt that I should never have seene a
house againe.
Defoe, in his "Memoirs of a Cavalier," written
about 1721, and obviously composed from authentic material, thus
describes the Highland part of the Scottish army which invaded England
in 1639, at the commencement of the great civil war. The Cavalier
having paid a visit to the Scottish camp to satisfy his curiosity,
proceeds (Edit. 1809, P. 201):-
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 call plaid, stripped across red and yellow,
with short cloaks of the same. These flows looked, when drawn out,
like a regiment of Merry-Andrews ready for Bartholomew fair. 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.
IN the beginning of 1678, a body of Highlanders,
"the Highland Host," as it was called, amounting to about io,00o men,
were brought from their native mountains and quartered upon the
western counties, for the purpose of suppressing the field meetings
and conventicles of the Presbyterians. But their irregular and
disorderly conduct soon made it necessary for Government to disband
them; and therefore we need the less wonder that they should on this
occasion be represented in satirical colours. The following is an
extract from a letter (Wodrow MSS., Advocates' Library, 4to, vol. xcix.,
No. 29), dated February 1st, 1678, and evidently written by an
eye-witness. The entire letter will be found in Blackwood's Magazine,
April 1817, p. 68 :-
We are now quartered in and about this town (Ayr?),
the Highlanders only in free quarters. It would be truly a pleasant
sight, were it at an ordinary weaponshaw, to ice this Highland crew.
You know the fashion of their wild apparel; not one of them bath
breeches, yet hose and shoes are their greatest need and most clever
prey, and they spare not to take them everywhere. In so much that the
committee here and the Counsel with you (as it is said) have ordered
some thousand pairs of shoes to be made to stand this great spoil. As
for their armes and other militarie accoutrements, it is not possible
for me to describe them in writing; here you may see bead-pieces and
steel- bonnets raised like pyramids, and such as a man would affirme
they had only found in chamber-boxes; targets and shields of the most
odde and antique forme, and powder- horns, hung in strings, garnished
with beaten nails and burnished brass. And truely I doubt not but a
man curious in our antiquities might in this host linde 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 hundreds of yeers. Among the ensigns
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.
William Cleland, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Earl
of Angus' Regiment, who was killed while gallantly defending his post
at Dunkeld against a party of Highlanders, soon after the Revolution,
wrote a satirical poem upon the expedition of the Highland Host in
1678, from which the following extracts are taken (Collection of
Poems. &c., 12mo, 1697, P.12):
William Sacheverell, Governor of the Isle of
Man, who was employed in 1688 in the attempt to recover the stores of
the Florida, one of the great vessels of the Spanish Armada (which was
blown up and sunk in the harbour of Tobermory, in Mull, exactly a
hundred years before), made in that year an excursion through the Isle
of Mull, and thence to Icolmkill. In 1702 he published, at London, an
account of this excursion, along with an account of the Isle of Man.
At page 129 of this volume, he thus describes the dress, armour, and
general appearance of the Highlanders as he saw them in the Isle of
Mull in 1688.
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 graceful
modesty, which never fails of attracting. The usual outward 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 fashion, 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 stroakes bold and masterly; what is
covered is only adapted to necessity. A thin brogue on the foot, a
short buskin of vanous 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 bangs 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 veterane regiments
found to their cost at Gillecrankee.
The Rev. James Brome, in his travels over
England, Scotland, and Wales, published at London, in 1700, 8vo, gives
(p. 183) the following description of the Highland dress and armour,
which, although partly translated from Buchanan, has yet in it
something original :-
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 into
decay. They go habited in mantles striped or streaked with divers
colours about their shoulders, which they call pladden, 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
hatergeon which comes down almost to their very heels; their weapons
against their enemies are bows and arrows, and they are generally
reputed good marksmen upon all occasions. Their arrows for the most
part are barbed and crooked, which once entered within the body,
cannot well be drawn out again unless the wound be made wider. Some of
them fight with broadswords and axes.
In Martin's description of the Western Isles of
Scotland (second edition, London, 1716, p. 206), we find the following
minute account of the dress formerly worn by the Islanders The first
habit wore by persons of distinction in the islands was the
lcni-croich, from the Irish word fern; which signifies a shirt, and
croich, saffron, because their shirt was dyed with that herb. The
ordinary number of ells used 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, waistcoat, 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 coloured, and others striped; the latter are as well shaped
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 anciently 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 for the other.
But persons of distinction wear the garb in fashion in the south of
Scotland.
The plai4 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 required 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 anything upon occasion.
Every isle differs from each other in the fancy of making plads, as to
the stripes in breadth and colours. This humour is as different
through the mainland 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 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 ancient dress wore by
the women, and which is yet worn by some of the vulgar, called arisad
is a white plad, having a few small stripes of black, blue, and red.
It reached 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 an ordinary pewter plate, the whole curiously engraved
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
centre 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 intermixed 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,
closed at the end as men's vests, with gold lace round them, having
plate buttons set with fine stones.
The head-dress was a fine kerchief of linen
strait about the bead, 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 ancient way of fighting was by set battles;
and for arms some had broad two-handed swords and beadpieces, and
others bows and arrows. When all their arrows were spent, they
attacked 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 wherever 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
Keliernkey), which soon brings the matter to an issue, and verifies
the observation made of them by your historians :—Aut Mars cito, aist
Victoria lata.
