Volume 1 / Part 1 — APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XVIII.,
Reading edition
Containing notices by contemporary writers, from the 11th century downwards, of the dress and arms of the Highlanders; extracted from the Iona Club publication, Collectanea de rebus Albanicis.
Magnus Berfaet’s Saga.
A.D. 1093. It is said when King Magnus returned from his expedition in the west, that he adopted the costume in use in the western lands, and likewise many of his followers; that they went about barelegged having short tunics (W. kyrtles), and also upper garments; and so many men called him Barelegged or Barefoot.
Andrew Wyntoun (1420), referring to the combat on N. Inch, says,
At Sanct Johnstone beside the Freris, All thai entrit in Barreris Wyth Bow and Ax, Knyf and Swerd, To deil amang them their last werd.
John Major (1512).
From the middle of their thigh to the foot they have no covering for the leg, clothing themselves with a mantle instead of an upper garment, and a shirt dyed with saffron. They always carry a bow and arrows, a very broad sword with a small halbert, a large dagger, sharpened on one side only, but very sharp, under the belt. In time of war they cover their whole body with a shirt of mail of iron rings, and fight in that. The common people of the Highland Scots rush into battle, having their body clothed with a linen garment manifoldly sewed and painted or daubed with pitch, with a covering of deerskin.
In another place he speaks much to the same purport.
In the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, in August 1538, we find the following entries regarding a Highland dress made for King James V., on the occasion of that monarch making a hunting excursion into the Highlands:—
Item in the first for ii elnis ane quarter elne of variant cullorit velvet to be the Kingis Grace are schort Heland coit price of the elne vilib summa xiiilib xs.
Item for iii elnis quarter elne of grene taffatys to lyne the said coit with, price of the elne xs summa xxxiis vid.
Item for iii elnis of Heland tartane to be hoiss to the Kingis Grace, price of the elne iiiis iiiid summa xiiis.
Item for xv elnis of holland claith to be syde Heland sarkis to the Kingis Grace, price of the elne viiis summa vilib.
Item for sewing and making of the said sarkis ixs.
Item for twa unce of silk to sew thame xs.
Item for iiii elnis of rubanis to the handis of thame iis.
Letter written by John Elder, a Highland priest, to Henry VIII. (1543).
Moreover, wherefor they call us in Scotland Reddshankes, and in your Graces dominion of England, roghe footide Scottis, Pleas it your Maiestie to understande, that we of all people can tollerat, suffir, and away best with colde, for boithe somer and wyntir (excepte when the froest is most vehemonte), goynge alwaies bair leggide and bair footide, our delite and pleasure is not onely in huntynge of redd deir, wolfes, foxes, and graies, whereof we abounde, and have greate plentie, but also in rynninge, leapinge, swymmynge, shootynge, and thrawinge of dartis: therfor, in so moche as we use and delite so to go alwaies, the tendir delicatt gentillmen of Scotland call us Reddshankes. And agayne in wynter, 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 cunnyge shoemakers, by your Graces pardon, we play the sutters; compasinge and mesuringe so moche thereof, as shall retche up to our anclers, pryckynge the upper part therof also with holis, that the water may repas when it entres, and stretchide up with a stronge thwange of the same, meitand above our said ancklers, so, and please your noble Grace, we make our shoois: Therfor, we usinge such maner of shoois, the roghe hairie syde outwart, in your Graces dominion of England, we be callit roghe footide Scottis; which maner of schoois (and pleas your Highnes) in Latyne be called perones, whereof the poet Virgill makis mencioun, sayinge, That the olde auncient Latyns in tyme of warrs uside suche maner of schoos. And althoughe a great sorte of us Reddshankes go after this maner in our countrethe, yeit never the les, and pleas your Grace, when we come to the courte (the Kinges Grace our great master being 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 day.
John de Beaugué, a Frenchman, who wrote a history of the campaigns in Scotland in 1549, printed in Paris in 1556, states that, at the siege of Haddington, in 1549, “they (the Scottish army) were followed by the Highlanders, and these last go almost naked; they have painted waistcoats, and a sort of woollen covering, variously coloured.”
