Scottish clans

Word clan(English) clan, Gaelic. clann) is of Gaelic origin and translates as " children, offspring, offspring"(children, offspring, descendants). Historically, every Scottish clan was a tribal community - a large group of people who had hypothetical a common ancestor and united under the leadership of a leader or the eldest in the family - the leader. The Scottish traditional clan system of the 14th-18th centuries was a peculiar, close to the Irish clans and septs, connection of the patriarchal-clan and feudal ways of life, and both systems were inextricably linked and served as a mutual basis and support for each other.

Traditional clan system. The origins of the clan system must be sought in XIII, when the structure that preceded it began to collapse. The ancient Scottish tribal regions: Fife, Atholl, Ross, Moray, Buchan, Mar, Angus, Strathearn, Lennox, Galloway, Menteith - gradually began to lose their leaders - mormaers - local earls, whose titles and power were either abolished or inherited and concentrated in the hands of a new, predominantly Norman (and Flemish) aristocracy, among which the most successful were the leaders of the Scottish court and the future Stuart kings. As a result, the local population, which had lost its old powerful patrons, people from the same lands and really related to themselves to some extent, began to unite around new ones - lairds and barons, often strangers and newcomers, but who now had a legal feudal right to land. At the same time, the renewed diverse elite, the descendants of the Gaels, Picts, Britons, Normans, Flemings, Anglo-Saxons, Norwegians, Irish and even Hungarians, for their part, sought, in addition to the legal rights guaranteed by royal power, to receive "tribal": to become "their own" on the ground and enlist the support of people subject to them and subordinate to them. So, for example, there are legends and partly evidence that the early representatives of the Norman and Flemish families, for example, the Comyns, Murrays and Sutherlands, Innses, as well as the Gaels of the O'Beolans (ancestors of the Ross clan), who received royal charters for lands in rebellious the counties of Moray and Ross in the XII-XIII centuries, nevertheless intermarried with the local disgraced nobility, securing the loyalty of the indigenous population and securing the ancient Gaelic tribal rights.

Feudal-tribal relations based on mutual affection and dependence, when vassals needed the patronage of their lords, and lords needed the support of vassals, their people ranked as one common clan, were formed and strengthened over the centuries from the end of the 13th century and the Wars of Scottish Independence to the first half of the 18th century and the Jacobite uprisings. As surnames emerged and spread: in the 12th-16th centuries in the Lowlands and up to the 17th century in the islands of the western Highlands, ordinary people took the names of their masters, forming the very kind-clan. As a result, hundreds and even thousands of clan members, regardless of social status and position, from peasants, artisans and merchants to lairds, lords and earls, bore the same surname and claimed descent from a common ancestor and distant relationship, both among themselves, so with their lords and leaders. But this did not mean general equality. The poor peasant was subordinate to his lord, laird, chieftan or leader, but in submission to the highest in the hierarchy, he, unlike his English or French counterpart, did not harbor hidden hostility or hostility towards his master, because he was a man of his name, his clan, his families. And every commoner, Fraser, Mackintosh or Leslie, rising at the call of the leader, fought not only for the lord, but also for his entire family and directly for his loved ones, knowing that the personal well-being of his family depended on the position of his lord - Baron Fraser, Mackintosh or Leslie. In the same way, every laird, whether Maclain, Laird Duart, Lord Ogilvy of Airlie, or Lindsay, Earl of Crawford, had the duty to protect the interests of every member of his clan, because insulting any of the Macleans, Ogilvies, or Lindsays meant insulting a member of his family, and thus concerned him personally. Such mutual dependence, in particular, explains the absence in medieval Scotland of large peasant uprisings that swept at one time in many European countries, including neighboring England and France close to the Scots.

The rise of the head of the clan meant the rise of the whole clan: together with the leader, his support in the person of relatives, close associates and vassals, as a rule, members of his name and clan, received new possessions, privileges and positions. So it was at one time with the powerful Stuarts and Douglases, who owned lands throughout Scotland, the high-born Hamiltons, the numerous MacDonalds, Campbells and Gordons, full owners of their regions, and with the petty nobles Livingstones and Crichtons who made their way to power. So in the Grant clan, behind the leader, laird Grant and Freukhi, there were chieftains - the leaders of the branches of the clan, the same lairds: Grant from Gartenbeg (Gartenbeg), Grant from Auchernak (Auchernack), Grant from Dellacaple (Dellachapple), Grant from Tullochgorum (Tullochgorum) and Grant of Glenmoriston; five main branches of the Cameron clan, also led by lairds from ancient times: Cameron of Lochiel, Cameron of Erracht, Cameron of Clunes, Cameron of Glen Nevis and Cameron of Fassifern - are still symbolically depicted as five arrows on the leader's badge. And vice versa, royal disfavor or defeat from the enemies of the baron and leader would certainly be reflected in the people of his clan. In 1562, the disgrace of the influential Earl of Huntly and his posthumous accusation of high treason was followed by the confiscation of possessions and the arrest of two dozen barons of the Gordon name and clan (including the Earl of Sutherland then), but all of them were acquitted and restored to their rights already in 1565 when Mary Stuart and Earl Bothwell needed the support of the powerful Catholic Gordon clan. In 1603, after a conflict with the Colcahoons, the entire MacGregor clan, whose members had previously been convicted of looting and robbery, was outlawed with a ban on pain of death to bear the names Gregor or MacGregor; the leader and thirty of his people were executed, the rest of the MacGregors, in order to survive, were forced to take the names of their relatives and neighbors; the ban on surnames was lifted only in 1774, and the MacGregor clan was formally restored in 1822.

Note that the power, strength and influence of the clan and its leader was determined not so much by titles, lands and wealth, but by the number of his "clan people": relatives, vassals and tenants (clients) - those whom he could call under his banners. An English report on Scottish peers dated 1577 says that the power of Graham, Earl of Montrose, is not great, as is his income; The Ruthvens and Erskines are few in number, but strong in their connections and alliances; the lands of Lord Oliphant are profitable, but he does not have a large income and his family is small; The Forbes, enemies of the Earls of Huntly, are considerable in number and wealth; and Macleod of Skye and Lewis is respected only in their own lands, but has no influence in the royal court.

The structure of the clans was not uniform throughout Scotland, and already in the 15th century, mountain clans and lowland and border families were distinguished. For a long time under the influence of the Macdonalds, Lords of the Isles, and speaking Scottish Gaelic (close to Irish), the Highlands were more characterized by Gaelic patriarchal family relations and customs, reinforced by feudalism, while for lowland Scotland and the Borderlands, where in use was the Scottish language (a dialect of English) - Norman feudal culture, "softened" by kinship.

But both mountain and lowland clans existed as tribal territorial units, which constituted their own military detachments and often resolved internal conflicts among themselves by armed means. On the basis of these voluntary military formations in the XVII-XVIII centuries, regular personal and family Scottish regiments and battalions were created, some of which, bearing the names of Gordons, Camerons, Mackenzies, have existed to this day and managed to glorify themselves on the battlefields of world wars. Clan conflicts: from "border robbers" (Border reivers) and Rob Roy McGregor, robbery raids of small detachments or gangs to several dozen people who devastated the lands of their neighbors, stole cattle, stormed the castle-towers of their enemies based on surprise, where losses were more likely material character, before the battles of Harlow (Harlaw), Glendale (Glendale), Arbroth (Arbroath), "Battle of the Shirts" (Battle of the Shirts), Keiths and Gunns, Forbes and Gordons, Johnstons and Maxwells, MacLeods and Mackenzies, large bloody battles of several hundred and thousands of people and a ruthless blood feud that lasted for generations and tens or hundreds of years - left an indelible mark on the history and memory of individual Scottish families and the country as a whole.

