Title: Old and rare Scottish tartans, : with historical introduction and descriptive notices
Author: Stewart, Donald William
Language: English
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TARTANS, ***



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.

Variant spelling of Scots words have been left as printed.

When the caret ^ mark has been used within a word, this indicates that
the letter to the right of the mark will be raised in the original.

The equals sign (=) around a word or numbers (e.g. =162=) indicates
that they will show as bold in the final project.

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_

[Illustration]



    OLD AND RARE

    SCOTTISH TARTANS

    WITH

    HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTICES

    BY

    DONALD WILLIAM STEWART
    F.S.A. SCOT.

    [Illustration]

    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.


    PREFACE PAGES v-viii

    HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 1-56

    NOTES ON WORKS TREATING OF TARTANS 57-61

    TARTANS: WITH DESCRIPTIVE NOTICES NOS. 1a-45a

 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.



[Illustration]



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.

      Item in the first for ij elnis ane quarter elne of variant cullorit
  velvet to be the Kingis Grace ane schort Heland coit price of the elne
  vj^{lib} summa xiij^{lib} x^s.

      Item for iij elnis quarter elne of grene taffatyis to lyne the said
  coit with, price of the elne x^s summa xxxij^s vj^d.

  Item for iij elnis of Heland tertane to be hoiss to the Kingis Grace,
  price of the elne iiij^s iiij^d summa xiij^s.

  Item for xv elnis of holland claith to be syde Heland sarkis to the
  Kingis Grace, price of the elne viij^s summa vj^{lib}.

  Item for sewing and making of the said thre sarkis ix^s.

  Item for twa vnce of silk to sew thame x^s.

  Item for iiij elnis of rubeins to the handis of thame[14] ij^s.

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:—

[Illustration:

 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:—

 There is to be sold by roup in the shop of William Watson in the front
 of the New Exchange of Edinburgh upon Monday 3rd day of March next
 the whole goods which belonged to the said William Watson consisting
 of Tartans of all kinds poplins durants calicoes thick-sets hollands
 lawns broadcloths stockings handkerchiefs ribbons worsteds and a great
 variety of other goods too tedious to mention. The goods are all fresh
 and in good condition and fashionable.[74]

 James Baillie Merchant in Edinburgh has removed his warehouse to the
 Exchange fronting the Tron where Tartans or Plaids with other goods
 are sold as formerly.[75]

At length the enactment was repealed. The Marquis of Graham, afterwards
Duke of Montrose, when a Member of the House of Commons in 1782,
having brought in a Bill for the purpose, it was, according to General
Stewart, passed without a dissentient voice.[76]


22 GEORGE III., CAP. 63, 1782.

 Whereas by an act made in the nineteenth year of the reign of his
 late majesty King George the Second, entituled “An act for the more
 effectual disarming the Highlands in Scotland and for more effectually
 securing the peace of the said Highlands; and for restraining the
 use of the Highland dress;” ... it was, among other things, enacted
 that 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 [&c., as quoted, pp.
 36-7]. And whereas it is judged expedient that so much of the acts
 above mentioned as restrains the use of the Highland dress should
 be repealed: Be it therefore enacted by the King’s most Excellent
 Majesty, by and with the advice of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal
 and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority
 of the same, That so much of the acts above mentioned, or any other
 act or acts of Parliament, as restrains the use of the Highland dress,
 be, and the same are hereby repealed.

The repeal of the enactment, received so joyously by the Highlanders,
was celebrated by the famous poet, Duncan Ban M’Intyre, in the
following lines, which are freely adapted from the Gaelic:—

  Indulgent laws at last restore
  The noble dress our fathers wore.
  Exulting, let us then resume
  The bonnet blue and eagle plume;
  The tartan coat and jaunty vest
  And belted plaid become us best.
  With limbs unchained and footsteps free,
  The pleated kilt just shows the knee;
  In hose and brogues we’ll roam at will
  O’er purple moor and heather hill.

How quickly the dress was resumed—at all events in certain portions of
the country—is shown by the following testimony. One of the Hebridean
missionaries of the Church of Scotland, whose travels among the people
extended over the eight years from 1782 to 1790, observes:—

 The men wear the short coat, the feilabeg, and the short hose, with
 bonnets sewed with black ribbons around their rims, and a slit behind
 with the same ribbon in a knot. Their coats are commonly tartan,
 striped with black, red, or some other colour, after a pattern made,
 upon a stick, of the yarn, by themselves, or some other ingenious
 contriver. Their waistcoats are either of the same, or some such
 stuff; but the feilabegs are commonly of breacan, or fine Stirling
 plaids, if their money can afford them.

 At common work they use either short or long coats and breeches made
 of striped cloth, and many of them very coarse, according to their
 work. Their shirts are commonly made of wool; and however coarse
 they may appear to strangers, they are allowed to conduce much to
 the health and longevity for which this country is famous; as I have
 known them eighty, ninety, and some even a hundred years old, in these
 islands, and able to do their daily work.

 When they go in quest of the herring, they dress something like the
 sailors, but of coarser cloth, with hats over their eyes, to mark the
 fish the better. They are careful about drying their nets, and other
 fishing tackle.

 Their brogues (shoes) are made of cow or horse leather, and often of
 seals skins, that are commonly well tanned by the root of tormintile,
 which they dig out from the hillocks, and uncultivated lands, about
 the sea-side. This, properly pounded and prepared, without either lime
 or bark, is sufficient to make the hides pliant and fit for wearing.
 It answers their purpose much better than leather tanned with lime
 or bark, because they seldom grow hard or shrink when dried, even
 though wet all day; which is not the case with such as are burnt with
 lime. They never use tan-pits, but bind the hides fast with ropes,
 and hold them for several days in some remote solitary stream, until
 the hair begins to come off, of its own accord; and after that, the
 tormintile roots are applied for bark, as above described. Such of
 the men as can afford them, wear large forest coats above their other
 garb, especially on Sundays, or at the public meetings, as weddings,
 burials, or fairs. Either in this or a coarse breacan (_i.e._ the
 plaid) with their best apparel, they appear on these solemn occasions;
 but many of those who are poor, and cannot afford it, often do and
 must appear in their tattered clothes and dirty shirts, without either
 stockings or brogues, quite bare-footed, even in frost and snow, in
 distress sufficient to extort compassion from every person, but such
 tyrants as are the cause of so much misery to those starved creatures,
 who are often creeping along with white or striped petticoats
 belonging to their wives, or daughters and sisters, about their
 shoulders.

 The women wear long or short gowns, with a waistcoat and two
 petticoats, mostly of the stripes or tartan, as already described,
 except the lower coat, which is white. The married wives wear linen
 mutches, or caps, either fastened with ribbons of various colours, or
 with tape straps, if they cannot afford ribbons. All of them wear a
 small plaid, a yard broad, called _guilechan_, about their shoulders,
 fastened by a large broach. The broaches are generally round, and of
 silver, if the wearer be in tolerable circumstances: if poor, the
 broaches, being either circular or triangular, are of baser metal and
 modern date. The first kind has been worn time immemorial even by the
 ladies. The _arrisats_ are quite laid aside in all this country, by
 the different ranks of women; being the most ancient dress used by
 that class. It consisted of one large piece of flannel, that reached
 down to the shoe, and fastened with clasps below, and the large silver
 broach at the breast, while the whole arm was entirely naked. The
 ladies made use of the finer, while common women used coarser kinds
 of flannel, or white woollen cloths. The married women bind up their
 hair with a large pin into a knot on the crown of their heads, below
 their linens; and the unmarried frequently go bare-headed, with their
 hair bound up with ribbons, or garters. They often wear linen caps,
 called mutches, particularly on Sabbaths. Many of the more wealthy
 appear at church with a profusion of ribbons and head-dresses, with
 cloaks and high-heeled shoes. Those whose circumstances cannot admit
 of that, must appear with one of their petticoats, either tartan,
 or of one colour, around their shoulders, on Sundays, as well as on
 week days. They seldom travel any where without this appendage; nay,
 in the house, when at such work as will admit of it; seeing it would
 be thought naked in a woman to go without it: it also defends them
 from the inclemency of the weather. Most of them wear napkins, or
 handkerchiefs, on their necks; and many of the richest of them use
 silk ones, whether black or spotted, as suits their fancies.

 Frequently the old women wear little _guilechans_, (small plaids)
 about their shoulders, and woollen hoods about their heads, with very
 coarse linen under them fastened with a pin below their chins. The
 _breeid_, or curtah, a fine linen handkerchief fastened about married
 women’s heads, with a flap hanging behind their backs, above the
 guilechan, is mostly laid aside.

 Most of the poorer tenants cannot afford to wear brogues in Summer,
 unless they are obliged to be treading among the sharp rocks on the
 shores, at their master’s kelp, when the master must supply them,
 except they can afford to provide for themselves. It would be too
 great a luxury for a poor one to use them, unless at the same, or
 similar rugged employment. Nothing short of extreme necessity obliges
 them to appear in public meetings in these humiliating garbs; for
 otherwise their pride would revolt at the very thought of such shabby
 dresses.[77]

Gough thus describes the dress of the Highlanders in the district of
Breadalbane about 1789:—

 The dress of the men is the brechan or plaid, 12 or 13 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; truish, a genteeler kind
 of breeches, and stockings of one piece; cuoranen, a laced shoe of
 skin with the hairy side out, rather disused; kelt or fillebeg, q. 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 skins, with tassels hanging before them. The Lochaber 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 _pugio_, 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 _snood_ 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.[78]

These notes bring us down to the present century, and the account of
works written on the subject which follows will give our readers some
idea of the present state of the literature relating to tartan. Before
concluding, however, it is worth while to make some special references
to one of these works, the _Vestiarium Scoticum_.[79] John Sobieski
Stuart’s account of the origin of the work is as follows:—

 The tract now published in the following volume, is printed from a
 MS. in my possession, collated with the transcript of another in the
 Library of the Monastery of St Augustine in Cadiz. It is a small
 black-letter quarto of the sixteenth century, containing thirty-four
 pages of vellum, illuminated with small, plain, capitals, such as the
 ordinary initials of inferior missals. It was once in the possession
 of the historian and faithful adherent of Queen Mary, John Lesley,
 bishop of Ross, as appears by his signature in the first leaf—“Jo.
 Rossen.” Immediately below is noted, in his small neat hand, “Primo
 Maii, 1571, I tuck my feaver and ageu at ix huris at ny^t.”... Some
 of the many calamities which scattered the adherents of the house of
 Stuart, and brought together many of their persons and their remains
 in the Catholic seclusions of the Continent, conveyed the _Vestiarium
 Scoticum_, and many papers of the Bishop of Ross into the Library of
 the Scots College at Douay. During the long incognito of the prince
 Charles Edward, between the years 1749 and 1754, he visited that
 seminary, for purposes which expired in the obscurity wherein they
 were planned; and, during his stay, he received from the fathers many
 papers which had belonged to Queen Mary, her adherents, and King James
 the Seventh. Among others, of a very different nature, was found the
 Bishop of Ross’s copy of the _Vestiarium Scoticum_. This copy, now in
 my possession, being the oldest and the most perfect, has served as
 the original to the present publication.

 The next in value, that which belonged to the Library of the Convent
 of St Augustine, is a small paper folio, bound in panel, written in
 the ordinary running hand of the time of James the Sixth. By the
 signature and date, it had at one time belonged to “ane honerabil man
 Maister James Dunbarre w^tin y^e burg of Innernesse, in y^e yeir of
 God ain thousand sax hunder and aucht yeirs.” By a subsequent name
 upon the cover—“_Johan O’Neil_, cleric”—it had probably passed
 into the hands of one of the many expatriated Irish priests, who
 were driven to the Continent, during the reigns of Elizabeth and
 James the Sixth; and, in this revolution, probably found its way into
 the Monastery of St Augustine. Spain was at that time the principal
 sanctuary for the Irish and Island refugees; and it is not improbable
 that the possessor of the volume might have been one of the followers
 of the unfortunate James M^cDonald of Isla and the Glens, who, on his
 expulsion from Ulster and the Isles, fled to the Court of Philip the
 Third. Between this copy and that of the Bishop of Ross there are but
 very few variations, and almost all, apparently, accidental omissions
 of the copyist: wherever they occur they have been noted on the margin
 of this edition.

 Besides these copies, there is, also, in my possession, a third, of a
 much lower character and later period, obtained from an old Ross-shire
 Highlander named John Ross, one of the last of the sword-players, who
 may yet be remembered by those who recollect the porters of Edinburgh
 twenty years ago. It is an inferior, modern copy, bearing the stigmats
 of various barbarous hands, which have inflicted upon its pages divers
 attempts to transmit to posterity the names of a certain John and
 Marye Inglis, who have borne testimony to their familiarity with its
 leaves in the year 1721. It is written with negligence and inaccuracy,
 in a very ill hand, and with several substitutions, variations, and
 omissions, which, in some instances, appear to have been the result
 of carelessness; in others, the attempts of an illiterate transcriber
 to adapt the work to his ideas of the clans in his own time. It may,
 indeed, be conjectured that it was transcribed from an original which,
 in some degree, differed from the copies of the Bishop of Ross and
 the Library of St Augustine, since the names of several clans and
 low-country families follow in a succession different from these MSS.
 This, however, might have been the result of accidental omission and
 subsequent re-entry.... These last [the three preceding copies] are
 the only MSS. of that work which have fallen under my observation;
 but, according to a notice communicated by Lord Lovat, it appears that
 another was long in possession of the Frasers of Inchberry. Since the
 removal of that family it is supposed to have been taken to America,
 and is described as a small quarto MS. in black letter, containing not
 only a description, but illuminations, of all the clan tartans. If
 this tract was not the _Vestiarium Scoticum_, it must have been one
 containing a more elaborate illustration of tartans than the work of
 Sir Richard Urquhart, and of which I have discovered no other copy.

 Of the author of the _Vestiarium_ I have discovered no illustration,
 and of his period there is little evidence. In his Envoi, he intimates
 that he had spent the greater part of his life in military service,
 and that, at various times, he had composed some works upon heraldry,
 hunting, and the use of arms; but of these productions I am not aware
 of any existing notices; and I know of no one of his name who has
 pursued such studies, except the genealogical knight, _Sir Thomas_,
 who deduced the descent of his family from Adam.[80]

The contents of the _Vestiarium_ are remarkable. In a short
introduction the author rebukes his countrymen for their adoption of
foreign modes to the neglect of those of their ancestors, and, lest
the old Scots fashions should sink into oblivion, as in the case
of other nations, “I have taken on hande to compil accordant to my
pvir habylitye, a trewe ensample off alle or the maiste parte, the
pryncyppul tartanis of Scotlonde sic as I may discerne them.” A short
treatise “of the settiss or stryppis and coullouris of terteinis”
follows. Then come in succession the tartans of the chief Highland
clans, each tartan being described with a technical minuteness which
permits of their representation, either by way of illustration or in a
fabric, with perfect ease and certainty. The tartans of the clans of
the lesser families or houses in the Highlands, and, after them, those
of the Low Country or Border clans, are detailed in a similar manner.
Short notes on the plaids worn by women, and on hose and trews, with a
list of the badges of clans and families, and a poetical conclusion,
complete the volume.

As to the dates when the three works on which the _Vestiarium_ is based
came into his possession, the editor is explicit in reference to only
one—that obtained from John Ross, the old swordsman, of which he got
possession in 1819.[81] The two others were, however, several years in
his possession before publication, and he had apparently no intention
of giving their contents to the world until urged to do so by the late
Sir Thomas Dick Lauder. In 1829 Sir Thomas was staying at Relugas House
in Morayshire, while John Sobieski Stuart and his brother, Charles
Edward Stuart, under the name of Hay, or Hay Allan, were occupants of
Logie, about a mile from Relugas. Sir Thomas brought the MSS. under
Sir Walter Scott’s notice in a letter dated from Relugas 1st June
1829, in which he gives a general account of the only one of the three
manuscripts referred to in the introduction to the _Vestiarium_ which
was ever in his possession—viz., John Ross’s copy[82]—from which the
transcript now in possession of Miss Dick Lauder was made.[83] It was
lent him for the purpose by John Sobieski Stuart, and it contains
those skits which it was prophesied at the time would cast ridicule on
the original.[84] He writes to Sir Walter:—

 I wish to communicate to you an account of a very curious manuscript
 which I have great hope may interest you as much as it has done me.
 It is entitled _Liber Vest[i]arium Scotia, otherwise clippit the
 Garderope of Scotland, Beand ane Mirrour to shewe the true Tertaynis
 of the principal Scottyshe famylies, be Schyr Richarde Urquharde
 Knychte_. The original belongs to Mr Allan Hay, father to the Messrs
 Hay, now residing at Logie House, within a mile of this place. It is
 written in beautifully clear and distinct black letter, and belonged
 to Lesly, Bishop of Ross, the historian, whose autograph is on it in
 the shape of a curious memorandum. To give you some idea of the style
 of the manuscript I shall copy the following commencement of the
 preface, in which the time when it was written is sufficiently marked
 by internal evidence:—

 Forasmeikle, &c. [The remainder of the quotation from the introduction
 is not written into the copy of Sir Thomas’s letter retained by him.]

