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The cruel and unconstitutional method of punishing the
Highland rebels, and crushing the sting out of them, adopted by Cumberland, was at length
put a stop to about the month of August 1746, the Civil Courts successfully asserting
their supremacy over military licence and coercion. Parliament set itself to devise and
adopt such measures as it thought would be calculated to assimilate the Highlands with the
rest of the kingdom, and deprive the Highlanders of the power to combine successfully in
future against the established government. To effect these ends, Parliament, in 1746 and
1747, passed various Acts, by which it was ordained that the Highlanders should be
disarmed, their peculiar dress laid aside, and the heritable jurisdictions and wardholding
abolished.
Marshal Wade, in 1725, seems really to have succeeded in confiscating a very considerable
number of good, useful arms, although the pawky Highlanders managed to throw a glamour
over even his watchful eyes, and secrete many weapons for use when occasion should offer.
Still, that arms were scarce in the Highlands after this, is shown by the rude and
unmilitary character of the weapons possessed by the majority of the rebel army previous
to the battle of Prestonpans; there, many of the Highlanders were able to exchange their
irregular and ugly, but somewhat formidable weapons for government firelocks and bayonets.
Still Culloden, and the merciless oppression which followed, more than annulled all that
the Highlanders had gained in this and other respects by their previous success; so that
those who had the enforcing of the disarming Act would have comparatively little work to
do, and were not likely to meet with much opposition in performing it. Severe penalties
were threatened upon any who dared to keep possession of weapons after the Act came in
force; for the first offence the delinquent was liable to a heavy fine, to be sent to
serve as a soldier in America, or if unfit for service, to be imprisoned for six months.
Seven years transportation followed the second offence.
There can, we think, be no doubt as to the wisdom and prudence of this Act if judiciously
and thoroughly carried out, although the penalties certainly do seem too sever. It seems
to have accomplished its purpose: "the last law", says Dr Johnson, "by
which the Highlanders are deprived of their arms, has operated with efficacy beyond
expectations... the arms were collected with such rigour, that every house was despoiled
of its defence". Not only was this disarming of the Highlanders effectual in
preventing future rebellion, but also judged considerably to soften and render less
dangerous their daily intercourse with each other. Formerly it was quite a common
occurrence for the least difference of opinion between two Highlanders - whose bristling
pride is always on the rise - to be followed by high words and an ultimate appeal to
weapons, in which the original combatants were often joined by their respective friends,
the result being a small battle ending in one or more deaths and many wounds. The
Disarming Act tended to make such occurrences extremely rare.
There is certainly great room for doubting the wisdom which prompted the enactment that
followed the above, enforcing the discontinuance of the peculiar dress of the Highlanders.
By this Act, "Any persons within Scotland, whether man or boy (excepting officers and
soldiers in his majesty's service), who should wear the plaid, philibeg, trews, shoulder
belts, or any part of the Highland garb, or should use for great coats, tartans, or
parti-coloured plaid, or stuffs, should, without the alternative of a fine, be imprisoned
for the first conviction for six months, without bail, and on the second conviction be
transported for seven years". Of all the medicines administered by the government
physicians to the Highlanders at this time, this was certainly the most difficult for them
to swallow, and the one least calculated to serve the purpose for which it was intended.
As to the other enactment's made by the government to keep down rebellion, the Highlanders
could not but feel that those in power were only doing what common prudence dictated. But
this interference in a matter so personal and apparently so harmless as that of dress,
this prohibition of a costume so national, ancient (at least in fashion), and
characteristic as that of the Highlanders, seemed to them an act of mere wanton and
insulting oppression, intended to degrade them, and without purpose, to outrage their most
cherished and harmless prejudices. They seem to have felt it as keenly as any officers
would feel the breaking of his sword or the tearing off of his epaulets, or as the native
troops, previous to the Indian mutiny, felt the imposition of greased cartridges. It
humbled and irritated them far more than did any of the other acts, or even than the
outrages and barbarities which followed Culloden; instead of eradicating their national
spirit, and assimilating them in all respects with the Lowland population, it rather
intensified that spirit, and their determination to preserve themselves a separate and
peculiar people, besides throwing in their way an additional and unnecessary temptation to
break the laws. A multitude of prohibitory statutes is always irritating to a people, and
serves only to multiply the offences and demoralise a nation; it is generally a sign of
weakness and great lack of wisdom in a government. This enactment as to the Highland dress
was as unwise as religious intolerance, which is invariably a nurse of discord, a promoter
of sectarianism. This Act surrounded the Highland dress with a sort of sacred halo, raised
it into a badge or nationality, and was probably the means of perpetuating and rendering
popular the use of a habit, which, had it been left alone, might long ere now have died a
natural death, and been found only in our museums, side by side with the Lochaber axe, the
two-handed sword, and the nail-studded shield.