In the XV-XVI centuries, clans began to receive official legal status, acquiring symbols and privileges, and becoming an integral part of Scottish heraldry and culture: badges, tartans, symbols, pibrochs, family traditions and customs, legends and traditions - while continuing to exist as closed tribal communities with its own internal structure and subordination to the feudal barons - their leaders and leaders. The original semi-feudal semi-tribal system built in this way with the legalized power of the state and the rights of feudal leaders, existed in Scotland, and after that in Great Britain without any signs of decline and degeneration until the "Act of Prohibition" (Act of Proscription) and the "Act of Hereditary rights" (The Heritable Jurisdictions Act) 1746. At a mature stage of its existence, the definition of a Scottish clan given by Alexander Nisbet in "System of Heraldry" (1722) : clan is "a social group consisting of a collection of individual families actually descended from or recognized themselves as descendants of a common ancestor, and recognized by the Monarch through his supreme officer in charge of noble privileges (Supreme Officer of Honor), the Lord Lion (Lord Lyon), honorary community, all members of which, who previously had the right or received new charters for hereditary nobility, bear the coat of arms as established or unestablished branches, descended, presumably, from the eldest branch of the clan ".

The abolition of the clan system. In 1746, after the suppression of the last Jacobite rising by the British government, it was decided to destroy the Scottish clan system as a constant source of riots and Jacobitism. The "Prohibition Act" prohibited clan culture: common people wearing weapons, traditional clothes of the Scottish highlanders and clan symbols, national music and playing the bagpipes, teaching and using the Scottish Gaelic language; The "Inheritance Rights Act" abolished feudal and tribal rights and privileges of clan leaders, including the ability to call their people to arms. Backed up by the power of the English troops, both laws, as well as further measures directed against the direct participants in the Jacobite uprisings, mainly the Scottish highlanders, actually meant the liquidation of the clans: the lairds, barons and leaders became ordinary landowners, their possessions a source of income, their people - simple peasants and workers . Former barons, now British aristocrats and gentry, everywhere sold their long-standing clan territories to former enemy neighbors, set aside for cattle and sheep breeding in the North and West of Scotland, or for the construction of manufactories, barracks, industrial plants for the growing cities in the south. At the same time, their "clan people", long-term tenants of these lands, who previously served as a support for the power of their leaders, now they no longer need them. The 18th - the first half of the 19th centuries were marked by a black page in the history of the Scottish Highlands - mass emigration and forced deportation of Highlanders (Highland Clearances, "Sweeping the Scottish Highlands") from the lands where they lived for centuries, fought for and defended by their ancestors. Exiled or forced out of the fertile regions of the Highlands and the Western Isles, the highlanders moved to the cities of the Lowlands, replenishing the ranks of cheap labor of the British Industrial Revolution, which was gaining momentum, or to the free territories of North America and Canada, irrevocably losing touch with their homeland.

We say Scotland, we mean clans. We say clans - we mean tanks! Scotland. But it’s weak to name at least a dozen of the most famous? ..

Top 10 Highland clans

1. Stuart (Stuart, Stiùbhairt). "Royal clan", since the kings of Scotland came out of it, starting with Robert II, who also ruled England, Wales and Ireland in the 17th century. However, it was not founded by a Scot at all, but by a native of Brittany (or Normandy - data are scarce) Alan Fitz-Flaad, who settled with the knights of Guillaume the Bastard in England. His son Walter FitzAlan moved to Scotland and became the first High Steward of Scotland. This post became the clan's surname. And the son of the 6th Steward-Stuart became King Robert II. In addition to the fact that the Stuarts owned the crown of Scotland and England, they claimed it for another hundred years ("Jacobites"). In general, the history of the Stuarts from the XIV centuries is the history of Scotland ...

2. MacDonald, MacDhòmhnaill. The largest fast food clan in the world is in Scotland. By origin - again not Scottish, but Scandinavian - the MacDonalds are descendants of the Vikings who once captured the Hebrides, but finally "oscotted". They held the title first "King of the Isles", then "Lord of the Isles", and everything in the west of Scotland breathed and moved only with their permission. And up until the Jacobite rebellion in 1745, the leaders of the MacDoalds were implicated in virtually every buza that shook the kingdom. This clan also holds the record for the number of septs, branches that have turned into semi-independent "mini-clans" (Beaton, Bowie, Hutchinson, Patton, etc.).

3. Campbells (Campbell, Caim Beul). Most likely the second (or third) largest clan in the Highlands, and certainly the second most influential - the head of the Campbells, Earl (later Marquess, and still later Duke) of Argyll was the "uncrowned king" of the Southern Highlands from the 17th century. As for their origin, "everything is cloudy" - either the Normans, or the Irish, or "self-natural Scotts", and there is even a legend about a Scot who escaped from the tyranny of MacBeth to Normandy, and then returned to the homeland of his ancestors ... The Campbells went uphill after their leader Neil supported Robert the Bruce and married his sister. True, among the Highlanders, the Campbells have always enjoyed a reputation as people of evil, treacherous and treacherous - for example, because of the "Massacre at Glencoe."

4. Mackenzie (Mackenzie, Mac Coinnich). MacDonalds in the West, Campbells in the south, Mackenzies in the north. A powerful clan with a lot of branches and septs (for example, Cluny) kept the entire north of the Scottish Highlands "under supervision". By origin, not the Scandinavians, not the Celts. Natives of this clan became especially famous as soldiers - three famous infantry regiments were recruited from them (Mountain Light, Highlanders of Seafort and Rossshire). And during the Jacobite uprisings, the MacKenzies very far-sightedly and prudently divided into "ours and yours", ensuring "relative survival" for themselves during the "Georgian terror".

5. Gordon (Gordon, Gordanach). An "unconditionally Norman" clan that settled in Scotland rather late, under King David I. They settled in the north (closer to the northeast) and became the "crown people", a support against the dangerous and violent clans of the Highlands. The head of the clan bore the title of Earl (later Marquis) of Huntley (and later Duke of Gordon). The situation changed after the reformation - the Huntley family remained Catholic, and therefore quickly turned into the main troublemakers and Jacobites in the north of the country. Well, yes - the poet George Gordon Byron was a descendant of this clan on the maternal side.

6. Hamilton, aka Hamilton (Hamilton). Purebred "Sassenach invaders" - Englishmen who moved to Lowland in the 14th century (and therefore do not have a Gaelic version of the surname), "sneaked into the highlanders" in the 16th century, when one of the Hamiltons, the son of the daughter of King James II, received the County of Arran on the same name island. Many times they became regents of the kingdom, and a couple of times they even tried to become kings. In the end, I had to be content with the title of Duke of Hamilton. What is characteristic - no less influential branch of the clan "let" in Sweden, where the Hamiltons were among the highest aristocracy. But the Russian noblemen Khomutovs did not reach great heights ...

7. Cameron (Cameron, Сam-shròn). A large and strong clan from the East of the Highlands, actively participating in all the "showdowns" of the Scottish highlanders, known for more than 300 years of enmity with the confederation of the Hattan and MacIntoch (MacIntosh) clans. The most famous representative of the clan is the 17th-century Protestant preacher Richard Cameron, the leader of the militant sect of the Cameronians, from whom the famous Cameron Regiment was recruited - one of the first regulars in Great Britain and the first in Scotland, who always remained loyal to the English government in rebellions and became famous in many wars . And yes, "Director-Terminator-Titanic-Avatar" - he is also from the Camerons.