 After this follows a dissertation on the rules for making tartan,
 which is prefaced thus:—

 First, for the manner of making and devising of tertennis, &c. [Here
 again the quotation stops short.]

 From this last quotation we are made aware of a fact of which I
 confess myself to have been always very sceptical hitherto. I
 mean that tartans were some centuries ago in use universally over
 Scotland, and accordingly the author of the manuscript, after giving
 us first descriptions of thirty-eight different tartans belonging
 to the principal Highland families, and eleven of the “terteinis of
 lesser famylies or houses, the quhilk be comand frae the cheff houses
 and original clannes,” goes on with “Here begynnethe off the Laich
 Cuntre Pairtes and Border clannes,” of which families he gives us the
 description of twenty-nine tartans. Among these last you may believe
 the tartan of the illustrious family of Scott is not forgotten. The
 descriptions are all so very particular that it is quite impossible
 to mistake them, and as I wished to possess myself of a copy of the
 manuscript (which I wrote out myself), Mr Charles Stuart Hay, with
 very great politeness, agreed to illuminate it for me, with drawings
 of all the tartans, a work which occupied him unceasingly for above
 three weeks, by which labour he has made me a most beautiful book.
 There is no printed copy of the manuscript, but the Messrs Hay,
 Junior, are in possession of a manuscript copy which is very old,
 and I have heard of another manuscript copy of it which did exist
 somewhere in Strathglass, but which has been ineffectually sought for
 as yet. The original came into the family of Mr Allan Hay from the
 unfortunate Prince Charles Stuart. So far as I know it is now the
 oldest and best authority (perhaps I should say the only authority)
 on the subject of tartans; and in these times of rage for tartans,
 when the most uncouth spurious modern “coats of many colours” are
 every day invented, manufactured, christened after particular names
 and worn as genuine, a book of this kind containing authority so
 invaluable must become extremely popular. At present a woful want
 of knowledge on the subject prevails. Some of the clans are at this
 moment ignorantly disputing for the right to the same tartans, which,
 in fact, belongs to none of them, but are merely modern inventions for
 clothing Regimental Highlanders. Hardly does one of the clans now wear
 its tartan with its legitimate sets, stripes, and spranges perfect in
 all their parts. The Messrs Hay have already instructed several of
 the chiefs of clans who have had webs of their true tartans made; and
 as one instance of this I may mention that Cluny Macpherson appeared
 at the late fancy ball at Edinburgh in his beautiful and genuine
 tartan as taken from the MS.: viz., “thre wyde stryppes of black
 upon a white fielde, and throuchout the mydward black ain yellowe,
 and upon the quite sett twa spranges of crimsoun of ten thredis;”
 which excited universal admiration. Macleod has got a sketch of his
 splendid tartan, “three black stryps upon ain yellow fylde,” &c. His
 and MacLauchlane’s, both families of Norwegian origin, being the
 only yellow fields. Comyn, who was quite ignorant of his tartan, has
 now worn more than ever at the Caledonian balls in London his “twa
 wyd strypis of greine upon ain scarlatt field,” &c.; and so of many
 more whom the Messrs Hay have enlightened as being their particular
 friends. A curious cor[r]oboration of the accuracy of the manuscript
 (if cor[r]oboration had been wanting) occurred in the case of Lovat.
 Talking of his tartan, he told the Messrs Hay that, although the
 tartan he then wore was that which was always worn by the Clan Fraser
 as their clan tartan, yet some old people of the name maintained
 that there should be a white sprainge through it. The Messrs Hay, on
 consulting the manuscript, found the tartan to be exactly as worn
 by Lovat, with the addition of the white sprainge, and described
 as follows:—“Frizzel hath fovr strippes upone ain scarlatt fyeld
 quhairoff the outerward be of greine, and the innerward of blewe,
 and upon the scarlatte sette ys ane sprainge of quhite of saxteine
 threids,” &c., &c. I need not mention any more but that of Scott,
 which is as follows:—“Scott hathe four stryppis upon ain fyeld,”
 &c., &c. But to illustrate this perfectly to you I have begged of
 my friend, Mr Charles Stuart Hay, to make for you the accompanying
 colored drawing, on the back of which you have the different colors
 accurately laid down of their proper relative breadths, and the
 whole of the proper size for weaving, so that you have only to send
 the sheet to Messrs Wilson, Carpet and Tartan manufacturers at
 Bannockburn, who will make you any quantity of the tartan, soft, hard,
 or delicately fine merino, as you may specify, and in every respect
 perfectly correct as to pattern, they having already executed many
 orders from similar drawings and directions by Mr Hay. So I hope
 to see both you and Miss Scott doing honour to the ancient garb of
 your antecessors (_sic_), though ladies, as you will afterwards see,
 being rather difficult to fix, were left very much to their “awin
 fauntasyes” in such matters. That I may complete the account of this
 curious manuscript I may add that after the tartans have been gone
 through we have a dissertation of “womenis quhite plaids clyppit
 Arryssadis, the quhilk are not orderit after their clannes, but after
 their awin conceits and as it liketh them.” Then we have a short
 treatise of “Hoses and Trewsis,” and then “Hereafter followethe of
 senyes of divers clannes,” &c., in the list of which I find “Scotte,
 Blaeberrye,” with which I hope Miss Scott will adorn her head at the
 next ball she honours with her presence, and so make war fairly under
 her proper badge. The whole concludes, as most books of those times
 were wont to do, with a L’Envoy in the following lines:—

 Dames and Lordyngis. [Here the quotation ends in Sir Thomas’s copy. It
 has been considered unnecessary to reprint the lines with which the
 _Vestiarium_ concludes.]

 What Sir Richard Urquhart the author was I have not yet made out, but
 presume that he was of the Cromarty family, though I confess I cannot
 find one of the name corresponding to the times in the celebrated
 Urquhart genealogy, which begins with Adam. I think I have now told
 you enough of this curious MS. to lead you to approve of the advice I
 have given to the brothers Messrs Hay, that they ought to publish it
 without one moment’s delay, illustrated with minute specimens of all
 the tartans described in it, with a scale attached to each, so as to
 make one aware of the proper size the cloth should be wrought. This,
 I am happy to say, I have prevailed on them to do, and the plan they
 think of is to print it at their own expense after they shall have
 got as many subscribers as will ensure their being no losers; and as
 engravings would not only be deadly as to cost, but totally inadequate
 to the purpose of giving specimens of the tartans, and, indeed,
 useless where the effect cannot be given without colouring them with
 the same trouble that is bestowed on a drawing, they have resolved to
 get a given number of yards of silk ribbon woven of each pattern of
 the breadth of ladies sash ribbons, whence pieces of perhaps four or
 six inches in length may be cut and neatly laid down with paste on
 drawing paper, which will make a cheap, novel, very beautiful, and
 most satisfactory illustration to the work, and render it in every
 respect a popular as it will be an elegant national work for the
 drawing-room table, which cannot fail to be much in request.[85] I
 mean to write to Mr Cadell and the Taits to get information for the
 gentlemen as to the expense of printing and publishing the work, and
 they have already written to Wilson at Bannockburn about the silk
 ribbons. If you should happen to see Mr Cadell, your noticing the
 work to him would be very obliging; and if you find my description
 of it sufficiently interesting to induce you to talk of it to your
 friends, and, above all, if you could notice it publicly at the Royal
 and Antiquarian Societies, and at the Highland Society, and Celtic
 Society, Border Club, &c., you would do more good in paving the way
 for its success than a thousand advertisements, and would confer a
 very great obligation on the Messrs Hay.[86]

Sir Walter’s reply is dated 7th June 1829. That portion of it relating
to the present subject is here transcribed:—

 I need not say I have the greatest interest in the MS. which you
 mention, in case it shall really prove an authentic document. There
 would not be the least difficulty in getting the Bannatyne Club to
 take, perhaps, 100 copies, or obtaining support enough so as at the
 least to preclude the possibility of loss to the ingenious Messrs Hay
 Allans. But I think it indispensable that the original MS. should be
 sent for a month or so to the Register House, under the charge of the
 Deputy Register, Mr Thomson, that its antiquity be closely scrutinised
 by competent persons. The art of imitating ancient writing has got
 to a considerable perfection, and it has been the bane of Scottish
 literature and disgrace of her antiquities that we have manifested an
 eager propensity to believe without inquiry and propagate the errors
 which we adopt too hastily ourselves. The general proposition that
 the Lowlanders ever wore plaids is difficult to swallow. They were of
 twenty different races, and almost all distinctly different from the
 Scoto-Irish, who are the proper Scots, from which the Royal Family
 are descended. For instance, there is scarce a great family in the
 Lowlands of Scotland that is not to be traced to the Normans, the
 proudest as well as most civilised race in the eleventh and twelfth
 centuries. Is it natural to think that, holdin[g] the Scots in the
 contempt in which they did, they would have adopted their dress?...
 I could shew, I think, that there is no period in Scottish history
 when the manners, language, or dress of the Highlanders were adopted
 in the low country. They brought them with them from Ireland, as
 you will see from the very curious prints in Derricke’s picture of
 Ireland, where you see the chief and followers of the wild Irish in
 the ordinary Highland dress _tempore_ Queen Elizabeth. Besides this,
 where has slept this universal custom that nowhere, unless in this
 MS., is it even heard of? Lesley knew it not, though the work had
 been in his possession, and his attention must have been called to
 it when writing concerning the three races of Scots, Highlanders,
 Lowlanders, and bordermen, and treating of their dress in particular.
 Andrew Borde knows nothing of [it], nor the Frenchman who published
 the geographical work from which Pinkerton copied the prints of the
 Highlander and Lowlander, the former in a frieze plaid or mantle,
 while the Lowlander strides away in a cloak and trunk hose, like his
 neighbour the Fleming. I will not state other objections, though so
 many occur, that the authenticity of the MS. being proved, I would
 rather suppose the author had been some tartan weaver zealous for
 his craft, who wished to extend the use of tartan over the whole
 kingdom. I have been told, and believe till now, that the use of
 tartan was never general in Scotland (Lowlands) until the Union, when
 the detestation of that measure led it to be adopted as the national
 colour, and the ladies all affected tartan screens.

To this letter Sir Thomas sent a reply dated 20th July 1829:—

 The Messrs Hay have shewn no backwardness to obey your wishes [_i.e._,
 to send the MS. for inspection]. I read to them that part of your
 letter intended for their ears (keeping, of course, strictly to
 myself all that was confidential) [Sir Thomas, no doubt, refers to
 the second portion of Sir Walter’s letter relating to the descent of
 John Sobieski Stuart and his brother Charles Edward, which, as having
 no relation to the subject of this work, has not been reproduced],
 when they displayed every possible readiness to get the older copy of
 the MS. sent from London, where it is in their father’s possession,
 to Edinburgh, as you desire; and accordingly they took an early
 opportunity of writing to their father to beg he would send it without
 delay. Meanwhile they immediately put into my hands the old copy of
 the MS. in their possession,[87] with full powers to transmit it to
 you. In the event of their father having any doubt about parting with
 what he values as the apple of his eye, they suggested the alternative
 of the MS. being examined in London by Meyrick, or any of the people
 about the British Museum, or any one else, in short, in whose judgment
 in such matters you could have confidence. I may repeat again that
 there are two copies of the MS. in their family, viz., that which is
 believed to be the original, which is in possession of the father in
 London, and that which is presumed to be a copy (though a copy of
 above a century old). The latter is in my custody at this moment,
 ready to be sent you. But I very much regret that the father not only
 refuses the request made to him about sending down the London MS.,[88]
 but also expresses the strongest objection to its publication. I shall
 copy for you what he says by-and-bye, but before doing so I shall
 copy for you the description of the London or original MS., which
 description was sent down some time ago at my request in a letter from
 the father:—

 My copy of the _Vest[i]arium Scotiæ_ is written on vellum in the
 common black letter hand of the sixteenth century, with illuminated
 capitals at the heads of sections of the kind used in ordinary
 missals. There are thirty-four pages in the book, which is a small
 quarto, bound in white vellum, and stamped and gilt. I never heard
 of any other MS. copy of the work than that in our possession, but
 there was a printed copy made by order of the late prince, with an
 introduction describing the book and containing facsimiles of the
 capitals, and the Bishop of Ross’s date. By the former it appeared
 that the original had been in the Library of the Scots College at
 Douay, and from it was removed, with many other of the MSS. of that
 body, and presented to His Royal Highness some time afterwards. The
 printed copy was in possession of His Royal Highness the Cardinal of
 York a short time before his death, and is supposed to have fallen
 into the hands of the English Government, and along with what they
 obtained of the Stuart papers.

 In addition to this information about the MS. (which I asked for that
 I might put it as a memorandum on my own copy), Mr Hay sent me a
 traced facsimile of the Bishop of Ross’s name and notandum, which I
 read, “Jo. Rossen, primo Maii 1571. I tuck my feaver and ageu at ix
 huris at ny^t.” This I now enclose for your inspection, with a request
 that you will have the goodness to return it to me safely when you
 have had leisure to satisfy yourself perfectly with it, as I mean to
 paste it on to a blank leaf in my copy. It is not impossible that you
 may know of or hear of some signatures of John Leslie’s to be found
 in some of the public collections in Edinburgh. If so, it would be
 curious to compare this facsimile with it. And now with regard to the
 father’s letter refusing to send the original MS. I copy it _verbatim_
 from the first half sheet of it, which his son has torn off and sent
 me:—

 _July 5th, 1829._—MY DEAREST IAN,—I have been reflecting upon all
 which you request concerning the MS., but you know that there are
 certain things about which I never consult either the feelings or the
 opinions of others, but act up to previous unalterable determinations;
 therefore I feel sorry that you did not consult me before you gave any
 acquiescence to the purpose of publishing the _Garderope of Scotland_,
 as you ought to have remembered the private memorandums written on
 the blank leaves, and that it was impossible, coupled with other
 circumstances, to subject them to common curiosity, which neither
 I nor you can think of for a moment to reclaim the whole history
 and use of tartan from oblivion. [As to the opinion of Sir Walter
 Scott, inasmuch as I never heard it respected among antiquaries as of
 the least value, it is quite indifferent to me.][89] I wish for no
 connection with the public either for me or mine, or anything in my
 possession; and if you had kept still more retired from observation
 the relics of which I gratified you and Charles by the keeping, it
 would have been a much better proof of your regard for them and
 respect to the memory of those to whom they belonged. Love to all, and
 believe me, my dearest Ian, your affectionate father,

  J. T. STUART HAY.

Sir Thomas Dick Lauder considered this refusal to be quixotic; but
it was absolute. He addresses himself at great length to the task of
proving the high character for veracity of the Messrs Hay, and he
adds:—

 I cannot for a moment believe that the brothers Allan Hay could be
 guilty of the fraud of attempting to foist a forged manuscript upon
 me. And, indeed, for what purpose should they attempt so base a thing?
 Not, certainly, from a thirst for publication, because they never
 entertained the idea of printing it until repeatedly urged to do so by
 myself and some other friends who happened to see it, not through any
 ostentation of theirs, but more as matter of accident than anything
 else, for they did not seem to set any great value on their old copy.

 But although you may be very ready to acquit the Allan Hays of being
 the impostors, yet it must be admitted that the MS. may nevertheless
 be a forgery. But if the Allan Hays be acquitted and their story be
 believed, we then establish that, if there be forgery at all, it must
 be a forgery of some antiquity. Now, in trying this alternative I
 confess I think it much more difficult to believe that any one could
 have undertaken so tedious and fruitless a labour in times when MSS.
 were much less cared about than they are now, than to believe that the
 MS. in question really is what it pretends to be. And I do think that
 the internal evidence of the manuscript itself is very strongly in
 its favour, and that it is extremely unlikely that any one could have
 constructed a cheat with so many genuine characters about it. With all
 this, I must also own that the mere circumstance that Sir Walter Scott
 doubts is enough to shake the firmest opinion.

To Sir Thomas Dick Lauder’s letter of 20th July Sir Walter Scott
replied on 19th November, and that portion of his reply which relates
to the _Vestiarium_ is in the following terms:—

 As for the _Vestiarium_, without pretending to know how it may have
 been got up, it is not, as Audrey says, a true thing, and, allowing
 the ingenuity of your arguments, one is obliged to allow so many
 extremely improbable circumstances and mere possibilities, that if
 any single one of them is not so weighty as to break down the whole
 system, their combined influence certainly will do so.

 I cannot believe there is any copy of such a work among the Cardinal
 Duke of York’s papers. I am one of the commissioners for examining
 these papers, which are to a certain extent already catalogued. I
 will, however, keep a look out for the work of Master Urquhart,
 which I think his name is. To suppose Lowlanders to be Highlanders
 we must suppose that they spoke the Gaelick, and held the system of
 clanship. Without this there could be no occasion for wearing clan
 tartans. Now, every law or regulation concerning clanship is limited
 to the Highlands and to the Borders, who seem to have it as a tie of
 communion calculated to bind a tribe strongly together. But we are
 now required to believe that there was none of that distinction of
 dress at all, and if not of dress, why should there have been any
 difference of language or laws? A nation’s dress is much more easily
 changed than its manners and language; but here the dress alone
 remains, the manners and language that associated with it are totally
 gone. The idea of distinguishing the clans by their tartans is but a
 fashion of modern date in the Highlands themselves; much less could
 it be supposed to be carried to such an extent in the Lowlands as the
 manuscript pretends. Tartan itself is unquestionably a Lowland word,
 and the stuff “tiretain” fetched from Flanders, and I suspect the
 Highlander wore a frieze mantle like the Irish chief, without what we
 now call the bracken.