The following is the description of the Highland
dress given by Captain Burt, an English officer of engineers, employed
under Marshal Wade on the military roads through the Highlands, begun
in the year 1726. It is taken from his amusing work, "Letters from a
Gentleman in the North of Scotland" (2d edition, London, 1759), to
which such frequent reference has been made in the works of Sir Walter
Scott :-
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; thus they do to
prevent 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; thus, 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 those
among them who travel on foot, and have not attendants to carry them
over the waters, vary it into the quelt, which is a manner I am about
to describe.
The commoner 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 halfway
down the thigh, and the rest is brought over the shoulder, 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 near the
appearance of the people 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 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 a rough-footed hen or pigeon. These are
called quaxiants, 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..—(Vol. ii., p.
183.)
The plaid is the undress of the ladies at
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 ancle on one side; and the other part in folds hangs down from the
opposite arm.—( Vol. i., p. 100.)
The ordinary girls wear nothing upon their heads
until they are married or get a child, except sometimes a fillet of
red or blue coarse cloth, of which they are very proud; but often
their hair hangs down over the forehead, like that of a wild colt.
If they wear stockings, which is very rare, they
lay them in plaits. one above another, from the ankle up to the calf;
to make their legs appear, as near as they can, in the form of a
cylinder; but I think I have seen something like this among the poor
German refugee women and the Moorish men in London.—(Vol. ii., p.
i94.)
The same author thus describes the arms:
When any one of them is armed at all points,
heis loaded with a target, a firelock, a heavy broadsword, a
pistol-stock, and lock of iron, a dirk; and besides all these, some of
them carry a sort of knife, which they call a skeen.accles [sgian
achiaf:), from its being concealed in the sleeve near the armpit.—(p.
222.)
The blade [of the dirk) is straight, and
generally above a foot long, the back near an inch thick; the point
goes off like a tuck, and the handle is something like that of a
sickle. They pretend that they can't well do without it, as being
useful to them in cutting wood, and upon many othes occasions; but it
is a concealed mischief hid under the plaid, ready for the secret
stabbing, and in a close encounter there is no defence against it.—(p.
174.)
Mr Gough, in his additions to Camden's
Britannica (Edit. London, 1789, vol. iii., P. 390), gives the
following accurate description of the Highland dress and armour, as
they were to be found in the district of Breadalbane previous to the
proscription of the dress :-
The dress of the men is the brechan or plaid,
twelve or thirteen yards of narrow stuff, wrapped round the middle,
and reaching to the knees, often girt round the waist, and in cold
weather covering the whole body, even on the open hills, all night,
and fastened on the shoulders with a broche; short stockings tied
below the knee; Iruish, a genteeler kind of breeches, and stockings of
one piece; cuoranen, a laced shoe of skin, with the hairy side out,
rather disused; kelt orJillebeg, g.d., little plaid, or short
petticoat, reaching to the knees, substituted of late to the longer
end of the plaid; and lastly, the pouch of badger or other skin, with
tassels hanging before them. The Loc/a&r axe, used now only by the
Town Guard of Edinburgh, was a tremendous weapon. bows and arrows were
in use in the middle of the last century, now, as well.
as the broadsword and target, laid aside since
the disarming act, but the dirk, or ancient puglo, is still worn as a
dress with the knife and fork.
The women's dress is the kirch, or white linen
pinned round behind like a hood, and over the foreheads of married
women, whereas maidens wear only a swod or ribbon round their heads;
the tanac or plaid fastened over their shoulders, and drawn over their
heads in bad weather; a Plaited long stocking, called ossan, is their
high dress.
The following detail of the complete equipment
of a Highland chief, and instructions for belting the plaid, were
communicated by a Highland gentleman to Charles Grant, vzcomte de
Vaux, &c., &c., by whom they were printed in his "Mémoires de la
Maison de Grant," in 1796 (pp. 6-7):---
1. A full-trimmed bonnet. 2. A tartan jacket, vest, kilt, and cross
belt. 3. A tartan belted plaid. 4. A pair of hose, made up [of
cloth]. 5. A pair of stockings, do., with yellow garters. 6. Two
pair of brogs. 7. A silver mounted purse and belt. 8. A target
with spear. 9. A broadsword. 10. A pair of pistols and bullet
mould. 11. A dirk, knife, fork, and belt.
METHOD OF BELTING THE PLAID.—Being sewed, and the broad belt within
the keepers, the gentleman stands with nothing on but his shirt; when
the servant gets the plaid and belt round, he must hold both ends of
the belt, till the gentleman adjusts and puts across, in a proper
manner, the two folds or flaps before; that done, he tightens the belt
to the degree wanted; Olen the purse and purse-belt is put on loosely;
afterwards, the coat and waistcoat is put on, and the great low part
hanging down behind, where a loop is fixed, is to be pinned up to the
right shoulder, immediately under the shoulder-strap, pinned in such a
manner that the corner, or low- flyer behind, hang as low as the kilt
or hough, and no lower; that properly adjusted, the pointed corner or
flap that hangs at the left thigh, to be taken through the purse belt,
and to hang, having a cast back very near as low as the belt, putting
at the same time any awkward bulky part of the plaid on the left side
back from the haunch, stuffed under the purse-belt. When the shoulder
or sword belt is put on, the flyer that hangs behind is to be taken
through, and hung over the shoulder-belt.
N.B.—No kilt ought ever to hang lower than the bough or knee—scarcely
that far down.
[We make a present of these Notes to those ignorant Cockney
scribblers, and their unpatriotic Highland and Scottish imitators,
who, "to earn an honest penny," in Southern organs, belie their
country and its history, by, among other things, imposing on their
credulous readers, insisting that the Kilt and the Highland Dress are
the modern inventions of an Englishman.] |