8. Grant (Grant, Grannd). According to one theory, the ancestors of the Grants are the Normans who sailed with the Bastard, but the Grants themselves do not like her and insist that they are descended from the MacGregors (who, in turn, are from the MacAlpins, the kings of the Dal Riada and the Picts). In various rebellions since the 17th century, the Grants adhered to the "legal line" - they supported Montrose for King Charles I, and then they were against the Jacobites for the Hanoverian dynasty. True, the most famous Grant was the one who was completely invented by the Frenchman Verne - Captain Grant, or rather, his children ... Although one of the descendants of the Grants, Ulysses Simpson Grant, became a famous American general and even the President of the United States.

9. Murray, aka Murray (Murray, Mhuirich). The progenitor of the Murrays was the brave knight Freskin - either a descendant of the Picts, or (more likely) a native of Flanders, again sailing to Albion with Guillaume the Bastard. He got the old Pictish county of Moray (where the Mormairs still ruled in "immemorial times"), with the women of which the "MacFreskins" intermarried and took their family name, slightly distorting, but not immediately - the hero of the war for the independence of Scotland, who won the battle of Stirling - bridge (and not your chalk gypson! William Wallace), there was also Andrew Moray, but his son has already become Andrew Murray. Well, yes - the Jacobites under Culloden were commanded by George Murray ...

10. MacGregor (MacGregor, MacGrioghair). The most "wild" and "bandit" clan in Scotland, and here's why. Claiming to be descended from Kenneth I MacAlpin himself, the king of the Scots and Picts, by the beginning of the 17th century, the MacGregors distinguished themselves by their rare violence and bloodthirstiness, even for the highlands, being marked by several massacres of prisoners, etc. things. So "at the request of the neighbors" King James VI (aka James I in England, but a little later) officially "destroyed" the MacGregor clan - they were forbidden to have a leader, a coat of arms and even a surname, and they themselves and their lands were divided between neighboring clans . Therefore, in fact, the most famous of the McGregors - Rob Roy ("Red") McGregor - officially according to the documents was listed as Robin Campbell. Because of such "desperation" among the MacGregors, there were especially many bandits and "noble robbers", well, they supported the Jacobites fervently. The royal ban was lifted only in 1774.

Now the armed forces of Great Britain have only one Scottish regiment, although until recently there were six. The glorious history of these formations began in the 17th century. The Scottish regiments served the British Empire faithfully for centuries, thanks to which the inhabitants of Scotland themselves could feel like British.

Start

On March 26, 1633, several thousand Scots under the command of Colonel John Hepburn, who fought on the fronts of the Thirty Years' War for the monarchs of Sweden and France, received a patent from the King of England and Scotland, Charles I, and became the Royal Regiment of Foot. The regiment continued to participate in the battles in France, uniting Scottish mercenaries in its ranks.

The regiment first arrived in the British Isles only after the Restoration of the Stuarts in the spring of 1661. He became a model for the formation of infantry regiments of the new royal army. In the middle of the 18th century, when the British infantry regiments switched from the names of their colonel to the number designations, the regiment received the honorary number 1. The informal name "Royal Scots" was included in the name of the regiment only in 1812.

Royal Scots from 1633 to 1881.
theroyalscots.co.uk

The Royal Scots Fusiliers (later numbered 21) were formed on the southern frontier of Scotland to hunt down various religious dissidents. For more than a century and a half, it was known as the "North British Fusiliers", and received its new name only in 1871.

Two more Scottish regiments were raised in and around Edinburgh during the first Jacobite rebellion of 1689. The inhabitants of Edinburgh completed the regiment, which already in the 19th century received the name of His Majesty's own Scottish border guards (at number 25). And from the Cameronians, Protestant sectarian fundamentalists who hated the "papists", a regiment was created, later called the 26th (Cameron).

All these units were ordinary infantry units of the British Army and, unlike the Highlanders, did not wear kilts.

Highlanders in the service

Scotland is historically divided into two regions: the northern highlands and the southern lowlands. Since ancient times, there have been a lot of differences between these areas, up to linguistic ones: if the population of Lowland spoke Anglo-Scottish (Scots), akin to English, then the inhabitants of the Highlands spoke Celtic Scottish (Gaelic).

Highland and Lowland map of Scotland

Until the end of the 18th century, the North Scottish Highlanders were perceived by ordinary Britons as warlike savages and rebels who supported the Jacobite pretenders to the throne of the United Kingdom after the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

In 1725, on the initiative of Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, King George I ordered the formation of separate companies from the Scottish Highlanders. They were charged with maintaining order in the Highlands instead of regular army units, which should have helped to reduce the discontent of the highlanders.

A total of ten companies were formed, soon to become known as the "Black Guard". The name comes from the black clothing that distinguished these soldiers from the usual English "red coats".

Black Watch officers with their American allies during the Seven Years' War, 1759. Painting by contemporary artist

In 1739, individual companies became a regular infantry regiment, later officially called the 42nd (Royal Highlander), but unofficially retained the name "Black Guard". With the beginning of the Seven Years' War, the Black Guard and two more regiments formed from the Scottish highlanders (the 77th Montgomery and the 78th Fraser) went to fight in North America, where they became famous for their courage, stamina and reliability. The valor of the Scottish highlanders in the battles for the empire contributed to a change in attitudes towards the highlanders in British society.

Grenadiers of the 78th Fraser Highlanders at the Battle of Quebec, 1760. Painting by contemporary artist

In total, in the following decades, 21 highlander regiments were formed, fighting in North America against the rebellious colonists and in various wars in India. Most of these regiments were disbanded after the completion of military campaigns.

By the beginning of the 19th century, 8 mountain infantry regiments survived, whose soldiers wore kilts: 42nd, 72nd (Sifurt), 73rd (Perthshire), 74th, 75th (Stirlingshire), 91st (Argyll) , 92nd (Gordonsky) and 93rd (Sutherland).

Officer of the 77th Macdonald Highlanders, 1771

According to a number of modern British historians, it was through the highland regiments, their active participation in the wars of the empire in the 18th century, that the Highlands adopted the idea of ​​the United Kingdom, as a result of which the Scottish highlanders successfully became British.

Decline and revival

The decline in the population of the Highlands due to migration to the cities and the heavy losses suffered by the highland regiments in battles with the Napoleonic armies in Portugal and Spain, led to the fact that by the beginning of 1809 it was impossible to ensure the replenishment of the highland regiments by the natives of the Highlands. In this regard, in April 1809, the recruitment of English and Irish in five Highland regiments was allowed, which changed into standard English uniforms. The mountain character was preserved only by three regiments: the 42nd, 92nd and 93rd.

After the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the highland units of the British army experienced a period of decline. In many regiments, specific Scottish features were abandoned - in particular, bagpipers.

Officers of the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders before being sent to the Crimean War, 1854

The situation changed by the middle of the 19th century, with the gradual spread of the romantic image of the Scottish highlanders in British society. This was facilitated by the exploits of the Scots on the fields of the Crimean War. The attack by Major General Colin Campbell's Highland Brigade on the Alma battlefield and the "thin red line" of the Sutherland Highlanders on the field near Balaklava were vividly described in journalistic reports.

The "thin red line" of the Sutherland Highlanders near Balaclava, 1855. 1881 painting

Everything Scottish began to come into fashion. For generations, the descendants of the highlanders living in the cities remembered the kilts. Queen Victoria was also carried away by the Highlands.

This fashion also affected the Scottish regiments, many of which returned to their roots. Bagpipers reappeared, traditional glengarry caps or balmoral berets were introduced as a uniform headdress. Members of the Scottish regiments began to wear trousers with a clan tartan ornament.