To this letter Sir Thomas replied on 29th November 1829. By that time
the terrible calamity, of which he gives so vivid a picture in the
_Moray Floods_, had happened to Relugas, and he appears to have had
little heart to write about anything else. But he makes an allusion to
the _Vestiarium_; and a very striking one it is. With all deference
to the very distinct expressions of opinion by his distinguished
correspondent, he observes:—

 I confess I am still a believer. What do you think of the facsimile of
 old Leslie’s handwriting? By-the-bye, I will thank you to send it me
 in Mr Hay’s parcel,[90] to save me from sending to London for another.
 I have examined the old copy of the manuscript in my possession,[91]
 and find the water-mark of the paper to be ante-Union, the supporters
 to the arms being two unicorns.

Here closes this remarkable correspondence, and we hear no more of the
_Vestiarium_ until its publication by Tait in 1842, with the name of
John Sobieski Stuart on the title-page as editor. So remarkable a work
could not fail to attract attention. The most striking criticism on
the book, so far as ability and bitterness went, and the only one to
which any reply was vouchsafed, is that contained in the _Quarterly
Review_ for June 1847.[92] This criticism the brothers Stuart believed
to have been written by the late Mr Dennistoun, but it was in reality
the work of the late Professor George Skene, of Glasgow University,
brother of the late Dr. William Forbes Skene, from materials furnished
chiefly by the late Dr. Mackintosh Mackay. One half of the criticism
consists of an unsparing attack on the alleged claims of the brothers
to Royal descent, and the other of an attack upon the authenticity of
the _Vestiarium_. Professor Skene first proposed to discuss the printed
text for indications of its genuineness, or the reverse. Had he done
so, the result could hardly have failed to be interesting, the language
of the work offering a fair field for criticism. He not only did not
do so, but fell into a series of very extraordinary errors regarding
facts. He wrote:—

 We cannot find that the actual MS., “which belonged to the Douay
 College,” and “contains the signature of the Bishop of Ross,” has
 ever been exhibited to any learned society in the north, or even to
 any individual scholar or antiquary unconnected with the present
 publication; but about twenty years ago, a _description_ of the MS.,
 with a _transcript_ of part, at least, if not the whole of it, was
 sent to the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, with a request that they
 would patronise its publication; and by their secretary the specimen
 was placed in the hands of Sir Walter Scott, who kindly undertook
 to examine it, and give the society the benefit of his opinion as
 to its authenticity. The secretary, accompanied by our informant,
 a reverend friend deeply versed in Highland lore, waited upon him
 shortly afterwards to ascertain the result of the scrutiny. Sir Walter
 assured them that the style and dialect of the specimen shewn him
 were utterly false, a most feeble and clumsy imitation of the genuine
 writing of the period, and indignantly declared his conviction that
 the manuscript itself must be an absolute fabrication.[93]

To this attack the editor of the _Vestiarium_ made the following
reply:—

 The reviewer proceeds to proclaim an opinion asserted to have been
 delivered by Sir Walter Scott, that the MS. was a clumsy imitation of
 the genuine writing of its professed period, “and unentitled to any
 credit.” The reviewer, however, has concealed that Sir Walter Scott
 never saw the original MS., and that he died some years before the
 publication of the printed edition—consequently that he never had any
 opportunity of forming a judgment even from a careful and formal copy.
 According to the acknowledgment of the reviewer himself, the asserted
 opinion of Sir Walter was founded upon a “description of the MS.,
 with a transcript of a part, if not the whole.” How far any critic
 could presume to form a judgment upon any “transcript,” especially
 an imperfect “part,” of a work, we leave to the experience of those
 accustomed to the criticism of old writings. But the reviewer has
 farther concealed the nature of the “transcript” said to have been
 exhibited to Sir Walter Scott. After the originals of the _Vestiarium_
 were in the possession of its editor, there never was made more than
 one “transcript,” that alluded to by the reviewer as “a transcript
 obtained by a gentleman in the north.” This copy, or, as admitted by
 the reviewer, “a part,” was transmitted by the transcriber to some of
 his friends in Edinburgh, at which time we believe, as asserted by the
 reviewer, it was casually shewn to Sir Walter Scott. The reviewer,
 however, has concealed the nature of this transcript, upon which Sir
 Walter’s asserted opinion is so maliciously quoted. Far from being, as
 might have been expected, a critical facsimile, or even matter-of-fact
 copy from the original, it was a sort of “Hood’s Comic Almanack” of
 tartans, neatly written, not in “clerks’,” “scriveners’,” or any other
 MS. text of the sixteenth century, but in ordinary Roman letter,
 consequently, exhibiting no “imitation” of the “genuine writing” of
 the period, said to have been contra-distinguished in Sir Walter’s
 observation, and still farther at variance with the original, or any
 object of serious criticism, by being illustrated in vermilion, with
 bizarre caricatures in the form of burlesque head and tail pieces,
 generally graphic puns and hieroglyphics for the name of each family
 whose title they adorned. Of their description, consequently, of the
 serious character of the MS. of which Sir Walter Scott’s criticism is
 so gravely reported, a conclusion may be formed by a few examples,
 such as, for “Dundas” the sketch of a small “Dun,” and on its summit
 an “ass.” For Brodie (pronounced in Scots Broadie), a large, _i.e._,
 a “Broad” “eye.” And for Montgomery the view of a mount, enlivened by
 several dancing figures, intended to associate the idea of “go-merry,”
 and the like. Such is the manuscript said to have been exhibited to
 and condemned by Sir Walter Scott as “of no authority whatever.” Its
 removal from authority, however, was farther extended by the fact that
 it was not even a transcript of the oldest MS. on which the reviewer
 sits in judgment, but of an inferior, tattered, and inaccurate copy,
 no older than the year 1721, and which was the only one “in the north”
 when the amiable and distinguished friend[94] of the possessor,
 designated by the reviewer after that borealian locality, made the
 transcript, with which he amused some idle winter days, with the
 conceits which, it was then predicted, would extend to the original a
 connection of misconception and ridicule.

 According to this expectation, all those who became acquainted with
 the tract only through the medium of the copy supposed that the
 illustrations, as well as the text, were equally facsimiles of the
 original MS.; and if Sir Walter Scott had no explanation to the
 contrary, he, of course, entertained the same conclusion, and thus
 must have supposed the tract a greater enormity of absurdity than has
 even been assumed by the reviewer.[95]

Professor Skene, writing of what happened “about twenty years ago”
concerning an affair in which he took no part, may well have fallen
into casual error, but his “reverend friend deeply versed in Highland
lore” ought to have had some memory. The correspondence between Sir
Thomas Dick Lauder and Sir Walter Scott clearly shows that John Ross’s
MS. was first brought under Sir Walter’s notice in June 1829, a period
fairly enough corresponding in 1847 to “twenty years ago.” But the
only “description,” or “transcript,” of the part or whole he ever saw
was that contained in Sir Thomas’s letter of 1st June 1829, and how
far the materials there given enabled Sir Walter to form a judgment of
the style, dialect, or writing of the original may be gathered from
the fact that he made no attempt to do so. There are Sir Walter’s own
letters of 7th June and 19th November 1829 on the subject, in which
his unfavourable opinion of the authenticity of the _Vestiarium_ is
based, not upon the appearance or language of the manuscript, which he
had no opportunity of examining, but upon its ascription of tartans to
the Lowlanders, to the lack of express notices on the subject by early
writers, and to the use of the tartans as distinguishing the clans. Sir
Walter wrote with the knowledge of his period, and how far his views
are borne out by later investigation may be gathered by a study of the
contents of the preceding pages.

Professor Skene’s statements—first, that a description of the
manuscript, with a transcript of part, if not the whole of it, was
sent to the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, with a request that they
would patronise its publication; second, that the specimen was placed
by their secretary in the hands of Sir Walter Scott, who undertook to
express an opinion upon it; and, third, that the secretary and “our
informant” afterwards waited upon Sir Walter to ascertain what his
opinion was—are unverified. All that has yet been discovered, indeed,
goes to show that nothing of the kind ever took place, and that the
“facts” stated in the _Quarterly Review_ had their origin only in the
imagination of the learned professor’s “reverend friend.” The minutes
of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland for that period are yet in
existence. They are kept with a careful, even a tedious minuteness; and
is it possible to suppose that the series of events detailed in the
_Quarterly Review_ of June 1847 as having taken place “about twenty
years ago,” involving questions of such importance to antiquaries,
especially to Scottish antiquaries, could have been entirely omitted
from them? Yet they are. No mention whatever of the circumstances
stated by Professor Skene to have occurred “about twenty years ago”
appears.

John Sobieski Stuart’s position in the affair is quite plain. We
find from the correspondence that all Sir Walter really saw was the
description and extracts contained in Sir Thomas’s letter of 1st June
1829; but the editor of the _Vestiarium_, aware of the fact that Sir
Thomas had a transcript of the work, which he had expressly offered
to show Sir Walter, and confronted with the absolute statement by
Professor Skene, on the authority of his “reverend friend,” that Sir
Walter had seen a transcript, arrived naturally at the conclusion that
the transcript Sir Walter was asserted to have seen was the only one in
existence, that made by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, and directed his reply
accordingly. Had he been aware of the real facts of the case, his reply
to Professor Skene might have been even more crushing than it was.

Professor Skene made an attack in another quarter. He questioned the
authenticity of the work on the ground that there were several and
serious errors in the genealogies of the clans whose tartans are
described, and he specified particularly M’Nab, Farquharson, Clan Gun,
Cluny Macpherson, and Mackintosh, the occurrence of errors in regard
to whose genealogies, he urged, demonstrated that the _Vestiarium_ was
a forgery. To reply to these criticisms John Sobieski Stuart seriously
set himself, and with remarkable ability and success.[96]

Finally, Professor Skene fell foul of the Bishop of Ross’s signature.

 It matters little to the public who was the perpetrator of the present
 forgery. It may have been “_the late_ Mr Robert Walker,”[97] who is
 so ready with an entry from “the Bishop’s Diary” in its support—a
 “Diary” which, like Mr Sobieski Stuart’s MS. itself, formed “part of
 the Douay papers.”[98] It may have been the defunct porter of Auld
 Reekie, John Ross, from whom one of the copies is said to have been
 procured. And _apropos_ of this latter possibility we would recommend
 Mr Sobieski Stuart to again look at his original MS., and consider
 whether what he has taken for the signature of the well-known bishop,
 John of Ross, be not in fact a quaint attempt of his friend the
 sword-player to write his own name in an old hand, after practising
 upon the fever and ague notice which accompanies it.[99]

To this taunt John Sobieski Stuart made no reply. Possibly it was
beyond his power to give any example of the bishop’s signature beyond
the one in his possession. And yet the propriety of comparing an
authoritative example of Leslie’s handwriting with that appearing in
the _Vestiarium_ obviously suggests itself, and did not escape Sir
Thomas Dick Lauder’s observation. He wrote on 20th July 1829,[100]
enclosing Sir Walter Scott a traced facsimile of the signature for
his satisfaction, and adding “it is not impossible you may know of or
hear of some signatures of John Leslie’s to be found in some of the
public collections in Edinburgh. If so, it would be curious to compare
this facsimile with it.” Of this request no notice appears to have
been taken by Sir Walter, and Sir Thomas again returns to the charge
on 29th November,[101] when he asked Sir Walter for his opinion of
the authenticity of the signature, and requesting him to return the
facsimile. But the day of Sir Walter’s own trouble had come, and he
contented himself with returning the facsimile to Sir Thomas without
any attempt at verification. One obvious explanation of Sir Walter’s
proceeding is that the public records were not then so accessible as
they are now, and a search must have proved both tedious and expensive.

Of Leslie’s signature as Bishop of Ross (Jo. Rossen.) not many examples
are available, but the Editor’s attention has been drawn to one in the
_Lord Treasurer’s Accounts_. It is submitted that the reader may be
able to form an opinion as to whether the facsimile in the _Vestiarium_
is more likely to represent the signature of the Bishop of Ross or the
scrawl of an Edinburgh street porter of 1819.

  D. W. S.

[Illustration: Signatures [102] [103] [104]]


FOOTNOTES:

    [Footnote 1: _The Heimskringla_, or Chronicle of the Kings of Norway.
    Translated from Icelandic of Snorro Sturleson, with a preliminary
    dissertation, by Samuel Laing, Esq. London: Longmans, 1844. Magnus
    Barefoot’s Saga (written by Snorro Sturleson 1178-1241), Vol. III., p.
    139.]

    [Footnote 2: Laing translates the word “kyrtlu” as “kirtles;” Gregory
    and Skene translate it “tunics.”]

    [Footnote 3: _Registrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis_, Vol. II., p. 8.
    Spalding Club.]

    [Footnote 4: _Scotichronicon_, Gregory’s translation. _Transactions of
    the Iona Club_, p. 27.]

    [Footnote 5: _Borthwick’s Remarks on British Antiquities._ Edinburgh,
    1776, p. 139.]

    [Footnote 6: _Pinkerton’s History of Scotland from the Accession of the
    House of Stuart._ London, 1797, Vol. I., p. 493.]

    [Footnote 7: _Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials_, Vol. I., Part I., p. 114,
    note.]

    [Footnote 8: _Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland_, edited
    by Thomas Dickson, Curator of the Historical Department of H.M. General
    Register House, Vol. I., 1473-1498, Preface, p. clxxxv, and note; and
    Glossary, p. 441.]

    [Footnote 9: Scottish Collection of Gaelic MSS. in Advocates’ Library,
    No. XVI., A.A., line 2. For the correct reading as well as translation
    of this interesting manuscript the Editor is indebted to Professor
    Mackinnon. In the “Report of the Committee of the Highland Society
    of Scotland appointed to inquire into the nature and authenticity of
    the Poems of Ossian” (Edinburgh, 1805), it is, on the authority of Mr
    Astle, stated to be a writing of the ninth or tenth century (Report, p.
    305). In the opinion of Professor Mackinnon the manuscript cannot be
    assigned to an earlier period than about 1400.]

    [Footnote 10: _Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, 1429_, Record Issue,
    Vol. II., p. 18.]

    [Footnote 11: Constable’s edition of Major, published for the Scottish
    History Society. Edinburgh, 1892, pp. 48, 49.]

    [Footnote 12: _Ibid._, p. 333.]

    [Footnote 13: _Ibid._, p. 359.]

    [Footnote 14: _Lord High Treasurer’s Accounts_, 1537-38, fol. 63, MS., H.M. General Register House.]

    [Footnote 15: See letter printed in full in _Bannatyne Miscellany_,
    Vol. I., and also in _Collectanea de Rebus Albanicis_. The Editor
    is indebted for a correct transcription of the above portion to Mr
    Augustus W. Franks, C.B., British Museum.]

    [Footnote 16: _Histoire de la Guerre d’Escosse pendant les Campagnes,
    1548 et 1549._ Par Jean de Beaugué. Maitland Club. The translation is
    that of Donald Gregory. See _Transactions of the Iona Club_, p. 31.]

    [Footnote 17: _Register of the Privy Council_, Vol. I., p. 136.]

    [Footnote 18: _The Chronicles of Scotland_, by Robert Lindsay of
    Pitscottie, Edition 1814, Vol. I., Introduction, p. xxiii.]

    [Footnote 19: _The Historie of Scotland_, wrytten first in Latin by the
    most Reverend and Worthy Jhone Leslie, Bishop of Rosse, and translated
    in Scottish by Father James Dalrymple Religious in the Scottis Cloister
    of Regensburg the zeere of God 1596. Edited for the Scottish Text
    Society by the Rev. Father E. G. Cody, O.S.B., 1885, pp. 90-94. This
    quaint Scots version is given in preference to the ordinary one from
    the Latin, as it conveys an extremely vivid picture of the ancient
    dress written by a contemporary.]

    [Footnote 20: _Ibid._, p. 377.]

    [Footnote 21: Aikman’s translation of _Buchanan’s History of Scotland_,
    Vol. I., pp. 40, 41. Buchanan’s description was incorporated in
    _Certeine Matters concerning the Realme of Scotland, composed together
    as they were Anno Domini 1597_, by John Monipennie, who also included
    it in the _Summarie of the Scots Chronicles, 1612_.]

    [Footnote 22: _The Booke of the Universall Kirk of Scotland_, Vol. I.,
    pp. 331, 335. Bannatyne Club.]

    [Footnote 23: _Extracts from the Council Register of the Burgh of
    Aberdeen, 1570-1625_, as printed by the Spalding Club, Vol. II., pp.
    27, 373.]

    [Footnote 24: _The Image of Irelande, 1581._ Reprinted by A. & C.
    Black, Edinburgh, 1883, p. 50.]

    [Footnote 25: _Ibid._ p. 105.]