Lindsay of Pitscottie (wrote about 1573):—
The other pairts [of Scotland] northerne are full of mountaines, and very rud and homlie kynd of people doeth inhabite, which is called the Reidschankis or Wyld Scottis. They be clothed with ane mantle, with ane schirt saffroned after the Irisch manner, going bair-legged to the knee. Thair weapones ar bowis and dartes, with ane verie broad sword and ane dagger scharp onlie at the on edge.
John Lesley, Bishop of Ross, who published his work De origine, moribus et rebus gestis Scotorum at Rome in 1578, thus describes the arms and dress of the old Scots, which were still in his time used by the Highlanders and Islanders:—
In battle and hostile encounter their missile weapons were a lance and arrows. They used also a two-edged sword which, with the foot soldiers was pretty long, and short for the horse; both had it broad, and with an edge so exceeding sharp that at one blow it would easily cut a man in two. For defence, they used a coat of mail, woven of iron rings, which they wore over a leather jerkin, stout and of handsome appearance, which we call an aeton. Their whole armour was light, that they might the more easily slip from their enemies’ hands if they chanced to fall into such a strait. Their clothing was made for use (being chiefly suited to war), and not for ornament. All, both nobles and common people, wore mantles of one sort (except that the nobles preferred those of several colours). These were long and flowing, but capable of being neatly gathered up at pleasure into folds. I am inclined to believe that they were the same as those to which the ancients gave the name of brachal. Wrapped up in these for their only covering they would sleep comfortably. They had also shaggy rugs, such as the Irish use at the present day, some fitted for a journey, others to be placed on a bed. The rest of their garments consisted of a short woollen jacket with the sleeves open below for the convenience of throwing their darts, and a covering for the thighs of the simplest kind, more for decency than for show or a defence against cold. They made also of linen, very large shirts, with numerous folds and wide sleeves, which flowed abroad loosely to their knees. These, the rich coloured with saffron, and others smeared with some grease to preserve them longer clean among the toils and exercises of a camp, which they held it of the highest consequence to practise continually. In the manufacture of these, ornament and a certain attention to taste were not altogether neglected, and they joined the different parts of their shirts very neatly with silk threads, chiefly of a green or red colour.
Their women’s attire was very becoming. Over a gown reaching to the ancles, and generally embroidered, they wore large mantles of the kind already described, and woven of different colours. Their chief ornaments were the bracelets and necklaces with which they decorated their arms and necks.
George Buchanan (pub. 1582, thus translated by Monypenny 1612).
They delight in marled clothes, specially that have long stripes of sundry colours; they love chiefly purple and blew. Their predecessors used short mantles or plaids of divers colours sundry waies devided; and amongst some, the same custome is observed to this day; but for the most part now they are browne, more nere to the colour of the hadder; to the effect when they lie amongst the hadder the bright colour of their plaids shall not bewray them; with the which, rather coloured than clad, they suffer the most cruel tempests that blow in the open field in such sort, that under a wrythe of snow they slepe sound.... Their armour wherewith they cover their bodies in time of werre, is an iron bonnet and an habbergion side (long) almost even to their heeles. Their weapones against their enemies are bowes and arrowes. The arrows are for the most part hooked, with a bauble on either side, which once entered within the body cannot be drawn forth againe, unlesse the wounde be made wider. Some of them fight with broad swords and axes.
Nicolay d’Arfeville, Cosmographer to King of France, pub. 1583, a vol. on Scotland, speaks thus:—
They [wild Scots] weir like the Irish, a long 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 the 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.
In 1594, when Red Hugh O’Donnell, Lord of Tirconall in Ulster, was in rebellion against Queen Elizabeth, he was assisted for some time by a body of auxiliaries from the Hebrides. These warriors are described in the following terms in the Life of Hugh O’Donnell, originally written in Irish by Peregrine O’Clery, and since translated by the late Edward O’Reilly, Esq.