Reorganization

The revival of the Scottish regiments is associated with the reforms of the ministers of war Edward Cardwell and Hugh Childers in the liberal cabinets of Gladstone in the 70s and 80s of the XIX century. Part of these, besides abolishing the sale of officer patents and banning corporal punishment, was the move to a territorial regimental structure in the British infantry.

Map of regimental districts in Scotland after the Cardwell-Childers reforms

In Scotland, 10 regimental districts were formed. 4 regiments were recruited in Lowland: His Majesty's Own Scottish Border Guards, Royal Scots (Lothian Regiment), Cameronians (Scottish Fusiliers), Royal Scots Fusiliers. A regiment of highland light infantry was recruited in Glasgow and the surrounding area.

Cameronian officer, 1910

The rest of the regiments were recruited in the Highlands: the Black Guard (Royal Highlanders), Princess Louise's Regiment (Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders), Gordon Highlanders, Her Majesty's Own Cameron Highlanders, Sifurt Highlanders.

Each infantry regiment had two regular and two militia battalions. While one regular battalion served abroad, the second trained at home.

Sergeant of the Argyle Highlanders, 1914

The uniform of all Scottish regiments was unified. The mountain units wore kilts with their own regimental tartan, the plains wore trousers with tartan, and glengarry or balmorals as a headdress.

On the fronts of the world wars

Cape Town Highlanders, today

Currently, mountain regiments with their specific uniforms as reserve units of the army have been preserved in Canada and South Africa.

Post-war service and reorganizations

After the end of the war, all infantry regiments of the British Army were reduced to a single battalion.

Scottish regiments continued to participate in all conflicts in the expanses of the decaying British Empire: in Palestine, Malaya, Kenya, Oman, Borneo. The Argylls became the first British battalion to enter the United Nations forces in Korea in September 1950.

Argyles in Aden, summer 1967

The collapse of the British Empire and the return of British units to their homeland were accompanied by new reductions. In 1959, the Scottish Fusiliers and the Highland Light Infantry were merged into the Royal Highland Fusiliers (Princess Margaret of Glasgow's Own and Ayrshire Regiment). The Camerons were dissolved in 1968.

Her Majesty walks around the Cameronians for the last time, 1968

The Sifurst and Cameron highlanders in 1961 were united in the regiment of Her Majesty's Own highlanders, and in 1994 the Gordon highlanders were attached to it.

Creation of the Royal Regiment of Scotland

By the beginning of the 21st century, there were six Scottish regiments left in the British army (all of one battalion): the Royal Scots, His Majesty's Own Scottish Border Guards, the Royal Highland Fusiliers (Princess Margaret of Glasgow's Own and the Ayrshire Regiment), the Black Guard (Royal Highland Regiment), Highlanders (Seaforth, Gordon and Cameron), Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.

As part of the plan to reform the army, promulgated at the end of 2004, it was envisaged to abandon the "historical regiments" of a single battalion and move to "large regiments". All Scottish infantry units, despite the noisy campaign organized by the Scottish National Party under the slogan "Save our regiments!", In March 2006, were merged into the Royal Regiment of Scotland.

Recruitment regions for various battalions of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, 2010

The Royal Scots merged with the Borderers into the Royal Scottish Borderers, which became the 1st Battalion of the new regiment. The Fusiliers became the 2nd Battalion, the Black Guard became the 3rd, the Highlanders became the 4th, and the Argyles became the 5th.

"Black Guard" in field uniform, 2010

For the personnel of the regiment, a single uniform with kilts and glengarry was introduced, the battalions differed among themselves in the color of plumes on berets and ribbons on glengarry. At the same time, the battalions of the regiment continued to operate quickly as part of various brigades of the British army.

Her Majesty walks around the formation of the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, 2008

The abundance in the ranks of soldiers in the photograph of clearly atypical Scots is striking. In connection with the growth of nationalist sentiment in Scotland, the recruitment situation in the regiment became a failure. As noted military journalist Max Hastings wrote, "Young Scots only want to fight the English". So the shortage has to be made up by recruiting natives of the former colonies, primarily Fijians.

As part of the latest reduction in the British Army under the Army 2020 program, the 5th Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland in 2014 was reduced to a separate company with ceremonial functions.

Argyll Highlanders in field uniform, 2013

No one in Britain doubted what name the company of former Argylls would bear - Balaklava. After all, the “thin red line” is their story.

Literature:

• Griffin P.D. Encyclopedia of Modern British Army Regiments. - Sutton Publishing, 2006.
• Delaforce P. Monty's Highlanders: The Story of the 51st Highland Division. - Pen & Sword, 2007.
• Kelly I. S. Echoes of Success: Identity and the Highland Regiments. - Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, 2015.
• Macpherson McCulloch I. Highlander in the French-Indian War. - Osprey Publishing, 2008.
• Smitherman P. H. Uniforms of Scottish Regiments. - Hugh Evelyn, 2012.
• Watt P. Steel and Tartan: The 4th Cameron Highlanders in the Great War. - The History Press, 2012.

An article by Sir Hugh Tevor-Roper in the collection "The Invention of Tradition" edited by E. Gobsbaum gives an interesting impression "I've already seen this somewhere. Here, recently." The ancient Scotland of the Highlanders, according to the author, turns out to be an illusion, a fairy tale created in several approaches at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. And the deconstruction of this tale can be very useful for an inquisitive mind.

The "traditional image" of a Scot today is a kilt and a bagpipe.

Part 1 - The Coming of the Kilt

So, highland Scotland, the birthplace of an incredibly attractive for some ladies type of a stern Scot in a kilt of the colors of his native clan, walking with bagpipes in the mountains. Until the 17th century (and partly until the 18th century), western Scotland was culturally a colony of Ireland, strange as it sounds to us. Moreover, the Scottish highlanders represented an "overflow of Ireland", an excess of Ireland included in the Irish "cultural field" as a consumer. The creation of a separate cultural field, the creation of the myth of the Scottish Highlander, a myth polished in the Victorian period, began with three steps:
- with carrying out a kind of cultural revolution and overturning the connection "consumer-producer"; - Now Highland Scotland was supposed to act as the cradle of "Celtic";, and not a cultural province;
- with the invention of "ancient and authentic"; mountain traditions, first of all those that are most conspicuous, i.e. external attributes of the "Scottish highlanders";
- and finally - with the spread of (from) the acquired traditions of traditions to southern and eastern Scotland.

Hollywood creates an image of "good old Scotland" with 18th century kilts and 4th century blue faces.

Throughout the 18th century, a number of Scottish intellectuals developed the concept of the autochthonous culture (and indeed) of the population of northwestern Scotland. In 1738, David Malcolm's Dissertation on the Celtic Languages ​​was published, but the main action began in the 1760s, when namesakes John Macpherson (a priest on the Isle of Skye) and James Macpherson (Ossian's translator) began to intensively distort Irish folklore, translating it into the soil of the Scottish highlands. James “found” Ossian’s ballads, John wrote a “Critical Dissertation” in support of the authenticity of the ballads, 10 years later James wrote out the ready-made concept of “Eternal Scotland” in his “Preface to the History of the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland” - as a result, the people of Highland Scotland appeared before the reader , reflecting the blows of the Romans and creating a great epic even when the Irish "went under the table." The thoughts of the two MacPhersons captivated even the cautious Gibbon, who confessed that they were his landmarks in Scottish history. A thorough (and destructive) criticism of the works of both MacPhersons began only at the end of the 19th century (when the myth had already taken root and it didn’t matter what scientists argued about as long as people were fascinated by the image), although already in 1805 Walter Scott in his critical article about Ossian denied the authenticity of the Ossian ballads. However, in the process of criticism, Scott himself made a rather sensational statement - since ancient times, the highlanders of Scotland have worn a kilt (filibeg) made of "plaid" fabric. Even the MacPhersons didn't say that.