    [Footnote 26: _La Navigation du Roy d’Escosse Iaques Cinquiesme du
    nom_, referred to in the _Transactions of the Iona Club_, pp. 36, 37.]

    [Footnote 27: _The Great Seal Register_, 1580-1593, edited by John
    Maitland Thomson, M.A., Advocate, No. 1491.]

    [Footnote 28: _Vestiarium Scoticum._ William Tait, Edinburgh, 1842,
    Introduction, p. 59; and _A Reply to the Quarterly Review upon the
    Vestiarium Scoticum_. William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh, 1848, p. 23.]

    [Footnote 29: _Register of Signatouris in the Office of Comptrollerie_,
    Vol. XII., 1587-1589, fol. 82.]

    [Footnote 30: _Charge of the Temporalitie of Kirklandis: North Side of
    the Forth._ MS. in H.M. General Register House, fol. 94.]

    [Footnote 31: _Register of Signatouris in the Office of Comptrollerie_,
    Vol. XXXIV., 1617, fol. 120.]

    [Footnote 32: _Ibid._, Vol. XLVII., 1630, fol. 208.]

    [Footnote 33: _The Pourtrait of True Loyalty exposed in the Family of
    Gordon without interruption to this present year 1691, with a relation
    of the Siege of the Castle of Edinburgh in the year 1689._ MS. in
    Advocates’ Library. It is partially quoted in _De Rebus Albanicis_.]

    [Footnote 34: _Iona Club Transactions_, pp. 37, 38.]

    [Footnote 35: _Origines Parochiales Scotiæ_, Vol. II., i. 156.]

    [Footnote 36: _The Montgomery Manuscripts, containing Accounts of
    the Colonization of the Ardes in the County of Down in the Reigns
    of Elizabeth and James._ Printed from the Original Manuscripts and
    Transcripts of MSS., composed by William Montgomery, Esq., second son
    of Sir James Montgomery, between the years 1698 and 1704. Belfast,
    1830, pp. 53, 54.]

    [Footnote 37: _Camden’s Britannia_ (Gough’s Edition, 1789), Vol. III.,
    p. 389.]

    [Footnote 38: _The Pennyless Pilgrimage, or the Moneylesse
    Perumbulation of John Taylor, alias the Kings Majesties Water-Poet:
    How he travelled on Foot from London to Edenborough in Scotland, not
    carrying any money to or fro, neither Begging, Borrowing or asking
    Meate, Drinke, or Lodging._ Hume Brown’s Edition. Edinburgh: David
    Douglas, 1892, pp. 120, 121.]

    [Footnote 39: _History of Scots Affairs from 1637 to 1641_, by James
    Gordon, Parson of Rothiemay. Spalding Club, Vol. III., Appendix to
    Preface, pp. xliii., xliv.]

    [Footnote 40: Defoe’s Works: _Memoirs of a Cavalier_, Vol. II., pp.
    112, 113. Bohn, London, 1854. As to the genuine authorship of this
    work, see Lee’s Bibliography in his edition of Defoe’s Works.]

    [Footnote 41: _Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, 1661_, Vol. VII., p.
    186.]

    [Footnote 42: _Brome’s Travels_, Second Edition, London, 1707, pp. 179,
    180.]

    [Footnote 43: _Tours in Scotland, 1677 and 1681_, by Thomas Kirk and
    Ralph Thoresby, edited by P. Hume Brown. Edinburgh, David Douglas,
    1892, pp. 28, 29.]

    [Footnote 44: See the letter quoted in _Blackwood’s Magazine_, April
    1817, p. 69. The present extract has been compared with the original
    in the Advocates’ Library. In the _Transactions of the Iona Club_ “not
    one of ten of them hath breaches” is made to read “not one of them
    hath breaches,” and this very serious error has been duly copied by
    subsequent writers on the Highland dress.]

    [Footnote 45: _A Collection of Several Poems and Verses composed upon
    various occasions, by Mr William Cleland, Lieutenant-Colonel to my Lord
    Angus’s Regiment._ Printed in the year 1697, pp. 11-13.]

    [Footnote 46: Lyon Register in H.M. General Register House, Edinburgh.
    Matriculation dated about 1672.]

    [Footnote 47: _Alexander Nisbet’s Heraldic Plates, originally intended
    for his System of Heraldry._ Waterston and Sons, Edinburgh, 1892.]

    [Footnote 48: Nisbet MS., Advocates’ Library, pp. 33-35.]

    [Footnote 49: Introduction to _Nisbet’s Heraldic Plates_, p. xlvi.]

    [Footnote 50: _The Grameid: an Historic Poem descriptive of the
    Campaign of Viscount Dundee in 1689_, by James Philip of Almerieclose.
    1691. Translated by the Rev. Alexander D. Murdoch, F.S.A. Scot., for
    the Scottish History Society, 1888.]

    [Footnote 51: _Some Account of the Battle of Killiecrankie and what
    Followed thereupon._ The MS. is cited in _The Costume of the Clans_, p.
    104.]

    [Footnote 52: _An Account of the Isle of Man, ... with a Voyage to
    I-Columb-Kill_, by William Sacheverell, Esq., late Governor of the Isle
    of Man. 8vo. Manx Society, 1859, p. 99. The first edition was published
    in 1702.]

    [Footnote 53: _A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, by M.
    Martin, Gent._ The first edition of this work appeared in 1703, and a
    second, “very much corrected,” in 1716. It is from this second edition,
    pp. 206-210, that the extract is taken.]

    [Footnote 54: _A Collection of Original Papers about the Scots Plot._
    London, 1704, pp. 3, 4.]

    [Footnote 55: _Court Books of the Regality of Grant, 1703-1710._ MSS.
    in H.M. General Register House.]

    [Footnote 56: By the courtesy of the families in possession of the
    portraits referred to in the text, the author, for the purposes of
    the present work, has had repeated opportunities of making careful
    examinations of those referred to.]

    [Footnote 57: _The Present State of Scotland_, Second Edition, 1711.]

    [Footnote 58: _A Journey through Scotland, by the author of The Journey
    through England_ (John Macky). London, 1723, p. 194.]

    [Footnote 59: _System of Heraldry_, Edition 1804, Vol. I., p. 415.
    The original edition of this work was published in 1722, but was most
    probably written fifteen or twenty years before that date.]

    [Footnote 60: MS., Lyon Office. See facsimile of a portion of the page
    containing the Cluny reference in the Introduction to the _Nisbet
    Plates_, p. xlii.]

    [Footnote 61: The original is at Fingask. It has been engraved as the
    frontispiece to _The Threiplands of Fingask_.]

    [Footnote 62: Captain Burt’s _Letters from a Gentleman in the North
    of Scotland_, 1818, Vol. I., pp. 84-5; Vol. II., pp. 7, 84-86, 87-91.
    Jamieson’s Edition.]

    [Footnote 63: Burt’s _Letters_, Vol. II., pp. 102-105. Jamieson’s
    Edition.]

    [Footnote 64: _Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century_, from
    the MSS. of John Ramsay, Esq. of Ochtertyre, edited by Alex. Allardice.
    Blackwood, Edinburgh, 1888. Vol. I., p. 540; Vol. II., pp. 87, 88.]

    [Footnote 65: _Caledonian Mercury_, 14th January 1740.]

    [Footnote 66: _Ibid._, 19th February 1740.]

    [Footnote 67: _Caledonian Mercury_, 4th October 1745.]

    [Footnote 68: A mistake of the writer for “Ness.”]

    [Footnote 69: _A Journal of the Expedition of Prince Charles Edward in
    1745, by a Highland Officer._ Lockhart Papers, Vol. II., p. 505.]

    [Footnote 70: _Stewart’s Sketches_, Vol. I., p. 112, Edition 1822.]

    [Footnote 71: _General Orders to the Army in Scotland, 22nd December
    1748._]

    [Footnote 72: _Stewart’s Sketches_, Vol. I., p. 113.]

    [Footnote 73: _Orders to 20th Foot [now the Lancashire Fusiliers],
    dated Bamff 1752._]

    [Footnote 74: _Edinburgh Evening Courant_, February 21, 23, 26, 28,
    1760.]

    [Footnote 75: _Ibid._, July 9, 14, 1760.]

    [Footnote 76: _Stewart’s Sketches_, Vol. I., p. 114.]

    [Footnote 77: _Travels in the Western Hebrides from 1782 to 1790_, by
    the Rev. John Lane Buchanan, Missionary Minister to the Isles from the
    Church of Scotland. London, 1793, pp. 84-90.]

    [Footnote 78: _Camden’s Britannia_ (Gough’s Edition, 1789), Vol. III.,
    p. 390.]

    [Footnote 79: _Vestiarium Scoticum._ From the Manuscript formerly in
    the Library of the Scots College at Douay, with an Introduction and
    Notes by John Sobieski Stuart. Edinburgh, William Tait, 1842.]

    [Footnote 80: Preface to _Vestiarium Scoticum_, pp. i.-vii.]

    [Footnote 81: Advertisement annexed to _A Reply to the Quarterly Review
    upon the Vestiarium Scoticum_. Edinburgh, Blackwood, 1848.]

    [Footnote 82: _A Reply to the Quarterly Review_, p. 6.]

    [Footnote 83: See notes on p. 47.]

    [Footnote 84: _A Reply to the Quarterly Review_, p. 7.]

    [Footnote 85: It may be proper to point out here that the Editor
    discussed the idea of issuing a work on rare tartans, to be illustrated
    by examples of the actual fabrics, with his publisher several years
    ago, and it was not until the illustrations for the present work were
    considerably advanced that he became aware of the existence of Miss
    Dick Lauder’s copy of the _Vestiarium_, which she has so handsomely
    placed at his disposal, and which contains the statement in the text.]

    [Footnote 86: Copy of original letter in possession of Miss Dick
    Lauder. Copies of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder’s letters to Sir Walter Scott,
    along with the originals of the latter’s replies, are bound up with the
    copy of the _Vestiarium_ made by Sir Thomas in 1828-9, referred to on
    page 45. The volume, now in possession of Miss Dick Lauder, daughter
    of Sir Thomas, also contains the cleverly executed water-colours by
    Charles Edward Stuart referred to in the above letter and the quaint
    illustrations by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder subsequently referred to.]

    [Footnote 87: This, it will be remembered, was the copy which belonged
    to John Ross, the old sword-player.]

    [Footnote 88: _i.e._, the Douay MS.]

    [Footnote 89: The words within brackets do not occur in Sir Thomas’s
    letter to Sir Walter. They appear, however, in the original letter
    written by the father of the Messrs Hay, and preserved by Sir Thomas in
    the volume now in Miss Dick Lauder’s possession.]

    [Footnote 90: Sir Walter did so, and it is reproduced on page 56.]

    [Footnote 91: This, it will be remembered, was the copy got from John
    Ross with the date 1721.]


    [Footnote 92: _Quarterly Review_, No. CLXI., June 1847, Art. II., p.
    57, “The Heirs of the Stuarts.”]

    [Footnote 93: _Ibid._, pp. 63, 64.]


    [Footnote 94: Sir Thomas Dick Lauder.]

    [Footnote 95: _A Reply to the Quarterly Review upon the Vestiarium
    Scoticum._ William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh, 1848, pp. 4-7.]


    [Footnote 96: See _Reply_, pp. 8-16.]

    [Footnote 97: An evident misprint for “Watson” in the _Quarterly
    Review_ article.]

    [Footnote 98: Professor Skene’s reference here is to a statement in
    the preface to the _Vestiarium_, to the effect that the Bishop of Ross
    noted his acquisition of Sir Richard Urquhart’s work in his Diary
    (which he quotes in full) remaining among a portion of the Douay
    papers, in the possession of the “late Mr Robert Watson, well known
    in the history of the Stuart papers.” For an account of Watson’s
    remarkable career see an article by Andrew Lang in the _Illustrated
    London News_ of 12th March 1892.]

    [Footnote 99: _Quarterly Review_ article, p. 67.]

    [Footnote 100: _Ante_, p. 49.]

    [Footnote 101: _Ante_, p. 51.]

    [Footnote 102: Facsimile of John Leslie’s signature as Bishop of Ross
    in the _Lord Treasurer’s Accounts_, 1564-6, H.M. General Register
    House, Edinburgh. The date of the audit, to which the bishop’s
    signature is affixed, is 27th June 1566.]

    [Footnote 103: Facsimile of the signature contained in the _Vestiarium
    Scoticum_ referred to on preceding page.]

    [Footnote 104: An example from _Nichols’ Autographs_, obtained from
    the bishop’s letter to Lord Burleigh, dated Paris, 28th February 1579,
    preserved in the British Museum.]

    [Footnote 105: Why the simple red and black check receives the title
    of Rob Roy is something of a mystery. In _Authenticated Tartans of
    the Clans and Families of Scotland_ (Smith: Mauchline, 1850) it is
    asserted, and the statement is repeated in _The Tartans of the Clans
    of Scotland_ (W. & A. K. Johnston: Edinburgh, 1886) without attempt at
    verification, that three genuine portraits of Rob Roy represent him as
    wearing it; but these and other so-called Rob Roy portraits—be their
    value what it may—afford no sanction whatever for the design. The
    Editor is not aware on what authority the portraits are classed as Rob
    Roy. He has seen seven paintings, including the three above referred
    to, in which the figure is identical, all known as Rob Roy, and in each
    a separate pattern appears, none of them showing the simple red and
    black check. The tartan is accepted by sound authorities as the old
    Macgregor clan pattern. There are fine examples of it in a collection
    of tartans made by the Highland Society of London in 1816-17, labelled
    and sealed “The MacGregor Tartan for undress ordinary clothing. The
    Seal of Arms of Sir John MacGregor Murray of MacGregor, Baronet.
    [Signed] John M. Murray.”]



NOTES ON WORKS TREATING OF TARTANS.

 1. _The Scottish Gaël; or, Celtic Manners as preserved among the
 Highlanders_: Being an Historical and Descriptive Account of the
 Inhabitants, Antiquities, and National Peculiarities of Scotland; more
 particularly of the Northern or Gaëlic Parts of the Country, where the
 singular habits of the Aboriginal Celts are most tenaciously retained.
 By James Logan, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
 London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 65 Cornhill. 1831. 2 vols. 8vo. Large
 paper in royal 8vo.

This work contains in an appendix a list of fifty-four tartans, which
Logan states were as many as he could procure and authenticate. Along
with the name of each tartan is a table stating the colours and
relative proportions of the stripes in eighths of an inch. This plan
of measurement, it appears, was the joint idea of Logan and Captain
Mackenzie of Gruinard. It is really a modification of that of the old
Highland weavers of winding on a stick the correct number of threads of
each colour in the proper order. One coloured plate (an illustration
of the tartan of the Earl of Inverness) is given, with the object
of explaining the system of measurement and colouring set forth in
the work. Each volume contains a coloured frontispiece representing
Highlanders in tartan dress.

A reprint (omitting the plate of the tartan) was issued in 1876,
edited, with memoir and notes, by the Rev. Alexander Stewart, of
Ballachulish and Ardgour, “Nether Lochaber.” Inverness: Hugh Mackenzie,
Bank Lane. Edinburgh: Maclachlan and Stewart, South Bridge.


 2. _Vestiarium Scoticum._ From the Manuscript formerly in the Library
 of the Scots College at Douay. With an Introduction and Notes by John
 Sobieski Stuart. Edinburgh: William Tait, 107 Princes Street. 1842.
 Imperial 4to.

The _Vestiarium_, referred to at some length in the Introduction,
was, if we set aside the single plate issued by Logan in 1831, the
first work published containing illustrations of tartans. According to
Lowndes, whose information on the point was derived from the late Dr.
David Laing, only fifty copies were printed, and it is curious that
none of the great Edinburgh libraries is in possession of a complete
copy. It contains (_a_) a preface giving an account of the three MS.
copies of the work known to the editor; (_b_) a roll of the clans from
the original MS. of 1571, accompanied by the ordinary Parliamentary
rolls of 1587 and 1594, and the one compiled by Lord President Forbes
in 1745; (_c_) an introduction treating very fully of the use of
tartan in early times; (_d_) the text of the MS., wherein are minutely
described (1) twenty-five tartans of the “chieff Hieland clannes;”
(2) eleven tartans of the “lesser famylies or housis, the quhilk be
cum frae ye chieff housis and oryginale clannes;” (3) thirty tartans
belonging to the “low country pairtes and bordovr clannes;” (4) nine
tartans of the “bordovr clannes;” (5) a list of clans and their badges
of distinction.

The illustrations of the book consist of one plate containing
reproductions of styles of dress from early seals and illuminated
manuscripts, and seventy-five coloured plates representing tartans.
The latter are executed by the “machine painting” process introduced
by the Messrs Smith, of Mauchline, for their tartan woodwork, and for
beauty of execution and exactness of detail have not been excelled by
any method of colour printing subsequently invented. The wide use made
of the tartan illustrations in this work by subsequent writers is duly
noted under the respective works.