The outward clothing they (the auxiliaries from the isles) 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.
John Taylor, the Water Poet, made an excursion to Scotland in 1618, of which he published an amusing account under the title of The Pennylesse Pilgrimage. He describes the dress of the Highlanders in the following account he gives of his visit to Braemar for the purpose of paying his respects to the Earl of Mar and Sir W. Moray of Abercairney.
Thus, with extreme travell, ascending and descending, mounting and alighting, I came at night to the place where I would be, in the Brae of Marr, which is a large county all composed of such mountaines, that Shooters hill, Gads hill, Highgate hill, Hampstead hill, Birdlip hill, or Malvernes hills, are but mole-hills in comparison, or like a liver, or a gizzard under a capon’s wing, in respect to the altitude of their tops, or perpendicularite of their bottomes. There I saw mount Benawne with a furrd’d mist upon his snowy head instead of a night-cap; for you must understand, that the oldest man alive never saw but the snow was on the top of divers of those hills, (both in summer as well as in winter). There did I find the truely noble and Right Honourable Lords John Erskine, Earle of Marr, James Stuart, Earle of Murray, George Gordon, Earle of Engye, sonne and heire to the Marquise of Huntley, James Erskin, Earle of Bughan, and John, Lord 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 been there, and made lawes of equality. For once in the yeere, which is the whole moneth of August, and sometimes part of September, many of the nobility and gentry of the kingdome (for their pleasure) doe come into these Highland countries to hunt, where they doe conforme themselves to the habite of the Highland men, who, for the moste part, speake nothing but Irish; and in former time were those people which were called the Red-shanks. Their habite is shooes with but one sole apiece; stockings (which they call short hose) made of a warme stuff of divers colours, which they call tartane. As for breeches, many of them, nor their forefathers, ever wore any, but a jerkin of the same stuffe that their hose is of, their garters being bands or wreathes of hay or straw, with a plaed about their shoulders, which is a mantle of divers colours, much finer and lighter stuffe than their hose, with blue 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 that I saw in those parts; for I was the space of twelve dayes after, before I saw either house, corne-field, or habitation for any creature, but deere, wild horses, wolves, and such like creatures, which made me doubt that I should never have seene a house againe.
Defoe, in his Memoirs of a Cavalier, written about 1721, and obviously composed from authentic materials, thus describes the Highland part of the Scottish army which invaded England in 1639, at the commencement of the great civil war. The Cavalier having paid a visit to the Scottish camp to satisfy his curiosity, thus proceeds:—
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, stripped across red and yellow, with short cloaks of the same.
William Cleland, Lieutenant-Colonel to the Earl of Angus’s regiment, who was killed whilst gallantly defending his post at Dunkeld, against a party of Highlanders, soon after the Revolution, wrote a satirical poem upon the expedition of the Highland host in 1678, from which the following extract is taken:—
Their head, their neck, their legs, their 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 hanged. But those who were their chief Commanders, As such who bore the pirnie standards, 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 strik observers say, A tupe horn fill’d with usquebay; A slasht out coat beneath her plaids, A targe of timber, nails and hides; With a long two-handed sword, As good’s the country can affoord. they’re smear’d with tar, Which doth defend them heel and neck, Just as it doth their sheep protect.
William Sacheverell, governor of the Isle of Man, made an excursion in 1688 through the Isle of Mull, and thence to Icolmkill. An account of this he published in 1702, in which he describes from observation, the dress, armour, and appearance of the Highlanders.
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 outward habit of both sexes is the pladd; the women’s much finer, the colours more lively, and the squares larger than the men’s, and put me in mind of the ancient Picts. This serves them for a veil, and covers both head and body. The men wear theirs after another 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 leg, 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 blue 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 Killiecrankie.
The following minute description of Highland dress is contained in Martin’s Western Isles of Scotland:—
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 croch, saffron, because their shirt was died with that herb: the ordinary number of ells used to make this robe was twenty-four; it was the upper garb, reaching below the knees, and was tied with a belt round the middle; but the islanders have laid it aside about a hundred years ago.