Checkered fabric has been known in Scotland since the 16th century, when it was brought to the mountains from Flanders through the Scottish valleys, but kilts came into use only after 1707 and were invented by an Englishman. Until the 18th century, the Scottish highlanders practically did not differ from their Irish neighbors - long shirts, short trousers, the richer wore plaids and long tight trousers (trews) from "plaid". Beginning in the 17th century, when cultural ties between the two kindred regions began to weaken, long shirts were replaced by costumes from the Scottish valleys - shirt, trousers and (for the rich) camisole.

However, checkered plaids not only did not disappear, but began to be massively used by Scottish soldiers during the civil wars of the mid-17th century as cheap outerwear - the plaid was wrapped around the waist, the rest of the fabric was thrown over the shoulder, and in case of bad weather they were simply wrapped up to the throat. It was this way of wearing a plaid (wrapped on the belt around the pants and thrown over the shoulder) that was originally called the "kilt". And only in the late 1720s did the kilt become a kilt - at the initiative of Thomas Rawlinson from Lancashire.

The Rawlinsons were a fairly well-known family name in Lancashire, employed in the steel industry. In the 1720s, having difficulty supplying his smelters with coal, Thomas Rawlinson turned his attention to Scotland, where, thanks to the resources of the country, smelting production could be established. Therefore, in 1727, Rawlinson leased the forest land of Ian MacDonald from Glengarry for 20 years, and set up steelmaking on the site using raw materials from Lancashire (i.e., not coal went to the south, but ore to the north). The enterprise was not crowned with success, and after 7 years it was curtailed. In any case, Rawlinson came up with the idea for the kilt while visiting the smelters where plaid-wrapped Scots worked. Observing a rather clumsy costume (because in a hot workshop in such a dress it is rather uncomfortable), Rawlinson decided to increase productivity by detaching part of the plaid and leaving it on the belt, but already as a skirt - thus, the upper body was not bound by the plaid. The experiment was a success - in the local garrison, skirts were sewn from plaids (the tailor was probably very surprised at such a strange order), which the workers liked. So, from the overalls for steelworkers, created by an Englishman to increase productivity, the legendary skirt was born, quickly spreading throughout Scotland. So quickly that after the Jacobite rising of 1745, the kilt was among the items of clothing that were forbidden to be worn (thus the British government decided to humiliate the highlanders). The ban on wearing kilts, tight pants, fanny packs, plaid items, etc., hit the local culture so hard that 10 years after the ban, neither plaid nor kilt could be found anywhere - nothing. Kilts appeared in the life of Scotland already as a local semi-holy symbol such as vyshyvanka for two reasons.

The first reason was the fascination of the local intelligentsia with the concepts of "noble savages", especially since the noble savage (highlander) was now already tamed, moreover, he threatened to disappear, which the local elites could not allow. We will talk about this movement a little later.
The second reason was the use of kilts by the Scottish regiments of the British army. After the suppression of the uprising of 1745 and the ban on wearing "highlander" clothes, a special exception was made for the soldiers of the Scottish regiments (primarily for the 42nd and 43rd infantry regiments) - they, like loyal and brave highland soldiers, could wear Scottish clothes. The originally plaid-wearing soldiers did not fail to take advantage of the idea of ​​wearing the kilt, and thus, during the era of general extinction, the kilt survived and received a certain amount of fame as a distinguishing feature in the glorious Scottish regiments.

Moreover, it is possible that the system of "tartans", i.e. the definition of a particular clan according to a special pattern of fabric was born precisely in the Scottish regiments for the allocation of battalions. However, we will talk about tartans next time.

Part 2 - From kilt to tartan

In the middle of the 18th century, the kilt skirt, banned shortly after its entry into the historical price, became a symbol of either the military or hidden Jacobites (or their relatives), at the same time it did not take root in Scottish society, not only because the Highlanders in Scotland they were a small (and, moreover, constantly decreasing) and not very respected part of the population, but also because for the highlanders themselves, the kilt was an innovation. However, in the second half of the century the situation changed.

The Highland Society was formed in 1778 in London to preserve and promote ancient Scottish traditions. Despite the fact that the society included a large number of Scottish aristocrats, it was led by a lawyer from the Temple, John Mackenzie. The members of the society were both of the aforementioned MacPhersons, one of whom "discovered" the texts of Ossian in Gaelic, after which John Mackenzie handed over the texts for editing and publication (in 1807) to the historian John Sinclair. Thus, the society fought "for the revival of the old Gaelic language."

The second area of ​​activity of the society was the struggle for the abolition of the ban on wearing Highlander clothes in Scotland. To do this, members of the society, on completely legal grounds (since they were in London, and not Scotland), gathered: in such clothes, which were famous for being the clothes of their Celtic ancestors, and on such occasions they had to read ancient poetry and explore interesting the customs of their country. But even then, the kilt skirt was not among the items of clothing that members of the society were obliged to wear - such items included only tight pants and a belted plaid, which was discussed earlier. In 1782, through the Marquis of Graham, the society was able to lobby in Parliament for the abolition of the ban on wearing "highland dress", which was extremely pleased with the Scottish intelligentsia. However, there were also colder minds, for example, one of the greatest Scottish antiquarians, John Pinkerton, was skeptical about kilts - in his opinion, these were the most perfect innovations, along with tartans.

John Sinclair, a historian of the Highland Society, also did not become a supporter of the idea of ​​kilts - when in 1794 he organized the squads of Rothesay and Caithness to serve during the war with France, he, having tried to dress his wards as "Sholtan" as possible, did not dress soldier in kilts, but chose tight pants from the "plaid". The following year, Sinclair turned to Pinkerton for advice on what to wear. Pinkerton gave a number of arguments as to why a plaid should not be worn, pointed out that tartans and kilts are generally a remake, and advised staying true to tight pants. True, Mr. Pinkerton especially noted about Sir Sinclair's tartan - very nice, and this is the main thing.

In 1804, the British War Office, apparently trying to unify the uniform, abolished the wearing of kilts as a uniform item, introducing the wearing of tight plaid pants instead (i.e. without abandoning the Scottish flavor). This step aroused the indignation of some officers, who felt that it was impossible to change military traditions in this way. Some, in the heat of the moment, summed up the "historical base" for their indignation - this is what David Stewart did, for example. This fierce opponent of the abolition of the kilt justified his opinion by referring to the public opinion that plaids and kilts were part of the "national costume" of the Scottish highlanders for many, many years. True, Stuart's critics were ironic about his statements, asking how a person who, from the age of 16, was in the army far from his home, and who had not seen Scotland for decades, could appeal to the opinion of the highlanders.

In any case, Colonel Stewart, apparently wanting to more thoroughly substantiate his position, after 1815 began to investigate sources on the clothes of the highlanders - it was impossible to admit the thought that the kilt was invented by an Englishman. The result of his research was the book Essays on the Manners, Character and Present Condition of the Highlanders of Scotland, published in 1822, which then became for many years the main work for fans of the mountain clans. True, the book did not substantiate the traditions of wearing kilts and tartans for clans.

At the same time, in 1820, Colonel Stewart founded the Celtic Society of Edinburgh for Young People, whose task was to "promote the general use of the ancient Highland dress in the Highlands." Sir Walter Scott was elected president of the society, and things began to spin - young Scottish aristocrats and intellectuals joyfully held gatherings, drinking parties, processions, and all this in kilts. Walter Scott himself was not imbued with the idea, and continued to wear tight Scottish trousers during events.