 3. _The Clans of the Scottish Highlands_: Illustrated by appropriate
 Figures displaying the Dress, Arms, Armorial Insignia, and Social
 Occupations, from Original Sketches by R. R. M’Ian, Esq., with
 accompanying Descriptive and Historical Memoranda of Character, Mode
 of Life, &c., &c., by James Logan, Esq., F.S.A. Sc., Cor. Mem. Soc.
 Ant., Normandy, &c., author of _The Scottish Gaël, Introduction to the
 “Sar Obair nam bard Gaëllach,”_ &c. London: Ackermann & Co. 1845-47. 2
 vols.

Originally issued in parts, commencing in the year 1843, and
terminating in 1849, in two sizes, imperial quarto and imperial folio.
The quarto edition was reprinted by Willis, Sotheran, & Co. in 1857. It
contains seventy-two coloured plates of figures illustrating various
forms, ancient and modern, of the Highland dress, drawn by M’Ian. Two
coloured frontispieces represent the heraldic shields and badges of the
clans. There is a separate pagination for each of the parts, making the
work of reference troublesome. Logan travelled over a great part of
the Highlands and Islands collecting the interesting details relating
to the clans here presented. Of the illustrations, the greater number
is based on authenticated details of dress, but many are imaginative,
as no records exist covering the period to which they are assigned.
The tartans depicted are partly those in Logan’s _Scottish Gaël_,
while others are unacknowledged reproductions from the designs in the
_Vestiarium Scoticum_.


 4. _The Costume of the Clans_, with Observations upon the Literature,
 Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce of the Highlands and Western Isles
 during the Middle Ages; and on the Influence of the Sixteenth,
 Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries upon their present condition.
 By John Sobieski Stolberg and Charles Edward Stuart. John Menzies,
 Princes Street, Edinburgh; D. Bogue, Fleet Street, London; M. Amoyat,
 Paris; Leopold Michelsen, Leipzig; Gottlieb Haase Söhne, Prague. 1845.
 Folio. Reprinted 1892, with a Biographical Introduction. Edinburgh:
 John Grant.

When projected this magnificent and sumptuous work was intended to
extend to two volumes, of which only the first appeared, the cost of
production having proved excessive, and entailed a heavy loss upon
the authors. It contains thirty-five plates. Of these, six, which are
uncoloured, consist of representations of Highland dress, obtained
principally from sculptured stones. The coloured plates contain
representations of thirty-seven figures, obtained from the following
sources: Paintings, 29; engravings, 5; drawing, 1; illuminated MS., 1;
medal die, 1. The work was also issued uncoloured in two states—viz.,
with India proofs, and with plain prints. Copies of the original
coloured issue are very rare, no copy being preserved in any of the
great Edinburgh libraries. I have compared the colouring of the
reprint, and also the original of the plain prints, with twenty of the
figures depicted in the paintings from which they are taken, scattered
in various family collections throughout Scotland. The remaining nine
paintings I have hitherto been unable to trace. In every instance that
has come under my observation the colouring of the plates turns out to
be not only incorrect, but as a rule hopelessly misleading. What makes
this all the more extraordinary is that the plain outline drawings
representing the original work of the authors are extremely accurate
in rendering the most minute details, except the features, which are
usually very indifferently copied. Of the remaining eight figures noted
above as in colour, seven are represented in tartan, on what authority
as to sett I have been unable to ascertain. The letterpress contains a
treatise on the Highland dress, which, considering the period at which
it was written, and the difficulty of access to the widely scattered
materials of which it is composed, is a perfect marvel of industry and
ability. It has been the productive quarry of all successive writers on
the Highland dress.


 5. _Authenticated Tartans of the Clans and Families of Scotland_:
 Painted by Machinery, with Map of the Highlands, showing the
 Territories of the Clans. Introductory Essay on _The Scottish Gaël_,
 by a Member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. William and
 Andrew Smith, Scotch Snuff-Box Makers by appointment to his late
 Majesty, and by command to Her Majesty the Queen. Mauchline, Ayrshire,
 Scotland. 4to.

First issued in parts with the title on the wrapper, _Original Tartans
of the Highland Clans and Lowland Families of Scotland_, the preface
being dated 1st March 1850. Between the issue of the prospectus and
its accompanying plates and the completion of the publication of the
work several changes were made in the illustrations. For example, Plate
I. of the Stuart tartan was first represented as in the _Vestiarium_,
but was afterwards changed to the present more familiar design. For
information regarding the tartans the Messrs Smith relied chiefly
on the manufacturers, with whom the work remains the standard of
reference. It contains, however, inaccuracies in identification
and arrangement, some of which are referred to in the letterpress
accompanying the tartans in the present volume. The plates, of which
there are sixty-nine, are executed by the publishers’ process of
“machine painting” to which reference has already been made under the
_Vestiarium_.

A miniature edition (without date, a want the publishers are now unable
to supply) of the plates in the above was issued. The only letterpress
it contains is the title-page, table of contents, and the names of the
tartans.


 6. _The Clans of the Highlands of Scotland_: Being an Account of
 their Annals, Separately and Collectively, with Delineations of their
 Tartans, and Family Arms. Edited by Thomas Smibert, Esq. Edinburgh:
 Published by James Hogg. Glasgow: David Robertson. London: R.
 Groombridge & Sons. 1850. 8vo.

In this work, which deals entirely with the histories of the clans,
there are included fifty-five coloured lithographic plates of tartans.
No individual account of these is given, but in his notice the author
states: “With respect to the Sets of the Clan-Tartans here given,
the work of Mr Logan has been held, after due consideration, to be
preferable as a general guide. The _Vestiarium Scoticum_ of Mr Stuart
is certainly a publication of value in various respects, having
plainly been prepared with much elaboration and care, and accordingly
it would be unwise to reject its indications wholly, because of the
doubts entertained as to its claims to antiquity and authenticity. The
parties responsible for the present work, however, have had recourse to
the best original sources of information, and trust by that means to
maintain accuracy, without blindly following any previous authority.”
The best comment on these observations is to be found in the fact that
while the bulk of the illustrations are copied from Logan, and many
others are early and genuine examples of tartans never before that time
illustrated, a number were adopted from the _Vestiarium_.


 7. _A History of the Highlands and of the Highland Clans_: With an
 extensive selection from the hitherto inedited Stuart Papers. By James
 Browne, LL.D., Advocate. A new edition, with sixty-six illustrative
 engravings and numerous woodcuts. London, Edinburgh, and Dublin: A.
 Fullarton & Co. 1850. 4 vols. 8vo.

Contains twenty-two plates of tartans executed in colour lithography,
being reproductions, indifferently executed, of designs first published
in the _Vestiarium Scoticum_. No notes or explanations of any kind
accompany the plates.


 8. _Highlanders of Scotland_: Portraits illustrative of the Principal
 Clans and Followings, and the Retainers of the Royal Household at
 Balmoral, in the Reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. By Kenneth
 Macleay, Esq., R.S.A. With Copious Notices from Authentic Sources. In
 Coloured Lithographs by Vincent Brooks. London: Mr Mitchell, Publisher
 to Her Majesty, 33 Old Bond Street, W. Edinburgh: Blackwood & Sons.
 1870. 2 vols. imperial folio.

The illustrations consist of coloured lithographic reproductions of
drawings made by command of Her Majesty the Queen. Biographical notes
accompany each plate. The figures are represented in various styles of
the modern Highland dress.

There are also two quarto uncoloured editions of the work—one reduced
from the original lithographs, illustrated with lithographic prints;
the other, photographed from the original drawings, is illustrated by
silver prints.


 9. _Clans and Tartans._ Andrew Elliot, 17 Princes Street, Edinburgh.
 4to.

Published 28th September 1872. A series of tartans from the work of
Messrs Smith, and executed by their “machine painting” process. No
notes accompany the plates.


 10. _A History of the Scottish Highlands, Highland Clans, and Highland
 Regiments_: With an Account of the Gaelic Language, Literature, and
 Music. By the Rev. Thomas Maclauchlan, LL.D., F.S.A. Scot.; and an
 Essay on Highland Scenery by the late Professor John Wilson. Edited by
 John S. Keltie, F.S.A. Scot. Illustrated with a series of Portraits,
 Views, Maps, &c., engraved on steel, Clan Tartans, and upwards of two
 hundred woodcuts, including Armorial Bearings. A. Fullarton & Co.,
 Edinburgh and London. 1875. 2 vols. 8vo.

A reissue on a larger scale of Dr. Browne’s work (No. 7). The thirty-one
examples of tartans here given are, unlike those contained in No. 7,
reproductions of those in Messrs Smith’s work, and the plates are
executed by their process. Beyond including the plates no notice of the
tartans is taken. The work has been frequently reissued.


 11. _Sketches of the Clans of Scotland_: With Coloured Plates of
 Tartans. By Clansmen, J. M. P.,-F. W. S. Edinburgh: Maclachlan &
 Stewart. 1884. 8vo.

The twenty-two plates of tartans contained in this book are
lithographic reproductions, poorly executed, of tartans illustrated in
the _Vestiarium Scoticum_. A short introduction and some notes on the
clans accompany the plates.


 12. _The Tartans of the Clans of Scotland_; also an Introductory
 Account of Celtic Scotland, Clanship, Chiefs, their Dress, Arms, &c.,
 and with Historical Notes of each Clan. By James Grant, author of _The
 Romance of War_, _Old and New Edinburgh_, &c. Emblazoned arms of the
 chiefs, and a map of the districts occupied by the various clans are
 added. W. & A. K. Johnston, Edinburgh and London. 1886. Imperial 4to.

The seventy-one tartans illustrated in this beautiful book will, with
one exception, be found to have been included in the works previously
referred to. There is, as in the case of the Messrs Smith’s book, a
number of errors in identification and arrangement. The illustrations
are the finest examples of lithographic printing as applied to tartan
designs which have hitherto appeared, and they show clearly where the
method succeeds and where it fails.


 13. _The Scottish Clans and their Tartans_: With Notes. W. & A. K.
 Johnston, Edinburgh and London. [1891.] 16mo.

There has never hitherto been brought together in such a compact form
so many examples of tartans, the work containing ninety-six plates
executed by the same process as in the publishers’ larger work (No.
12). It is necessary, however, to point out that some of them are
designs invented within a few years, and of no authority as clan
tartans. A second edition, with additional notes, was issued in 1892.



TARTANS:

WITH DESCRIPTIVE NOTICES.


  AUSTIN AND KEITH NO. 12
  BALMORAL 45
  BRODIE 3
  CAMPBELL OF BREADALBANE 4
  DAVIDSON 5
  DRUMMOND OF PERTH 6
  DRUMMOND OF STRATHALLAN 7
  FRASER 8
  FRASER OF LOVAT 9
  GLENORCHY AND MAC INTYRE 19
  GRANT 10
  HUNTLY 11
  KEITH AND AUSTIN 12
  KENNEDY 13
  LOGAN 14
  LORD OF THE ISLES 1
  LORD OF THE ISLES: HUNTING 2
  MAC CALLUM 15
  MAC DONALD: FROM “THE LYON IN
    MOURNING” 16
  MAC DONALD OF KEPPOCH 17
  MAC DONALD: LORD OF THE ISLES 1
  MAC DONALD: LORD OF THE ISLES: HUNTING 2
  MAC IAN (MACKEANE) 22
  MAC INTYRE AND GLENORCHY 19
  MAC KEANE (MAC IAN) 22
  MACKINTOSH 18
  MAC LACHLAN 20
  MAC LAINE OF LOCHBUIE 21
  MAC LEAN: HUNTING 23
  MAC LEOD 24
  MAC NEILL 25
  MAC PHERSON 26
  MAC RAE: HUNTING 27
  MENZIES: HUNTING 28
  MONTGOMERIE 29
  OGILVY 30
  OGILVY: HUNTING 31
  ROBERTSON 32
  STEWART 33
  STEWART OF APPIN 34
  STEWART OF ATHOLL 35
  STEWART OF GALLOWAY 36
  STUART OF BUTE 37
  WALLACE 38
  THE PRINCE’S OWN 42
  FROM A PORTRAIT OF THE COUNTESS OF
    LENNOX 39
  FROM THE CLOAK OF PRINCE CHARLES
    EDWARD AT FINGASK 40
  FROM A PLAID WORN BY PRINCE CHARLES
    EDWARD AT HOLYROOD 41
  FROM A COAT WORN AT CULLODEN 43
  FROM A PLAID FOUND AT CULLODEN 44



THE LORD OF THE ISLES.


The authority for the accompanying example is a portrait of Sir
Alexander (afterwards first Lord) Macdonald of the Isles, in the
collection of Lord Macdonald of the Isles, at Armadale Castle in
Skye. Of that painting, executed by an unknown artist about 1750,
the vignette on the title-page of the present work is a reproduction.
The tartan is represented only in the coat of the youth holding
the golf-club, the trews being in red and white check; and a close
inspection reveals an important addition to what has long been accepted
as the Lord of the Isles pattern—to wit, that of the black lines
intersecting the red squares. The omission of these black lines from
the modern sett is obviously accidental, for the tartan as now worn
is based on the authority of the picture, which was believed to have
been accurately copied. The origin of the error cannot be ascertained;
but, probably, a mistake in the reproduction of the design when
tartans became the wear after the repeal of the prohibitory statute
has remained undetected till now. On the canvas, at least, the
intersections are clearly depicted; and, moreover, the tartan thus
conforms to the rule of breaking large squares generally observed in
old clan patterns. _The Costume of the Clans_, by John Sobieski Stuart
and Charles Edward Stuart, contains a presentment of the painting
which, though professedly coloured from the original, is nevertheless
extremely inaccurate. It may be added that the tartan, which is that
usually worn by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, who bears the title of the
Lord of the Isles, has never hitherto been faithfully delineated in any
previous work nor properly reproduced in any textile fabric of modern
manufacture.


[Illustration: I. THE LORD OF THE ISLES]



THE LORD OF THE ISLES: HUNTING.


Like the preceding example, the present is based on a painting in
Armadale Castle—a life-size representation of the first Lord Macdonald
of the Isles, dating from about 1765. On the evidence of style the
work is ascribed to Allan Ramsay the younger, who about this period
painted many portraits in tartan costumes, in which, fortunately for
our purpose, he displays as a rule the patterns boldly and brilliantly.
Through the kindness of Lord and Lady Macdonald of the Isles the Editor
had last year an excellent opportunity of obtaining reproductions of
the tartans delineated in their family portraits. The painting in
this case was photographed to a large scale, and afterwards coloured
from the original by an experienced artist (a similar plan being
adopted in the case of Plate I.) From these the silks were woven,
carefully compared with the paintings, and so absolute accuracy of
reproduction secured. Traditionally known as the Lord of the Isles
hunting tartan, the pattern here given appears in the coat, vest, and
kilt of the figure portrayed. The statute against the wearing of the
Highland dress, including tartans, passed in 1747, was operative when
the picture was painted. It may be, however, that as the Macdonalds
of Sleat were adherents of the Government, in name at least, special
indulgence was extended to them. During the greater part of the
present century the design was not rendered in textile fabric, but
recently Lord Macdonald of the Isles had it woven for his use. With
characteristic inaccuracy of colouring, _The Costume of the Clans_
represents the tartan with a predominance of red, though the original
contains no trace of that colour.

[Illustration: II. THE LORD OF THE ISLES: HUNTING]



BRODIE.


It is not known when this design was originally adopted; but, though
the pattern cannot be traced in early paintings, it nevertheless
possesses internal evidence of some antiquity, since many of the oldest
tartans are variations of the red and black check, popularly styled
the Rob Roy,[105] with the addition of narrower lines of various hues,
as in the present instance. The beginning of the century witnessed
its use, as it is included in several collections of the hard tartans
produced at the time; and since then it has always figured in the
pattern-books and the lists both of connoisseurs and of manufacturers.
Certainly, it has been regarded as the true Brodie by makers as far
back as business records or traditions extend. Of late a green tartan
has been sold as undress or hunting Brodie, but it seems unsupported by
any remote authority. The pattern illustrated as the Huntly district
tartan (Plate X.) was also known as Brodie seventy years ago; it was
so called because many Brodies who belonged to the districts occupied
by the Gordons, Forbeses, and others wore it in early times as the
district tartan, and more recently in some instances adopted it as
their family pattern.


[Illustration: III. BRODIE]



CAMPBELL OF BREADALBANE.


The specimen here presented is a careful reproduction of the tartan
of Campbell of Breadalbane, as worn by the Fencibles of that district
from their embodiment in 1793 to their disbandment in 1802. The
authority is a portion of the regimental uniform of Major Campbell,
one of the officers, whose descendants now treasure it as a precious
relic. Wherever the tartan occurs in early collections, dating from
before 1790 down to 1840, the pattern agrees with the accompanying
illustration. The later date, however, witnessed the inception of a
delusion that has prevailed even to the present day; for a tartan
similar in some respects, which appears in certain early collections
under the simple designation of “fancy,” began about that time to usurp
the title of Breadalbane Campbell, and is now received as the correct
design. But the existence of this regimental dress now a century old,
the uninterrupted record of the pattern to 1840, and the proved genesis
of the spurious variety, afford the amplest justification for including
the earlier pattern in the present work. It is the only Campbell tartan
included in the collection made by the Highland Society of London in
1816-17. It is doubtful if any of the so-called Campbell tartans as
worn at the present time were in use earlier than the middle of last
century, while several are of more recent introduction. The early
Campbell portraits at Langton and Loudoun show designs entirely unlike
any Campbell tartans now in use, being chiefly red.