They now generally use coat, wastcoat, and breeches, as elsewhere, and on their heads wear bonnets made of thick cloth, some blew, some black, and some gray.
Many of the people wear trowis. Some have them very fine woven like stockings of those made of cloath; some are coloured 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 shooes anciently wore, was 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 shooes 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 thread 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 plade upon a piece of wood, having the number of every thread 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 plaids, as to the stripes in breadth and colours. This humour is as different thro’ the main land of the Highlands, insofar that they who have seen those places, is able at the first view of a man’s plaid, to guess the place of his residence.
When they travel on foot, the plaid 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 plaid is tied round the middle with a leather belt; it is pleated from the belt to the knee very nicely; this dress for footmen is found much easier and lighter than breeches, or trowis.
The ancient dress wore by the women, and which is yet wore by some of the vulgar, called arisad, is a white plade, having a few small stripes of black, blew, and red; it reached from the neck to the heels, and was tied before on the breast with a buckle of silver, or brass, according to the quality of the person. I have seen some of the former of an hundred marks value; it was broad as 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 corral. 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 ancient 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 aere very early accustomed to use them, and carry their pieces with them wherever they go: they likewise learn to handle the broad sword, and target. The chief of each tribe advances with his followers within shot of the enemy, having first laid aside their upper garments; and after one general discharge, they attack them with sword in hand, having their target on their left hand, (as they did at Kelicranky) which soon brings the matter to an issue, and verifies the observation made of ’em by our historians,
Aut mors cito, aut victoria læta.
The following is taken from Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland, written by Captain Burt, an English officer of Engineers, engaged under Marshal Wade on the military roads through the Highlands, begun in the year 1726:—
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, 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 cowhide, 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. 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.
I have observed before that the plaid serves the ordinary people for a cloak by day and bedding at night: by the latter it imbibes so much perspiration, that no one day can free it from the filthy smell; and even some of better than ordinary appearance, when the plaid falls from the shoulder, or otherwise requires to be re-adjusted, while you are talking with them, toss it over again, as some people do the knots of their wigs, which conveys the offence in whiffs that are intolerable;—of this they seem not to be sensible, for it is often done only to give themselves airs.
The plaid is the undress of the ladies; 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.
The ordinary girls wear nothing upon their heads until they are married or have a child, except sometimes a fillet of red or blue coarse cloth, of which they are very proud; but often their hair hangs down over the forehead like that of a wild colt. If they wear stockings, which is very rare, they lay them in plaits one above another, from the ancle up to the calf, to make their legs appear as near as they can in the form of a cylinder; but I think I have seen something like this among the poor German refugee women and the Moorish men in London.
Mr. Gough, in his additions to Camden’s Britannia, gives the following accurate description of the Highland dress and armour, as they were to be found in the district of Breadalbane previous to the proscription of the dress:—
The dress of the men is the brechan or plaid, 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 brooch; short stockings tied below the knee; truish, a genteeler kind of breeches, and stockings of one piece; cueranen, a laced shoe of skin, with the hairy side out, rather disused; kilt or fillibeg, g. d. little plaid, or short petticoat, reaching to the knees, substituted of late to the longer end of the plaid; and lastly, the pouch of badger or other skins, with tassels hanging before them.
The women’s dress is the kerch, 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.
The following detail of the complete equipment of a Highland chief was communicated by a Highland gentleman to Charles Grant, Vicomte de Vaux, by whom it was printed in his Mémoires de la Maison de Grant, in 1796:—
No.1.A full-trimmed bonnet.
2.A tartan jacket, vest, kilt, and cross-belt.
3.A tartan belted plaid.
4.——— pair of hose, made up [of cloth].
5.A tartan pair of stockings, ditto, with yellow garters.
6.Two pair of brogs.
7.A silver-mounted purse and belt.
8.A target with spear.
9.A broadsword.
10.A pair of pistols and bullet-mould.
11.A dirk, knife, fork, and belt.