The year of the triumph of the kilt can be safely called the year 1822, the year of the state visit of King George IV to Scotland, the first visit of the monarch of the Hanoverian dynasty. In order to meet the king with dignity, a committee for the organization of celebrations was created, the head of which was elected Walter Scott. His assistant in part of the ceremonies was ... Colonel Stuart. It is not surprising that for the protection of the king, parades, ceremonies and other events, the organizers chose mainly lovers of kilts, "dressed in proper costume." Walter Scott himself turned to local aristocrats to come to Edinburgh with a kind of "retinue", i.e. the visit turned into a kind of medieval event with carnival costumes and a fake retinue.

But not only kilts became the highlight of the visit. In 1819, when the discussion of the future visit began, talk began that “each clan would need to distinguish itself”, including tartan (before that, the clans did not have “their own” pattern, monotony in any clan could achieved, for example, by purchasing a large batch of fabric for tailoring.In any case, the aristocrats valued the fabric more colorful, regardless of the pattern, it happened that one person's clothes were made from fabric with completely different patterns). Such talk was largely inspired by the Scottish woolen fabric manufacturers, who realized that in connection with the visit and mass tailoring, it would be possible to earn extra pounds on "exclusivity". Thus, the Wilson and Son company from Bannockburn, the largest manufacturer of woolen fabric in Scotland, began a joint project with the London Highland Society - in 1819, the company sent a catalog of its fabrics to London, and the society distributed the fabrics by clans and confirmed that one or another pattern is a pattern of a particular clan. As soon as the visit was confirmed, the Scottish aristocracy was seized by real hysteria - good fabrics with “their own patterns” were sold out so quickly that tartans began to be distributed without any system - just to warm up demand. Thus, the MacPherson clan (heirs of James MacPherson, mentioned above) received as a "clan tartan" a pattern that was previously used in fabrics supplied to the West Indies for sewing clothes for slaves.

As a result of such violent activity, "valley" Edinburgh met King George, dressed in semi-fantastic clothes of highlanders, who, according to the son-in-law of Walter Scott, were previously considered thieves and robbers by 9 out of 10 Scots. But the honoring of the king's arrival was a success - George himself, who fell under the spell of Walter Scott, seemed to be fascinated by how he, "practically Stuart and heir to the legitimate rulers of Scotland", was met in Edinburgh by feudal squads. He dressed in a kilt specially made for the occasion with a special "royal Stuart" tartan (the kilt was made by the British, George Hunter and Co. in London, more than 1300 pounds for the whole costume at the prices of that time), and walked, accompanied everywhere by a whole retinue - from event to event, following the script of a huge play, developed by Scott with the help of William Henry Murray, a local playwright from Scott's circle of friends. The culmination was a ball given by the Scottish nobility in honor of the king.

The organizers (Scott and co.) strongly recommended to come to the ball in the “highlander dress” or uniform, since the king himself had to come to the ball in a kilt. And so, the Edinburgh gentlemen began to seek out their mountain roots in order to pick up a tartan and sew a kilt. The shortage of kilts was so great in those days that some had to borrow kilts from the military from the Scottish regiments stationed around Edinburgh. The king's visit aroused massive interest in the "ancient dress" and "clan tartans", and also began to create a single image of the Scots, without a real-life division into highlanders and lowlanders. A new mass national identity was born. It was now up to the general spread of the image of the "Scot".

Part 3 - People Work

Despite the fact that Edinburgh was engulfed in 1822 by "tartan fever", the Allen brothers became the true creators of the concept of "tartans of the Scottish clans".

The grandchildren of British Admiral John Carter Allen, John and Charles, appeared in the story of tartans out of nowhere, but they appeared in time - between 1819 and 1822. At that time, in anticipation of the trip of George IV to Scotland, the firm of Wilson and Son was engaged in the manufacture of clothes for the greeters, and planned to publish a catalog of "clan tartans". The brothers, apparently, grasped the idea, but implemented it on their own and after many years. Prior to that, they traveled around Europe dressed in an extravagant "highlander dress" that amazed the continental inhabitants, and at the same time changed their surnames - first to the "more Scottish" Allan, then to Hay Allan, and finally to Hay. At the same time, the brothers began to "secretly tell" about their noble origin - they were descendants of the Hey family, Earls of Errol. In truth, this could be true, because some associated their grandfather with this surname, but there was no evidence of a connection.

Returning to Scotland, the brothers were able to attract the attention of the local nobility, partly by their behavior, partly by allusions to connections and origins. The patrons enticed by them granted them the right to hunt and live on their estates, and to one of such patrons, Sir Thomas Lauder, the brothers confessed that they had in their possession an ancient document that had once belonged to John Leslie, Bishop of Ross, and which was subsequently transferred to their father Charles Edward Stuart himself (the last of the Stuart pretenders to the British throne). This document, Vestiarium Scoticum, contained descriptions of clan tartans. But not just mountain clans, this document contained tartans and valley clans - absolutely incredible news! The original, however, in London, was immediately added by the brothers, but they have a copy in their hands, which must be published in order to correct errors in existing tartans.

Such news was simply mind-blowing - especially for the valley aristocrats, some of whom might gladly jump at the opportunity to "permeate the history of a glorious clan." But still, the sensation needed confirmation - therefore, they turned to Walter Scott for help, who, however, turned out to be very, very skeptical, pointing out that such a dubious document should be checked in London by specialists from the British Museum. Sir Thomas agreed with this approach, but the brothers provided him with a letter "from his father", with a complete refusal to provide a document on the margins of which some private information was recorded that were not subject to public disclosure. In addition, it was written in the letter, Walter Scott is not an authority at all, there is nothing to ask permission from him. The idea did not get any movement, because it clearly smacked of a scam, and the brothers hastily retired to the north of Scotland, under the wing of a new patron, Lord Lovat.

There, the brothers converted to Catholicism and “threw off their masks”, calling themselves the Sobessky-Stuart brothers (Sobesky - by the name of their puesdo-great-great-grandmother, Stuart - by the name of their great-great-grandfather), John and Charles. Having received a villa from Lord Lovat, the brothers created a small courtyard, called themselves nothing more than princes, constantly hinted at "secret documents", and at that time they were working on a new project.

In 1842, under the editorship of the brothers, a richly illustrated edition of the Vestiarium Scoticum was published in a small edition. The document itself, which has changed significantly since the first discovery of the "original", was accompanied by a preface proving that it was a genuine document - however, all references to other copies of the document that "confirm everything" usually ended with sighs over the fact that such copies simply disappeared – burned down, were stolen or simply evaporated. Despite the fact that the publication did not receive much popularity (partly due to its meager circulation), the brothers continued to work. Two years later they published the tome "The Suit of the Clans", in which they continued the Vestiarium Scoticum line. The new book contained not only rich illustrations, but also a theoretical part, in which the authors told that the clothes of the highlanders and their tartans are ancient robes, in which all of Europe once walked. However, this time too, references to sources raised doubts about the scientific nature of the book - a long series of disappeared manuscripts, or documents that were only in the hands of the Sobieski-Stewart brothers, references to the Vestiarium Scoticum as a genuine document, etc. As a result, the new book did not even become an object of criticism. The brothers continued to work.

The new book caused a strong reaction, but by no means the one that the brothers were counting on. The volume of the History of the Century, published by the brothers, caused a rapid decline in the popularity of the brothers. In "Stories" the brothers decided to move away from the usual description of "ancient mountain costumes" and wrote, in fact, a saga about themselves - the descendants of the Stuart dynasty. Considering that the brothers, out of habit, relied on "burnt manuscripts", criticism left no stone unturned on the "History", and besides, now it was a matter of politics - pretenders to the throne are not announced every day. One cannot even imagine how quickly the brothers became outcasts - in any case, all their patrons turned away from them, sources of funding disappeared, and staying in Scotland became extremely undesirable (a little later we will talk more about how the Sobieski-Stewart adventures ended).