[Illustration: IV. CAMPBELL OF BREADALBANE]



DAVIDSON.


The evidence of the early date of this design rests entirely upon
specimens in collections of old hard tartans. Diligent research reveals
no portrait in Highland costume of a member of the clan, whose leading
representatives, moreover, are without any account of the origin either
of this pattern or of another bearing the same name and differing from
it mainly in the omission of the white stripe. From the collation of
many authorities and the inspection of many samples, however, the
conclusion has been reached that of the two the design here represented
is the earlier. It is preserved in a collection of examples of tartans
made by the Highland Society of London in 1822; in that of Messrs
Ogilvie & Co., Edinburgh, dealers in tartan about the same period; in
that of The Mackintosh at Moy Hall, and in many others.

[Illustration: V. DAVIDSON]



DRUMMOND OF PERTH.


Tradition associates this tartan with the amiable, ill-fated James
Drummond, Duke of Perth, who was conspicuous in the ’45, and who died
on board a French frigate while attempting to escape in the succeeding
year. The early collections nearly all contain this pattern, which is
variously styled Drummond of Perth, Drummond, and Perth. Portraits of
the Duke in tartan garb are in the possession of the Duke of Richmond
and Gordon at Gordon Castle, and of Lord Ancaster at Drummond Castle,
but in neither case is the painting sufficiently distinct for the
confirmation of details. The Murray-Threipland family preserve at
Fingask Castle a cloak said to have been left there by Prince Charles
Edward; and its design, reproduced in Plate XL., is the Drummond of
Perth, with the exception of a narrow line. It is probable either
that the garment belonged to the Duke, or that it was made for the
Prince from some of his tartan. The pattern now commonly worn by the
Drummonds is likewise claimed by the Grants, the sett of the latter
varying only by the shade of a blue line; but there is no proof of the
early adoption of either by the families concerned. The introduction
of the two setts last referred to was long posterior to the use of the
example illustrated, and they seem variations of the Drummond given by
John Sobieski Stuart in _Vestiarium Scoticum_. In the table to Logan’s
_Scottish Gaël_ the Drummond scheme agrees with the present plate; but
the manufacturers, no doubt to avoid a multiplicity of patterns of the
same name, have, probably unwittingly, dropped the older of the two
designs.

[Illustration: VI. DRUMMOND OF PERTH]



DRUMMOND OF STRATHALLAN.


There is every reason to esteem this tartan of early date. Possessing
many characteristics of old design, it figures as Strathallan
Drummond in most of the trustworthy collections, including those of
The Mackintosh of Mackintosh, the Campbells of Craignish, and Messrs
Romanes & Paterson, Edinburgh. An example of undoubted antiquity is
held by the Editor. In 1812 David, sixth Earl of Airlie, head of the
house of Ogilvy, married Clementina, only child of Gavin Drummond,
Esq., the third son of James Drummond of Keltie by Clementina, sister
and co-heiress of Alexander Graham of Duntrune, who was heir male of
John, Viscount of Dundee. On this event the tartan here represented, up
to that time known as Strathallan, appears to have been adopted by the
Earl and some other branches of the family, and in the course of time
the design came to be styled the Ogilvy, which is now its customary
designation; the ground has sometimes been made blue instead of green.
The appropriation is somewhat extraordinary, because the Ogilvys
possess a fine tartan of their own (Plate XXX.), which can be traced at
least as far back as last century. Mr and Mrs Nisbet-Hamilton-Ogilvy
have an interesting portrait (ascribed to Allan Ramsay) of David, Lord
Ogilvy, afterwards sixth Earl of Airlie (attainted), who raised a body
of cavalry for Prince Charles Edward and fought at Culloden. The coat
displays a simple check in red and blue, and the plaid an effective
tartan scheme in these colours. Indeed, the picture is supposed to
represent the uniform of Ogilvy’s Horse of 1745-46.

[Illustration: VII. DRUMMOND OF STRATHALLAN]



FRASER.


The accompanying reproduction is taken from a specimen in a collection
formed about 1790, where the pattern is first recorded. Different
Fraser families appear originally to have had each their special
designs, but for a long time every important section (save that of
Lovat, whose tartan forms the next plate) has recognised this as the
_Breacan Friosalach_. Collections following one another at brief
intervals from 1790 to 1850, comprising those of the Highland Society
of London, the Campbells of Craignish, the late Dr. W. F. Skene, and The
Mackintosh of Mackintosh, present it unvaryingly as the clan tartan.
Paintings, both early and important, of branch representatives disclose
variations which seem to indicate that certain families were wont to
have the details slightly altered for their own uses. The pattern
usually offered as Fraser, while bearing some resemblance to that
illustrated in Plate IX. as Fraser of Lovat, is most likely an old
tartan of Clan Grant (see the Grant, Plate X.), and its association
with the Clan Fraser is based on its occurrence in the _Vestiarium
Scoticum_. Some account of the Fraser and other family portraits
showing Highland costume was contributed by the Editor to _The Scottish
Antiquary_, Vol. VIII. See also the notes on the Fraser of Lovat
tartan.

[Illustration: VIII. FRASER]



FRASER OF LOVAT.


Confirmation of the supposition that various branches of Clan Fraser
wore tartans similar in scheme but different in detail is furnished
by the family portraits. In a fine presentment of Major James Fraser
of Castle Leather (whereof a replica hangs in Inverness Town Hall),
painted about 1723, a red pattern is shown in the plaid, while the rest
of the dress is a simple check in red, green, and blue. Portraits of
the Hon. Sybella Fraser of Lovat and the Hon. Mrs Archibald Fraser of
Lovat, executed after the middle of last century, in the collection of
Sir William Augustus Fraser of Ledclune, have different red setts in
the plaids. Miss Fraser of Abertarff possesses an interesting likeness
of her father, dated 1808, that supplies yet another arrangement in
red. The present illustration depicts the earliest authenticated Lovat
pattern, which is accepted, moreover, by the leading collectors. In
1849 Lord Lovat wrote of the tartan generally styled Fraser (though, as
already mentioned, it is most probably Grant—Plate X.), that he had
ascertained it to be that of his clan prior to 1745. It is difficult
to accept the statement, since no trace of the design appears in the
Fraser paintings either at or before that period. On the other hand,
the pattern was undoubtedly in use then by a prominent member of Clan
Grant, of whom it is said that he continued to wear the Highland dress
for almost a century, as stated in the notes on the Grant tartan.

[Illustration: IX. FRASER OF LOVAT]



GRANT.


Reproduced from a portrait of Robert Grant of Lurg (1678-1777), in the
collection at Troup House. This example, as mentioned in the note to
Plate VIII., is identical with that now commonly styled the Fraser.
It was accepted by some only of the Fraser families in 1842, because
it was illustrated under their name in the _Vestiarium Scoticum_.
Of the Laird of Lurg there is another likeness, in the possession
of Lady Seafield at Castle Grant, which represents him in the Black
Watch tartan. The explanation offered is that he was an officer in the
Clan Grant Company of the Black Watch; that since his clan supported
the Government the prohibition against the national dress would not
be enforced in his case; and that it is but reasonable to suppose
he wore the tartan of his clan when not in military uniform. In
connection with the Grants occurs one of the earliest descriptions of
a distinctive clan design. It is dated 1704. It has been partially,
though inaccurately, quoted in Sir William Fraser’s _Chiefs of Grant_
(Edinburgh, 1883), and on account of its interest it is given in the
Introduction to this work. The illustration is not in absolute harmony
with the description, and appears, indeed, to be a modification of it.
Attention may again be directed to the resemblance between the Grant
and the Fraser tartans. The wide dissimilarity in the tartans depicted
in the Grant family portraits preserved at Castle Grant and elsewhere
is referred to in the Introduction.

[Illustration: X. GRANT]



HUNTLY.


The present example is designated Huntly and Brodie in certain early
collections, and, like those of Dunblane, Strathearn, and Atholl, it
appears to belong to a district rather than to a family. Tradition
shows it to have been in use during a considerable portion of last
century by such families as Gordon, Brodie, and Forbes, or at least
by members of these touched with Jacobitism, who appear to have
assumed this tartan in common, just as many families of different
name adopted a uniform wear in various localities. On the raising of
the Gordon Highlanders in 1794 a yellow stripe was introduced into
the Black Watch pattern for their regimental use; and since then the
Gordons have discontinued the use of the Huntly except on full-dress
occasions. In a beautiful painting of Miss Rebecca Forbes, daughter of
Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, married in 1802 to Alastair Ranaldson
Macdonell, fifteenth of Glengarry, there is a dress of this tartan
which is known to have been used by her family in Aberdeenshire.
From information supplied by the late Dr. William Forbes Skene to Mr
Elphinstone Dalrymple, it is ascertained that the present Forbes
tartan was designed for the Pitsligo family in 1822 by another Miss
Forbes of Pitsligo. It was done by merely adding a white line to the
Forty-second; the Gordon was similarly obtained by the addition of a
yellow one, and this is now the sole difference between the wear of
the two principal families, Forbes and Gordon, who formerly wore the
Huntly.

[Illustration: XI. HUNTLY]



KEITH AND AUSTIN.


Despite the uncertainty concerning the origin of this design, it is
included in every complete early collection, like that of the Highland
Society of London, of the late Dr. Skene, of Messrs Ogilvie & Co., and
of Messrs Romanes & Paterson. The last-mentioned firm has supplied it
from the early years of the present century to various families of
Keiths and Austins, including the house of Keith-Falconer, Earls of
Kintore. The Austins appear first on record as allies and supporters
of the Keiths. The name was variously spelt, though in ancient records
it was generally begun with Ou or Ow. Of curious interest as showing
an early connection between the families is the occurrence in 1587
of the name of Alexander Ousteane, burgess of Edinburgh, as one of
the cautioners for George Keith, Earl Marshall, in an action raised
against him by Margaret Erskine, Lady Pitcarie. In the same year
Alexander Oisteane, no doubt the same person, was a Parliamentary
representative of the Burgh of Edinburgh. In 1589, Walter Oustene, a
tenant in Lochquhan (a possession of the Keith family), was one of the
subscribers to a Bond of Caution imposed on a number of the landed men
in the shires of Aberdeen and Kincardine, binding them to keep the
peace in the struggles with the Catholic party headed by Huntly.

[Illustration: XII. KEITH AND AUSTIN]



KENNEDY.


The tartan seems to have been first worn by Kennedy families in the
Lochaber district. Tradition avers that some centuries back Ulric
Kennedy, a scion of the Ayrshire Kennedys who came originally from
Ireland, settled in Lochaber, and that all bearing the name in this
locality are descended from him. In the Highlands they are known as Mac
Ulrics or Clan Ulric, and are said to have once mustered considerable
force. The design has been accepted by the Kennedys in Carrick, many of
whom adopted it last century as an emblem of their Jacobite sympathies.
Several early examples of the pattern are in existence, and one of
these is here reproduced in the exact tints of the original. As will be
seen in the plate, the single red stripe is scarlet and the two fine
red lines are crimson; but manufacturers, to save themselves trouble,
have been accustomed to vitiate the design by failing to mark this
distinction. It is noteworthy that the tartan bears little resemblance
to any other Lochaber design of ancient date, and that the Kennedys,
while generally allied with the Camerons, have ever maintained their
own colours. They regard as their chief the Marquis of Ailsa, who is
head of the Kennedys of Ayrshire.

[Illustration: XIII. KENNEDY]



LOGAN.


The pattern here given is included in the collection formed by the
Highland Society of London, and it occurs in numerous others, including
that at Moy Hall, while it has borne this name for many years. Great
confusion has somehow arisen concerning the tartan of the family.
James Logan’s table in _The Scottish Gaël_ furnishes a design totally
unlike the one afterwards illustrated in his joint work with Mac Ian,
_The Clans of the Scottish Highlands_. Messrs Smith, in their usually
trustworthy _Authenticated Tartans of the Clans and Families of
Scotland_, present the Logan designated as the Skene, with the comment:
“It appears in Mr Logan’s book, but we must confess it is a pattern
about the antiquity of which we entertain some doubts.” In point of
fact, Logan gives no Skene tartan in _The Scottish Gaël_, while the
pattern of Clan Donchadh of Mar or Skene supplied in the Logan-Mac Ian
collaboration is entirely different. That it is not Skene tartan is
attested by the fact that an example which belonged to the late Dr. W.
F. Skene (now in the possession of the Editor) is described as “Logan”
in his own handwriting. Its early and general use under that name
clearly justifies its inclusion in this collection.

[Illustration: XIV. LOGAN]



MAC CALLUM.


Well-nigh forgotten and rarely encountered, save in the old
pattern-book or in the tartan collector’s museum, this design is
early, though its origin cannot be fixed with any certainty. It has
been supplanted by a comparatively modern pattern, known commonly as
the Malcolm but occasionally as the Mac Callum, which is the ancient
form of the name. The new scheme has existed some forty or fifty years
at least, as the Editor has received from a lady in Skye a specimen
in a portion of a silk dress her family has owned for about that
period without knowing the name of the tartan. In the collection of
the Highland Society of London (1822), in that at Moy Hall, and in
every other important repository of the kind, the Mac Callum as here
illustrated is ranked, and the Malcolm is wanting. It its believed that
the family, having lost trace of the old sett fifty or sixty years ago,
had the modern design prepared from the recollection of old people in
Argyllshire; but, as has frequently happened in similar circumstances,
the recovery of the original design shows that considerable deviation
had been made.

[Illustration: XV. MAC CALLUM]



MACDONALD.


One of the most romantic stories associated with tartans is attached to
the fragment now reproduced. In the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh, is a
collection of MSS. in ten black-edged volumes bearing the title of _The
Lyon in Mourning_, the reference being to the misfortunes of the House
of Stuart. Fastened to the inner sides of the boards are many relics
of the pathetic experiences of Prince Charles during the interval
between his defeat at Culloden and his escape to France. The documents
were written and the mementoes gathered by Bishop Robert Forbes, an
enthusiastic Jacobite. Under a scrap of tartan with a bit of red lining
he has noted:—

 The above are pieces of the outside and inside of that identical
 waistcoat which Macdonald of Kingsburgh gave to the Prince when he
 laid aside the woman’s clothes. The said waistcoat being too fine
 for a servant the Prince exchanged it with Malcolm Macleod. Malcolm,
 after parting with the Prince, and finding himself in danger of being
 seized, did hide the waistcoat in a cleft of a rock, where, upon his
 returning home in the beginning of September 1747, he found it all
 rotten to bits, except only as much as would serve to cover little
 more than one’s loof, and two buttons, all of which he was pleased to
 send to me. The waistcoat had lain more than a full year in the cleft
 of the rock, for Malcolm Macleod was made prisoner sometime in July
 1746.

In the MSS. a copy of Macleod’s letter is given, and it runs thus:—

  Reverend Dr. Sir,

 You’l received from the bearer all that was to the for of the weast
 Coat that the P. gave to me, because no Body cou’d get it where I put
 it till I came home my self likwise tow of the Buttons that wor in it.
 I cou’d get that from Kingsborrow you desired me ——. However he has
 it. I have more to tell you when I see ——. Writ to me by the Bearer
 mind me most kindly to Lady Bruce & all aquantance Especiall Lady
 Balmirina & her sister.

  I’m your very humble servant,
  MAL MACLEOD.

  Rasay, October 13, 1747.

The MSS., sold by the bishop’s widow to Sir Henry Steuart of Allanton,
were acquired by Robert Chambers, who presented them to the Library.
An account of the MSS. appears in _Chambers’s Jacobite Memoirs_.
Edinburgh, 1834.

[Illustration: XVI. MACDONALD]



MACDONALD OF KEPPOCH.


The Macdonalds boast more tartans than any other clan, in consequence
of many branches having adopted setts differing from the clan pattern.
The Macdonalds of Keppoch, or Siol Mac Mhic Raonuill, did so. This
sept was not numerically strong as compared with others, for in 1745
its fighting men were estimated at three hundred. The illustration
represents a portion of the plaid the Keppoch of ’45 gave Prince
Charles Edward, long preserved at Moy Hall, but many years back divided
among various families. Of this chief it is recorded that, when the
Macdonalds refused to charge the Hanoverian army at Culloden, and stood
irresolute, slashing the turf with their claymores, he exclaimed, “My
God! Have the children of my tribe deserted me?” and dashed forward
on the enemy, to be immediately shot down. Recently the pattern has
fallen into desuetude, many entitled to wear it preferring the quieter
colours of the pattern now commonly known as Clan Macdonald. Several
variations of the Keppoch scheme exist, and old specimens differing
from the illustration are held by some to be authentic setts; but this
has always been admitted by leading authorities to be the Keppoch,
since the plaid presented to the Prince was presumably in the chief’s
pattern.

[Illustration: XVII. MACDONALD OF KEPPOCH]



MACKINTOSH.