The sagacious President Forbes - to whom, had the government perceived clearly the
country's true interest, they would have entirely intrusted the legislation for the
Highlands - had but a poor opinion of the dress bill, as will appear from the following
letter of his to the Lord Lyon, dated July 8, 1746:- "The garb is certainly very
loose, and fits men inured to it to go through great fatigues, to make very quick marches,
to bear out against the inclemency of the weather, to wade through rivers, and shelter in
huts, woods, and rocks upon occasion; which men dressed in the low country garb could not
possibly endure. But then it is to be considered, that, as the Highlands are circumstanced
at present, it is, at least it seems to me to be, an utter impossibility, without the
advantage of this dress, for the inhabitants to tend their cattle, and to go through the
other parts of their business, without which they could not subsists; not to speak of
paying rents to their landlords. Now, being too many of the Highlanders have offended, to
punish all the rest who have not, and who, I will venture to say, are the greatest number,
in so severe a manner, seems to be unreasonable; especially as, in my poor apprehension,
it is unnecessary, on the supposal the disarming project be properly secured; and I must
confess, that the salvo which you speak of, of not suffering the regulation to extend to
the well-affected Clans, is not to my taste; because, though it would save them from
hardships, yet the making so remarkable a distinction would be, as I take it, to list all
those on whom the bill should operate for the Pretender, which ought to be avoided if
possible". General Stewart perhaps speaks too strongly when he remarks, that had the
whole Highland race been decimated, more violent grief, indignation, and shame, could not
have been excited among them, than by being deprived of this long inherited custom.
However, it should be remembered that all this was the legislation of upwards of 120 years
ago, that the difficulties which the government had to face were serious and trying, that
those who had the making of these laws were totally ignorant of the real character of the
Highlanders, and of the real motives which urged them to rebellion, and that even at the
present day legislative blunders do occasionally occur.
The means by which the Highlanders endeavoured to elude this law without incurring a
penalty, were ingenious and amusing. Stewart tells us that, "instead of the
prohibited tartan kilt, some wore pieces of a blue, green, or red thin cloth, or coarse
camblet, wrapped round the waist, and hanging down to the knees like the fealdag. The
tight breeches 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 trousers worn by Dutch skippers". The Act at first appears to have
been carried out with rigid strictness, these ingenious attempts at evading it being
punished somewhat severely; but, if we may judge from a trial which took place in 1757,
the administrators of the law had by that time come to regard such breaches with a lenient
eye. Although no doubt the law in course of time became practically obsolete, it was not
till 1782 that is was erased from the statute book. The Act of Abolition was repealed by
the Government obtaining the King's
assention on 1st July 1782. In the North there was great rejoicing. A proclamation
was issued in Gaelic and English which announced as follows:
Listen Men. This is bringing before all the Sons of the Gael, the King and
Parliament of Britain have forever abolished the act against the Highland Dress; which
came down to the Clans from the beginning of the world to the year 1746. This must
bring great joy to every Highland Heart. You are no longer bound down to the
unmanly dress of the Lowlander. This is declaring to every Man, young and old,
simple and gentle, that they may after this put on and wear the Truis, the Little Kilt,
the Coat, and the Striped Hose, as also the Belted Plaid, without fear of the Law of the
Realm or the spite of the enemies.
Since then
"tartans and kilts an' a', an' a'", have gradually increased in popularity,
until now they have become "the rage" with all classes of society, from John
o'Groats to Land's End; tartan plaids, of patterns which do great credit to the ingenuity
of the manufacturers, are seen everywhere adorning the graceful forms of ladies, and the
not so long since proscribed kilt being found not infrequently displaying itself in the
most fashionable London Assemblies.
See the Actual wording of the Act of
Proscription 1747 here |