However, one thing remained after the brothers - the tartan designs contained in the Vestiarium Scoticum were borrowed unchanged by the London Highland Society. The base for popularization "among the people" was created, the matter was small - to retell Vestiarium Scoticum so that they "believed".

Part 4 - Fixing the image

Despite the fact that in the eyes of the scientific community Vestiarium Scoticum could not receive any value, this book has not disappeared from the pages of history. On the contrary, events took a rather predictable turn - the book became the basis for the popularization of tartans among the general population. The Highland Society of London was engaged in popularization, hiring another interesting couple to carry out the work - James Logan and Robert Makian.

James Logan, an Aberdian, was a great lover of his homeland and its history, even in its mythological form. In 1831, he published The Scottish Gael, in which he explained his point of view on what was happening. By analogy with today's fans to talk about ancient times, Logan laid out "the whole truth" about ancient kilts, tartans and other Scottish antiquities, promising readers to continue their research on tartans. For such work, he was elected president of the London Highland Society and set to work. At the same time, Logan was an agent for the Wilson & Son company, so his research took on a somewhat specific connotation, given that this largest Scottish woolen fabric company appeared wherever tartans were discussed. Logan worked on a work on tartans with a friend, Robert Ronald Macian, an artist.

The result of the work was the book The Clans of the Scottish Highlands, published in 1843 (a year after the publication of Vestiarium Scoticum), decorated with 72 illustrations, in which Macian tried, using his imagination, to show how to wear tartan. The fact that the book contained gratitude to the Sobessky-Stewart brothers “for the excellent work” indicated that Logan studied the work of the brothers, especially since he simply “borrowed” some of the tartan designs from Vestiarium Scoticum. It is also known that the company Wilson and Son, which "worked" with Sobieski-Stewart, "corrected" Logan during the writing of his book. Fortunately for Logan, the Sobieski-Stewart brothers were discredited, and his book remained the only published and undiscredited source of information about tartans in the public eye.

So, by the 1850s, there were ideas about how the Scots should look like. In the 1850s, when the "Scottish theme" reached the royal court and gained a foothold there, works intended for the general reader began to appear - only in 1850 three works appeared. All of them were based on two sources - on the book of Logan and Vestiarium Scoticum (which was used without mention, simply borrowing drawings and descriptions from there).

Today, tartans and kilts (as well as bagpipes and a glengarry hat, the “traditionality” of which we will not describe) are the “calling card” of the Scots, perceived as the ancient traditional attire of the Scottish people. Souvenir shops in Scotland are filled with kilts and checkered things, quite a lot of Scots continue to wear "ancestral clothes" and even more dress in "clan tartans" on holidays, and the number of tartans is constantly increasing with the emergence of new surnames, clans and groups. And, despite the fact that the history of these "clothing" traditions is not what they imagine it to be, people are happy, "and this is the main thing." Particularly happy are the heirs of the Wilson & Son business, such as the Sikh Singh family, which runs 25 traditional Scottish clothing stores in Scotland.

For this, let me finish the story of the valiant Scots.

This series of notes is based on Sir Hugh Trevor Roper's article "The Invention of Tradition: The Highland Tradition of Scotland", in The Invention of Tradition edited by Eric Hobsbawm, first published in 1989.

This version, however, has opponents (Scots and their descendants in the US, mostly) who claim that the kilt skirt appeared in the late 17th and early 18th century before Rawlinson's inventions. However, they provide no evidence for such claims.

Hugh Trevor-Roper

Hugh Trevor-Roper(1914-2003) - classic of British historiography, specialist in the history of Britain and Nazi Germany, peer and life professor at Oxford.

The Scots, gathering today for the holidays of their cultural identity, use things from the symbolic national row. First of all, this is a tartan kilt, whose color and pattern indicates their "clan"; if they intend to play music, they will play the bagpipes. These attributes, whose history is attributed to many years, are actually quite modern. They were developed after - and sometimes much later - the Union with England of 1707, against which the Scots protest in one form or another. Prior to the Unia, some of these special garments existed; however, most Scots considered them signs of barbarism, an attribute of rude, lazy, predatory highlanders who were more of a hindrance than a real threat to civilized historical Scotland. And even in the mountains Highlands) these garments were relatively little known, they were not considered a hallmark of a highlander.

In fact, the very concept of a special mountain culture and tradition is a retrospective invention. Until the end of the 17th century, the Scottish highlanders did not form a separate people. They were simply the descendants of the Irish who had settled there. On this broken and inhospitable coast, in the nearby archipelago, the sea unites rather than divides, and from the end of the fifth century, when the Scots from Ulster landed in Argyll, until the middle of the eighteenth century, when this land was "discovered" after the Jacobite rebellions, the west Scotland, cut off from the east by mountains, has always been closer to Ireland than to the plains ( Lowlands) Saxons. In origin and culture, it was an Irish colony. [...]

In the 18th century, the islands in the west of Scotland continued to be somewhat Irish, and the Gaelic spoken there was described as Irish. Being inhabitants of a kind of "overseas Ireland", but under the control of a "foreign" and somewhat ineffective Scottish crown, the inhabitants of the highlands and island regions of Scotland experienced cultural humiliation. Their literature was a crude echo of the Irish. The bards in the courts of the Scottish chiefs came from Ireland or traveled there to learn their craft. An Irish writer of the early 18th century says that the Scottish bards are the garbage of Ireland, periodically swept into this wilderness for the sake of cleansing the country. Even under the yoke of England in the 17th-18th centuries, Celtic Ireland remained an independent cultural and historical nation, and Celtic Scotland was, at best, its poor sister. And she did not have her own independent tradition.

The creation of an independent "highland tradition" and the transfer of this new tradition, with its identification marks to all Scots, was the work of the late 18th - early 19th centuries. This happened in three stages. First there was a cultural revolt against Ireland: the appropriation of Irish culture and the rewriting of early Scottish history, culminating in the indiscreet claim that Scotland, Celtic Scotland, was its "mother nation" and Ireland its cultural colony. Secondly, new "mountain traditions" were artificially created, presented as ancient, original and special. Thirdly, a process was set in motion by which new traditions were proposed and adopted by the historic Lowlands, eastern Scotland of the Picts, Saxons and Normans.

The first of these stages was completed in the 18th century. The claim that the Celtic, Irish-speaking "Highlanders" ( Highlanders) Scotland were not just immigrants from Ireland of the 5th century, but representatives of an ancient culture - the Caledonians, who resisted the Roman army, of course, it was an ancient legend that served well in the past. In 1729 it was rejected by the first and greatest of Scottish antiquarians, the clergyman and Jacobite émigré Thomas Innes. But in 1738 it was again confirmed by David Malcolm, and more convincingly in the 1760s by two men of letters with the same name: James Macpherson, Ossian's "translator", and the Reverend John Macpherson, a priest from Sleat on the Isle of Skye.

The two MacPhersons, though not related, knew each other: James MacPherson had stayed with the clergyman on a trip to Skye in search of the Ossian in 1760, and the clergyman's son, later Sir John Macpherson, Governor-General of India, was later a close friend of the poet - and they even worked together. So, together, with the help of two outright fakes, they created the "local" literature of Celtic Scotland, and as a necessary prop - its history. Both this literature and this history, where they had any bearing on reality at all, were stolen from the Irish.