The extensive variations in the tartans styled Mackintosh are
attributable to the fact that Clan Chattan embraced many septs, more or
less nearly allied, who changed the pattern at will. But the chief’s
and the clan designs are now accepted as authoritative examples of
the early scheme. To the example here illustrated peculiar interest
attaches, since it is the sett worn by Prince Charles Edward in the
Mackintosh country. The Rev. A. Thomson Grant, of the Rectory, Leven,
from whom the specimen was obtained, writes: “The piece of tartan I
sent you was given me in September 1860 by Mrs Christina Mackintosh or
Grant, widow of the Rev. James Grant, minister of Cromdale. I was at
the time on a visit to Coulnakyle House, some miles above Grantown,
where Mrs Grant and her family then resided. Mrs Grant produced a piece
of tartan, which she confidently assured me was a piece of the kilt
worn by Prince Charlie while in the Mackintosh country. The kilt, she
added, was religiously divided among the then members of the chief’s
family and near relations, and the piece she possessed had come down
to her by regular descent from her ancestors of that time. When I was
bidding good-bye, Mrs Grant halved the piece of tartan, and gave me
that which is now in your possession.” The illustration reproduces the
colours and the dimensions in the original, which, though a small, is
yet a fine specimen of old hard tartan.

[Illustration: XVIII. MACKINTOSH]



MAC INTYRE AND GLENORCHY.


Wherever authentic records of tartans are preserved this design
appears, generally as Mac Intyre and Glenorchy, though occasionally
as Glenorchy alone. It seems to have partaken of the nature of a
district tartan, for the locality whence the title is taken was only
partly occupied by the Mac Intyres, who appear never to have attained
the strength of a clan. No Mac Intyre arms are matriculated in the
Lyon Register. They are found, however, in Burke’s _General Armoury_,
and the individual contributing them evidently regarded his family
as a sept of the Mac Donalds. The pattern in the illustration occurs
in the collection of the Highland Society of London (1822), and in
reproductions made in Edinburgh about 1820 from examples of ancient
designs procured in the Highlands near that time. In a collection
formed in 1790 there is a scheme differing very slightly from the
present illustration. Of the antiquity of the name Mac Intyre in Lorn
evidence is furnished by the traditions of a family who “possessed
the farm of Glenoe, in Nether Lorn, from about the year 1300 down to
1810. They were originally foresters of Stewart, Lord Lorn, and were
continued in their possession and employment after the succession of
the Glenorchy and Breadalbane families to this estate, by a marriage
with a co-heiress of the last Lord Lorn of the Stewart family in
the year 1435” (Stewart’s _Highlanders_, third edition, Vol. I. p.
82). General Stewart, writing in 1822, observes: “In like manner the
Athole, Glenorchy, and other colours of different districts were easily
distinguishable.” Doubtless this statement refers to the example here
given, because it is shown in all collections of importance gathered at
that date, when what is now commonly known as the Mac Intyre appears to
have been non-existent.

[Illustration: XIX. MACINTYRE AND GLENORCHY]



MAC LACHLAN.


The accompanying tartan is one of two ancient designs bearing the same
name. It figures in all the collections formed in the early years of
the century, and an excellent example (the precise date of which,
however, is unknown) has been procured from Messrs Romanes & Paterson.
The other design, to be found in a collection made in 1790, is shown in
an ancient piece of hard tartan with a simple check in red and green
about five-eighths of an inch square in the Editor’s possession. In
the _Vestiarium Scoticum_ the Mac Lachlan is depicted as a brilliant
combination of yellow and black, being the sett in use by the present
Mac Lachlan of Mac Lachlan. The clan generally use a red and dark blue
design, which cannot be traced further back than 1850 to the Smiths’
and Smibert’s works. The existence of the tartan illustrated appears
to have been generally overlooked by the clan, a fact greatly to be
regretted, as it is one of the finest of the old clan setts. That the
illustration represents an early and authentic clan pattern of the Mac
Lachlan cannot be doubted, for it is the only example occurring under
that name in the collections of the Highland Society, the Campbells
of Craignish, The Mackintosh of Mackintosh, and many others. Several
members of a minor sept of the Mac Lachlans, followers of the Stewarts
of Appin, were slain in the campaign of 1745-46 while fighting in the
Appin Regiment. (See note under Stewart of Appin.)

[Illustration: XX. MAC LACHLAN]



MAC LAINE OF LOCHBUIE.


One of the few tartans concerning whose antiquity no doubt appears
ever to have been suggested, the Mac Laine of Lochbuie ranks in every
extensive collection of old patterns, though till recently it was not
represented in any published work. Particularly fine examples are
preserved in the Willis collection and in that of The Mackintosh. The
design is generally woven in an open sett, which produces an admirable
effect. It is unique among old patterns, by reason of the quantity
of pale blue in its composition, that colour being usually reserved
for narrow lines. The date of its introduction is unknown, but its
use in the Western Isles last century is authenticated, and tradition
points to its early origin. Despite the fact that the clan followed
the Marquis of Montrose and joined the rising of ’15, it took no share
in the ’45; and it may consequently be presumed that the members, like
others in similar cases, continued to wear their tartan and dress after
these had been formally proscribed. The present Mac Laine of Lochbuie
wears also the hunting Mac Laine of Lochbuie, which, as he himself
points out, is of modern invention.

[Illustration: XXI. MAC LAINE OF LOCHBUIE]



MACKEANE (MAC IAN).


The _Vestiarium Scoticum_, already acknowledged as the earliest and
the most elaborate illustrated publication on tartan designs, was
edited by the late John Sobieski Stuart from a MS. stated to belong
to the sixteenth century. The MS. was printed and published in 1842,
with plates executed from drawings by Charles Edward Stuart, the
editor’s brother. Of course the drawings are but a development of the
descriptions in the MS. It need scarcely be added that the volume is
now rare and costly. The MS. was transcribed and illuminated in 1829
by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, for whom Charles Edward Stuart prepared a
series of drawings which included several tartans not illustrated in
the published work. One of these is here reproduced, and Sir Richard
Urquhart, Knycht, the reputed author of the MS., thus describes it:
“Mackeane hethe four stryppes of Blak upon ain scarlett feilde, and
upon the scarlett sett ain spraig (sprainge) of yellowe of saxteen
threidis, havand thereto ain bordure of Blak of twa threidis.” The
Mac Ians, whose name is variously spelt in the early clan rolls and
elsewhere as M’Kane, Mac Coin, Mac Eoin, Clanayioun, &c., were a branch
of the Clan Macdonald. That the use of the design was not confined to
this branch is evidenced by a contemporary portrait of Alastair Ruadh
of Glengarry (who was prominent in the ’45), in which he is depicted in
this tartan. The painting is in the possession of John Alastair Erskine
Cuninghame, Esq. of Balgownie, Perthshire, the last lineal descendant
and heir-general of Alastair Ronaldson Macdonell of Glengarry.

[Illustration: XXII. MAC KEANE]



MAC LEAN: HUNTING.


The traditions, songs, and records of the Mac Leans contain references
of a much earlier date to this tartan than do any authenticated
collection of, or published work on, particular designs. In a charter
of 1587-8 granting Hector Mac Lean, heir of Duart, certain lands in
Islay, the feu-duty is made payable in the form of sixty ells of cloth
of white, black, and green colours. On the suppression of the religious
houses the impost is again mentioned in connection with the assets of
the churches. This very curious feu-duty exigible in tartan is dealt
with, and the references contained in the charters printed in full, in
the Introduction. The old Gaelic song, “Moladh rann do Shir Eachainn
Mac Gillian Trath Dhubhairt,” has the following verse:—

  Bu mhian leam am breacan tlàth,
  Breacan uain’ ’us dubh ’us geal:
  Datha sar Mhich-Ghillian am flath—
  Sud an laoch a fhuair mo ghaol.

  Dear to me the tartan plaid,
  The plaid of green and black and white:
  The colours of the brave Mac Lean—
  The hero of my love.

The pattern is universally acknowledged by the clan.

[Illustration: XXIII. MAC LEAN: HUNTING]



MAC LEOD.


Diversity of opinion prevails concerning the tartan of the Mac Leods;
and, unfortunately, nothing was done to settle the dispute when
the Clan Mac Leod Society recently discussed the claims of rival
patterns. The inspection of important collections from 1785, the date
of the repeal of the statute against tartans, till the present day,
proves that the design here given invariably occurs under the family
designation. Certain Mac Leods claim and wear the Mackenzie tartan
as their own, though the appearance of both, under their respective
names, in old collections proves this to be an impropriety. The mistake
doubtless arose from the fact that when the 73rd Regiment was raised in
1777 it was commanded by a son of the Earl of Cromarty, whose courtesy
title was Lord Mac Leod, though his family name was Mackenzie, and
whose tartan was the dress of the corps. Of comparatively recent date,
the assumption has yet taken considerable hold, in consequence of its
adoption in several works relating to clan patterns. The Mac Leods
of Raasay wore a design in brilliant yellow whose authority is the
_Vestiarium Scoticum_. An examination of the portraits and relics at
Dunvegan Castle in Skye, the seat of Mac Leod of Mac Leod, has been
made in search of records of the tartan of the clan. It has revealed
the singular circumstance that in the only early portrait in tartan
dress, that of the chief painted by Allan Ramsay in 1768, red is the
predominant colour of the tartan plaid, while coat and trews are in
“Rob Roy” check. Logan has stated, from recollection, that the plaid
is in the Fraser pattern; but here he is in error. It is to be hoped
further investigation will elucidate the history of the tartan in the
painting referred to.

[Illustration: XXIV. MAC LEOD]



MAC NEILL.


To establish the antiquity of this pattern of the Mac Neill it is but
necessary to mention that it occurs in many old collections, including
those of Craignish, Moy Hall, the Highland Society of London, and
Messrs Romanes and Paterson. Several branches of the clan have other
designs, but none is found in the ancient repositories either so early
or so often as that now illustrated. A hitherto unnoticed reference to
what is possibly the distinctive tartan of the Mac Neills appears in
_The Grameid: an Historic Poem descriptive of the Campaign of Viscount
Dundee in 1689, by James Philip of Almerieclose, 1691_, translated by
the Rev. Alexander D. Murdoch, F.S.A. Scot., for the Scottish History
Society, 1888. It reads: “The illustrious son of warlike Mac Neill
comes from the winding shore of Barra’s isle, around whom, as their
chief, a great company of the youth of his name presses on the right
hand and on the left. Carrying his battle-axe, he advances on foot,
panting as he goes, leading his tall clansmen, himself the tallest,
and his shoulders covered with a Tyrian mantle. He displays as many
colours woven into his plaid as the rainbow in the clouds shows in the
sunlight.” Whether or not the tartan here presented was that worn by
the chief in Dundee’s campaign cannot be determined, but, at least,
it is the sole pattern associated with the name having any trace of
red. The writer of the poem was a close observer, and many of his
descriptions of dress and arms are highly valuable; while the allusion
to “the winding shore of Barra’s isle” evinces an intimate knowledge of
the peculiarly indented character of that island.

[Illustration: XXV. MAC NEILL]



MACPHERSON.


The Macpherson tartans present unwonted difficulty in consequence of
the multiplicity of setts, each having claims of its own. These are
(1) the Chief’s, (2) the Cluny, or full dress, (3) the Hunting, and
(4) the Clan tartans. The first, though one of the oldest designs, has
often been wrongly presented. Of the second, which was illustrated in
the _Vestiarium Scoticum_, the Cluny Macpherson of 1850 wrote to Messrs
Smith, then compiling a book of tartans, that:-

 The design was known as the Breacan Glas’ long before John [Sobieski]
 Stuart was heard of in this country, although I rather think the
 addition of the yellow stripe was introduced by him, or rather taken
 from his MS., but, at all events, the tartan is an old Macpherson.

The _Vestiarium_ had only been published eight years before (1842),
though strenuous efforts had been made to issue it in 1829. It is
evident from an unpublished correspondence between Sir Walter Scott
and Sir Thomas Dick Lauder that the chief of Cluny received his first
drawing of the tartan from the brothers Stuart—a fact obviously
unknown to his successor of 1850. Sir Thomas, writing to Sir Walter on
1st June 1829, observes:—

 The Messrs Hay [the name at first borne by the brothers] have already
 instructed several of the chiefs of clans who have had webs of the
 true tartans made, and, as an instance of this, I may mention that
 Cluny Macpherson appeared at the late fancy ball at Edinburgh in his
 beautiful and genuine tartan as taken from the MS. ... which excited
 universal admiration. Mac Leod has got a sketch of his splendid tartan.

There is no evidence of this second pattern having been in actual
use prior to 1829, the only authority of earlier date being the MS.
above referred to. The third design is identical with that illustrated
here, except that the ground is grey instead of white. In use for
many years, the fourth appears in some of the early collections. The
only Macpherson (other than that peculiar to the chief) found in the
earliest collections is that here given, and there is every reason
to believe it the pattern worn by the clan from the repeal of the
prohibitory statute to the middle of the present century, when the
white ground was exchanged for grey. It is not known why the alteration
was made.

[Illustration: XXVI. MACPHERSON]



MAC RAE: HUNTING.


The present illustration reproduces the pattern of a piece of old hard
tartan from a kilt believed to have been worn by a member of Clan Mac
Rae at the battle of Sheriffmuir in 1715. The fragment, now in the
author’s possession, bears internal evidence of great age, the style
of manufacture attesting its connection with the period to which it
has been assigned. A tartan somewhat akin to this, and having the same
name, is supposed to have been founded on an imperfect acquaintance
with the pattern here given. The design is poorly represented in the
_Clans of Scotland_, by Mac Ian and Logan. It has been styled Hunting
to distinguish it from a red Mac Rae, which agrees exactly with the
Prince’s Own (Plate XLII.) The Editor was unable to account for the
connection between the two latter till he discovered a plaid preserved
in a carefully authenticated collection in Inverness-shire, with the
description: “Mac Rae tartan plaid worn by Prince Charles Edward in
1745.” The plaid being a complicated sett, a large specimen is required
to show the complete design, and, either through inadequate patterns
or insistent copying, the portion containing the yellow lines has been
omitted from all representations of the tartan hitherto published.
Captain John Mac Rae of Kames Castle has furnished the following note
regarding a sett of tartan which has been worn in his family:—“When my
great-great-grandfather, John Mac Ra of Conchra, Lochalsh, was on his
way to Sheriffmuir from Kintail, some of his followers being without
stockings, the occupants of a shieling in which some of them lodged
spent the night in cutting out stockings for them from a web of cloth
which they had in the place. A piece of this web was in the possession
of my grand-aunt, Miss Flora Mac Ra of Ardintoul, from which she
knitted the accompanying hose when a girl at the end of last century.
Unfortunately, the original piece of cloth has been lost.” The tartan
may be described as consisting of squares of sapphire-blue and white,
a line of yellow passing through the former and one of red through the
latter.

[Illustration: XXVII. MAC RAE]



MENZIES: HUNTING.


From early times the war-cry and motto of the Menzies clan has been
“Geal ’us dearg a suas,” “Up with the red and white,” and this has
been held to refer to the tartan; but, as other hues are found in old
specimens, it is at least probable that both phrase and design may be
traced to the heraldic shield of the chief, which is argent, a chief
gules, the colours of the tartan as commonly known. In the hunting
pattern here reproduced the only change is the substitution of green
for red in the ground, and red for white in the stripes. The pattern
of Menzies tartan, signed and sealed by the chief of that day, in the
collection formed by the Highland Society of London in 1816-17, is an
arrangement of red, green, blue, and white, and an example of last
century date in the Editor’s collection is identical in sett. The use
of the red and white Menzies tartan as a design for hose was common
throughout the Highlands, as the ancient portraits of various families
prove, and this use of the sett is probably of earlier date than its
special adoption as the Clan Menzies wear.

[Illustration: XXVIII. MENZIES: HUNTING]



MONTGOMERIE.


The frequent use of tartans by non-Highland families during a long
period—certainly throughout the eighteenth century—has been noted
elsewhere. It is not suggested that these wore the dress to the same
extent as the inhabitants of the Western Highlands and Islands, but,
nevertheless, the use of tartans was popular in the South of Scotland
at the time of the Union of the Kingdoms, and for long afterwards.
About this period, probably, the design here illustrated came to be
adopted by the Montgomeries of Ayrshire. A fine example in old hard
tartan, from Dr. Skene’s collection, has been employed as a guide in
the reproduction of the sett. An examination of the historical relics
in the possession of the Earl of Eglinton, the head of the Montgomerie
family, at Eglinton Castle has furnished ample evidence of the early
use of the tartan as here illustrated. In 1757 the Honourable Archibald
Montgomerie, son of the Earl of Eglinton, received letters of service
to raise a regiment in the North. It was known as Montgomerie’s
Highlanders. The uniform, as appears from the Eglinton portraits
examined by the author, consisted of the Highland dress, but the tartan
worn was the Government or Black Watch sett, and not the Montgomerie
pattern.

An interesting record of the encouragement by this family of the
manufacture of tartans in Ireland about the year 1600 will be found in
the Introduction.

[Illustration: XXIX. MONTGOMERIE]



OGILVY.


As has been indicated in the notes on Drummond of Strathallan, that
pattern has been generally worn by the Ogilvys since the families
became connected through marriage in 1812. The present illustration
shows what was known as the Ogilvy (see Drummond of Strathallan, Plate
VII.) before that date, though it has gradually sunk into abeyance. Of
its origin nothing is known. It was revived as late as 1850 in _The
Clans of Scotland_, by Thomas Smibert, but it was then imperfectly
represented. The collection of Mr and Mrs Nisbet-Hamilton-Ogilvy at
Biel contains, as has been said, a fine portrait of David, the Lord
Ogilvy of the ’45, who commanded Ogilvy’s Horse. It is a half-length
figure, and, while the coat is in simple red and blue check, the plaid
is more elaborate in design. Clearly limned is an effective arrangement
of red and blue, which are the only colours either in coat or plaid.
Mrs Nisbet-Hamilton-Ogilvy suggests that this tartan may have been
a special variety provided by Lord Ogilvy for his regiment. Careful
investigation of old collections, however, reveals no earlier pattern
attributed to the family than the one here given.

[Illustration: XXX. OGILVIE]



OGILVY: HUNTING.


Generally styled the hunting Ogilvy, though sometimes merely the
Ogilvy, this example is found in all early collections. That of
the Highland Society of London (1822) contains an especially fine
example. In the Moy Hall collection the specimen is labelled Ogilvy of
Inverquharitie—its only appearance under that name. Nothing authentic
has been ascertained as to its first introduction, but traditions of
its long use are plentiful among the families entitled to wear it.
An ancient legend of the Ogilvys concerning their tartan has been
deemed to apply to this pattern, and to prove its antiquity. It is
averred that the fairies, displeased at the appropriation of so much
of their favourite colour (green) in the design, cast their influence
against the clan in one of its feuds, and brought about its overthrow.
Hence, according to the legend, the adoption of the pattern shown in
the preceding illustration. The tale has likewise been attributed to
the tartan commonly known as the Ogilvy, but restored to its proper
designation in this volume as Strathallan Drummond, where the same hue
is also predominant. But as that design was not adopted by the Ogilvys
till 1812—long after the date of the legend—this application is
obviously recent.

[Illustration: XXXI. OGILVIE: HUNTING]



ROBERTSON.


Careful and extended examination of the various authorities establishes
that the example here represented illustrates the earliest tartan worn
by members of the Clan Donnachie having red as the dominant colour.
The qualifying clause as to colour is introduced because, since the
plates for this work were prepared, the author has been indebted to Mr
Charles Robertson of Kindeace for a specimen of the recognised sett
worn by his family and other Robertsons in the North, wherein the
colours are mainly green and blue, with red and white lines. Familiar
enough to connoisseurs, this design was not generally esteemed ancient;
but Kindeace mentions that his family and others have long regarded
it as their oldest clan pattern, and he adds: “The late Strowan told
me the red was made in Atholl, and presented to his father, who never
used it. In those days it had a white line, which is never seen now.”
And this confirms the view that the illustration given is the earliest
form of the red tartan. That it is an early clan pattern there can be
no doubt, for it is duly recorded as such in the Craignish and Moy Hall
collections, and in others formed from ninety to one hundred years ago
by manufacturers and dealers in high repute.

[Illustration: XXXII. ROBERTSON]



STEWART.


The use of this design as Stewart tartan for a period extending back
to 1745, at least, is vouched by the records of manufacturers and
collectors alike. Specimens gathered about 1790, now in the author’s
possession, include an undated example, whose manufacture indicates
great age. It is titled Clan Stewart, and in many collections the
design appears as Old Stewart, so that it was obviously recognised as
the clan pattern. Probably it was employed, for the most part, as a
hunting tartan, by way of relief from the brilliancy of other designs
of the same name. The strong resemblance between this scheme and that
of the Atholl district tartan (popularly styled the Atholl-Murray),
suggests that at one time they were identical. It is known that the
pattern was much worn by the Stewarts of the Western Highlands, and
as these, with the Stewarts of Atholl, formed the clan, there is,
at any rate, a presumption in favour of a community of tartan at an
early date. A remarkable example of the old belted plaid, of a design
differing from the above in certain particulars but having the same
dominant features, has been shown to the Editor by Mrs Stuart of
Dalness. It is reported to be two centuries old, and to represent the
original sett of the tartan.

[Illustration: XXXIII. STEWART]



STEWART OF APPIN.


For the source of the present illustration reference must be made to
the notes on the Stewart of Atholl tartan (Plate XXXIV.) The pattern is
identical with the Royal Stewart as now worn, except that the present
sett has four narrow green lines running through the large red squares.
In the _Grameid_ (pp. 142-3) it is stated, in connection with Dundee’s
gathering at Lochaber in 1689, that “brave Stewart of Appin, ... with
the whole body of his clansmen, leaves the shores bordering Leven, ...
carrying blue banners charged with yellow figures, ... and wearing on
their lofty heads fur bonnets.” The passage, unlike portions dealing
with other clans, contains no mention of the tartan colours. During the
’45 the Appin Regiment bore itself gallantly for the Prince. The roll
of the killed and wounded in the campaign supplies interesting evidence
of the variety of minor septs often included in the larger clans. It is
compiled from memoranda made by Charles Stewart, nephew of Fasnacloich,
Captain in the Highland Army, and sometime Quartermaster-General and
Secretary to Prince Charles Edward. The list is as follows:—


ABSTRACT OF NAMES IN THE APPIN REGIMENT, WITH KILLED AND WOUNDED, IN
1745-46.

                    KILLED. WOUNDED.

  Camerons,            0       0
  Carmichaels,         6       2
  Hendersons,          1       1
  Macarthurs,          1       0
  Maccananichs,        5       1
  Maccolls,           18      15
  Maccombichs,         5       3
  Maccorcadills,       1       0
  Macdonalds,          0       1
  Macilduies,          1       0
  Macinishes,          4       2
  Macintyres,          5       5
  Mackenzies,          2       3
  Maclachlans,         2       0
  Maclarens,          13      14
  Macleas,             4       1
  Macrankens,          1       0
  Macuchkaders,        0       1
  Stewarts,           22      25
                      ——      ——
                      91      74

[Illustration: XXXIV. STEWART OF APPIN]



STEWART OF ATHOLL.


Five tartans described in the MS. whence the _Vestiarium Scoticum_
was derived are omitted from that work. The illuminated transcript of
the document by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder and the drawings of designs
by Charles Edward Stuart, brother of the editor of the _Vestiarium_,
were kindly placed at the disposal of the Editor by Miss Dick Lauder.
In the Introduction will be found a lengthened reference to this
work, while some notes regarding it also appear in the list of works
hitherto published on the subject of tartans. It is believed that
the reproduction of these patterns will prove of interest; and,
accordingly, they are illustrated in Plates XXII. and XXXIV. to XXXVII.
of the present volume. The _Vestiarium_ is enough of a bibliographical
rarity to be known to comparatively few, while the original MS.
is meanwhile quite unavailable. The scheme here represented bears
considerable resemblance to certain early setts of Royal Stewart,
but no record yet discovered indicates the period of its general use
in Atholl. There is reason to believe, however, that it constituted
the basis of the red tartan of Clan Donnachie or the Robertsons. The
well-nigh universal adoption of the Atholl district pattern (commonly
styled the Atholl-Murray) by the various septs in this part of
Perthshire precluded the extensive wear of any other. Hence this design
has remained almost unknown to the present generation.

[Illustration: XXXV. STEWART OF ATHOLL]



STEWART OF GALLOWAY.


Like the preceding design, this is one of the five tartans omitted from
the published _Vestiarium Scoticum_; and it differs from the Stewart
of Appin merely in the number and the tint of the lines intersecting
the red squares. In the same respects it differs also from the Royal
Stewart, the evolution of which is somewhat remarkable. When the Royal
Company of Archers adopted the Royal Stewart as their uniform early
last century, the tartan presented an aspect not easily reconciled
with its present setting—as the relics of the old dress show—but
the change has been very gradual. The wedding coat of Charles II.,
preserved in the collection of the Duke of St Albans at Bestwood, is
said to be adorned with ribbons of Royal Stewart. This example the
author has not yet had an opportunity of verifying. The Stewart of
Galloway is a family tartan, restricted in use to the house whose name
it bears, and its more immediate connections. It was in considerable
favour in the early years of the present century among families allied
to the Galloway Stewarts; but of its earlier use available records
afford no trace, though there is reason to regard its wear soon after
the Union of the Kingdoms as highly probable.

[Illustration: XXXVI. STEWART OF GALLOWAY]



STUART OF BUTE.


Of the early use of the various setts of the Stewarts little can
be gleaned, unfortunately, even from painstaking investigation at
the most likely sources. The pattern now submitted of the Stuart of
Bute is a reproduction of another of the drawings omitted from the
published _Vestiarium Scoticum_. It is clear from the correspondence
between Sir Walter Scott and Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, already mentioned,
that Charles Edward Stuart executed all the water-colours about 1829
(although the work edited by his brother was not published till
thirteen years later) for the transcript of the MS. whereon the book
is founded. The records of this, as of the previous design, point to
its use having been confined almost entirely to the family from whom it
derives its title, though others, more or less closely related, have
likewise claimed an interest in the wear. Whether or not the pattern
was employed by the Stuarts of Bute prior to the production of the MS.
by the father of the Stuart brothers has not been ascertained.

[Illustration: XXXVII. STUART OF BUTE]



WALLACE.


For this design there are records extending over a hundred years; and
it is credibly asserted that the tartan is of much greater antiquity.
Be this as it may, the pattern is placed under its proper name in many
collections formed early in the century. Somewhat inexplicable is the
fact that the tartan usually styled Mac Lean of Duart was greatly worn
by certain Wallaces down to about twenty years ago. It is, indeed,
frequently designated in old books of tartan relics as Mac Lean and
Wallace. Yet no record of either family furnishes any explanation of
this singular conjunction. The accumulation of evidence as to early
use by the Wallaces of the example here illustrated has now led to
its adoption by all bearing that name. It is a family tartan, for
the Wallaces were in no sense a clan; but its antiquity, and its
authenticity, entitle it to a place in this work.

[Illustration: XXXVIII. WALLACE]



FROM A PORTRAIT OF THE COUNTESS OF LENNOX.


The accompanying illustration reproduces a tartan depicted in a
sixteenth century painting which existed in Paris between forty and
fifty years ago, and was known as a portrait of the Countess of Lennox,
mother of Lord Darnley. Two copies of the work are extant. One owned by
the family of the late Mr Charles Elphinstone Dalrymple has been kindly
lent for the purposes of this volume. The other is in the collection of
Mr Henry Burnley Heath, Italian Consul General, London. Mr Heath writes
that he searched in vain for the original in Paris some years back;
and subsequent inquiries have also failed to trace it. It is suggested
by him that the painting may be a portrait of Queen Mary in the tartan
of the Lennox district, to which Darnley belonged. Mr Elphinstone
Dalrymple, an authority on portraiture careful as eminent, believed in
the authenticity and age of the work; but, unfortunately, his papers
contain few notes concerning it or its history. It is to be hoped the
whereabouts of this interesting portrait may still be ascertained,
especially as it is deemed the earliest coloured representation of
tartan dress.

[Illustration: XXXIX. FROM A PORTRAIT OF THE COUNTESS OF LENNOX

OF 16TH CENTURY DATE]



FROM THE CLOAK OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD AT FINGASK.


Of the many valuable relics of the ’45 treasured by the
Murray-Threipland family at Fingask, few possess greater interest than
the cloak of Prince Charles Edward, whence the present representation
is taken. It escaped the vandalism of the soldiery engaged in
suppressing the rising, and it has since been jealously guarded,
so that it is an unusually well-preserved example of the tartan
manufactured in the early and middle portions of last century. In the
notes on the Drummond of Perth, attention is directed to the fact that,
save for one fine line, that design is the same as this one. The reason
of the similarity is hard to find, but, as no heed has hitherto been
paid to the matter, information tending to elucidate the mystery may
yet be forthcoming.

[Illustration: XL. FROM PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD’S CLOAK

PRESERVED AT FINGASK]



FROM A PLAID WORN BY PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD AT HOLYROOD.


The fragments employed in the preparation of this illustration are
portions of a plaid worn by Prince Charles Edward during his brief
sojourn in Edinburgh in 1745. On his departure he presented the garment
to Susanna, Countess of Eglinton, a belle of the day, at whose house
in the Canongate he was a frequent visitor. Divided by her among her
seven daughters, a portion was given by one of them—Lady Frances
Montgomerie—to her grand-niece, the late Mrs Erskine of Torrie, who
bequeathed it to the Rev. Henry Bruce, Dunimarle. Mr Bruce mentions
that Mrs Erskine, who assured him of the genuineness of the relic,
spoke of Lady Frances as having often conversed with the Prince.
Well-nigh a century back the tartan was cut up for slippers by the
daughters of Sir William Erskine of Torrie. It was thus greatly
mutilated, but enough remained intact to permit the rendering of the
design here given. Sir Arthur Halkett, Bart., in whose collection are
some small pieces of the plaid, lent these to ensure the reproduction
of the precise tints of the original.

[Illustration: XLI. FROM A PLAID WORN BY PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD,
  AT HOLYROOD, GIVEN BY HIM TO THE COUNTESS OF EGLINTON]



“THE PRINCE’S OWN.”


Various circumstances tend to enhance the interest of this design,
which is especially associated by Jacobite enthusiasts with the memory
of Prince Charles Edward, and which was named during the campaign of
1745-46 from his personal use of it. Authenticated by specimens of
contemporary and immediately subsequent dates—invariably bearing the
legend of royal adoption—the tartan may be ranked amongst the earliest
clan patterns extant in fabric. It is undoubtedly an old pattern of the
Mac Raes; and it was certainly worn by the Prince in their territory.
But whether it was previously used by members of the clan, or whether
it was adopted by them as a compliment to the wearer, cannot be
determined. Tradition indicates, however, that the Prince was wont to
don the local colours of the various clans in his sojournments in their
respective districts. It is now generally known as Mac Rae; but in all
representations hitherto published the omission of the yellow lines has
produced confusion as to the true sett.

[Illustration: XLII. “THE PRINCE’S OWN,” AS WORN IN 1745-46]



FROM A COAT WORN AT CULLODEN.


Sufficient interest adheres to certain examples of tartan designs in
use a century and a half ago to warrant their inclusion in the present
work, even though these are associated with no clan or family. The
present illustration is a reproduction of the sett and the colouring in
a highly interesting and carefully preserved riding or military coat in
the collection of Mr Gourlay Steell, R.S.A., who kindly lent it for the
purposes of this volume. It has been publicly exhibited several times
both in Scotland and in France. In the Naval and Military Exhibition,
Edinburgh, 1889, where it was last shown, it was described as “Highland
Tartan Coat, worn by one of Prince Charles Edward’s attendants at
Culloden.” It belonged at one time to the late James Drummond, R.S.A.,
and previously to the late W. B. Johnston, R.S.A. Despite an uncommon
and daring colour scheme, the general result is pleasing and effective.
The greater part of the tartan is much faded; but as in certain
portions the tints are brilliantly displayed a faithful copy has been
obtained. Fabric and fashion alike testify to the antiquity of the
garment.

[Illustration: XLIII. FROM A COAT WORN AT CULLODEN]



FROM A PLAID FOUND AT CULLODEN.


Similar in history to the preceding illustration is the design now
represented; but the fabric contains evidence of earlier manufacture
than the date of Culloden. Indeed, with the exception of two plaids
at Dunimarle, certified as having been at Sheriffmuir in 1715, the
writer knows of no example so large in size, and possessing so much
internal evidence of great age. It may, with every probability, be
assigned to the first years of last century, if not considerably
earlier. Nor is this incompatible with its appearance at Culloden,
since the long periods such things have been, and still are, preserved
in the Highlands have passed into proverb. The plaid, kindly lent by
Mr Gourlay Steell, R.S.A., for reproduction, shows an intricate and
unusual sett; and the single check, as here displayed, represents half
of the plaid, and is merely repeated in the other half. When shown in
exhibitions it has been catalogued “Highland Plaid, found on the field
of Culloden the day after the battle.”

[Illustration: XLIV. FROM A PLAID FOUND ON CULLODEN BATTLEFIELD]



BALMORAL.


The object of including this beautiful modern yet rare design in a
collection of Old and Rare Tartans is that collectors may possess a
pattern greatly desired by them. Hitherto, on account of the conditions
imposed on Messrs Romanes & Paterson, Edinburgh, the manufacturers
of tartans to the Royal Family, it has been impossible, even for the
connoisseur, to procure an example of it. For the purposes of the
present work, however, Her Majesty the Queen has not only granted
permission for its publication here, but has also graciously afforded
information concerning its inception in the early years of the reign,
when the sett was designed by the Prince Consort. It has continued
to occupy a conspicuous position in the dress and appointments of
the Royal Family and its retainers, when these partake of a Highland
character. On the occasion of a Royal marriage, Her Majesty’s gifts to
the bride invariably include articles of costume of this tartan.

[Illustration: XLV. THE BALMORAL TARTAN

DESIGNED BY H.R.H. THE LATE PRINCE CONSORT]

Transcriber’s Notes
Page 1a—changed copiep to =copied=
Page 22—changed servil to =servill=
Page 48—changed liker to =like=



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