The unalloyed arrogance of the MacPhersons is truly admirable. James MacPherson collected several Irish ballads in Scotland, composed them into an "epos", the action of which was completely transferred from Ireland to Scotland, and then rejected the real ballads, defaming them as corrupted modern inventions, and the real Irish literature in which they found reflection - as a low imitation. Then the priest from Sleat wrote the "Critical Dissertation" ("Critical Dissertation") , which provided the necessary context for the "Celtic Homer" "discovered" by his namesake: he placed the Irish-speaking Celts in Scotland four centuries before their historical appearance there, and declared authentic Irish literature stolen by some immoral Irishmen from innocent Scots in the "dark ages". To top it off, James MacPherson himself, using research from a priest, wrote an "independent" "Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland" , 1771), where he repeated his assertions. Nothing testifies more to the great success of the MacPhersons than the fact that they managed to confuse the cautious and critical Edward Gibbon, who called these "two learned Highlanders" his "guides", thereby reinforcing what was later rightly called "the chain of errors of the Scottish stories".

It took a whole century to cleanse Scottish history (if it can be considered really cleansed) of the distortions and fabrications produced by the two MacPhersons. Meanwhile, these two insolent men were enjoying the victory: they managed to put the Scottish Highlanders on the map of the country. Previously despised alike by the lowland Scots as violent savages, and by the Irish as illiterate poor relatives, they were now accepted by all Europe as Kulturvolk, a people who, at the very time when England and Ireland were plunged into primitive barbarism, had already brought forth from their ranks an epic poet of exquisite refinement, equal or even superior to Homer. But the highlanders attracted the attention of Europe not only with their literature. As soon as their ties with Ireland were severed, and the Highlands acquired - albeit with the help of a forgery - an independent ancient culture, a way arose to herald this independence through special traditions. And the tradition that was then established concerned the features of the wardrobe.

In 1805 Sir Walter Scott wrote an essay on Macpherson's Ossian in the Edinburgh Review. There he showed his characteristic learning and common sense. He strongly rejected the epic's authenticity, which both the Scottish literary establishment and the Highlanders themselves continued to defend. But in the same essay, he noted (in brackets) that the ancient Caledonians, without any doubt, already in the 3rd century wore a “tartan kilt” ( a tartan philipeg). In such a rational and critical essay, such a confident statement is surprising. No one has ever made such a claim before. Even MacPherson did not assume this: his Ossian was always represented in a fluttering cloak ( robe), and his instrument, by the way, has always been not a bagpipe, but a harp. But McPherson himself was a highlander and a generation older than Scott. It means a lot in this kind of business.

When is the modern kilt tartan philipeg, became a highlander costume? The facts speak quite unambiguously about this, especially after the publication of the brilliant work of Telfer Dunbar. If "tartan", that is, a fabric woven from colored threads with a geometric pattern, was known in Scotland in the 16th century (it probably originated in Flanders, spreading first on the Scottish plains and then in the mountains), then the "kilt" ( philipeg) - both the name and the thing itself - remained unknown until the 18th century. Far from being the traditional attire of the highlanders, it was invented by the British after the Union of 1707; and "clan tartans" differing in pattern and color - even later. They became part of a ceremony designed by Sir Walter Scott to celebrate the visit to Edinburgh of the English king from the Hanoverian dynasty. So clan tartans owe their shape and color to two Englishmen.

Since the Scottish Highlanders were Irish in origin, simply moving from one island to another, it is natural to assume that their original dress was the same as that of the Irish. And indeed, this is exactly what we find. The authors generally notice the outfits of the highlanders only in the 16th century, but at that time they all unanimously show that the usual clothes of the highlanders consisted of a long "Irish" shirt ( leine in Gaelic), which the upper classes - as in Ireland - dyed with saffron; tunics, or failuin; and cloak, or plain, which was multi-colored or striped among the upper classes, and brown and reddish-brown among the commoners, a camouflage color suitable for life near the swamps. [...]

On the battlefield, the leaders wore chain mail, and the lower classes wore a quilted linen shirt covered with resin and deer skins. In addition to this usual attire, chiefs and nobles who came into contact with the more refined inhabitants of the plains could wear a "trouser" ( Trews): a combination of breeches with stockings. These "trunks" could only be worn in the mountains in the fresh air and only by people who had servants to carry the "trunk" behind the owner: therefore, they were a sign of social distinction. Both the "plaid" and the "truz" were probably made from tartan. [...]

In the 17th century, the Highlander armies fought in the civil wars in Britain, and always, judging by the descriptions, we see that the officers wear a "trunk", and ordinary soldiers leave their legs and thighs bare. Both officers and soldiers wore a “plaid”, but the former were like outerwear, while the latter completely covered their bodies, belting them at the waist, so that the lower part under the belt formed a kind of skirt. In this form it was known as breacan, or "belted plaid". It is important here that there was not a single mention of the "kilt" as we know it. The choice was exclusively between the gentleman's "trunk" and the "folk" "belted plaid".

The name "kilt" first appears twenty years after the Union. Edward Burt, an English officer sent to General Wade in Scotland as chief surveyor, wrote several letters from Inverness on the character and customs of the country. In them he gave a detailed description quelt, which, as he explained, is not a separate outfit, but simply a special way of wearing “a plaid, gathered in pleats and belted at the waist to make a short skirt that covers half the hips; the rest is thrown over the shoulders and fastened there ... so that it turns out very much like the poor women of London, when they lift the hem of their dress over their heads, wanting to hide from the rain. [...]

After the Jacobite rising of 1715, the British Parliament considered a proposal to legally ban this attire - in the same way that the Irish outfit was banned under Henry VIII: they thought that this would help break the special highland lifestyle and integrate the highlanders into modern society. However, the law did not pass. It was recognized that the mountain dress is convenient and necessary in a country where the traveler is forced to "jump over mountains and swamps and spend the night on the hills." […] There is a particular irony in the fact that if the Highlander outfit had been banned after 1715, and not 1745, then the kilt, which is now considered one of the ancient traditions of Scotland, probably would not have appeared. And it arose a few years after Burt's letters and very close to the place from which he sent them. Unknown in 1726, the kilt soon made an unexpected appearance, and by 1746 was firmly established enough to be clearly named in that Act of Parliament which nevertheless banned the highlander outfit. The kilt was invented by an English Quaker from Lancashire, Thomas Rawlinson.

The Rawlinson family had a long history of ironwork in Furness. [...] However, over time, the volume of coal supplied began to decline, and the Rawlinsons needed wood as fuel. Fortunately, after the uprising of 1715 was crushed, the mountains were opened to entrepreneurs, and the industries of the south were able to exploit the forests in the north. Therefore, in 1727, Thomas Rawlinson entered into an agreement with Ian Macdonell, head of the Macdonell clan of Glengarry near Inverness, for a 31-year lease on a wooded area in Invergarry. He set up a furnace there and smelted iron ore, which he brought specially from Lancashire. The enterprise turned out to be economically unprofitable: it was curtailed seven years later; but during these seven years Rawlinson got to know the area well, and established regular relations with the Macdonells of Glengarry, and, of course, hired a "mob of highlanders" to fell trees and work at the stove.

During his time at Glengarry, Rawlinson became interested in the highlander's suit and learned of its inconvenience. A belted plaid was suitable for an idle life: spending the night on the hills or wandering through the swamps. It was cheap and everyone agreed that the lower classes couldn't afford pants. But for people who cut wood or look after the stove, it was "constraint and uncomfortable attire." [...] Rawlinson sent for a tailor from the regiment stationed at Inverness, and with him figured out how to "shorten the dress and make it comfortable for the workers." The result was the felie beg, or the “small kilt”, which turned out like this: the skirt was separated from the “plaid”, and it turned into a separate outfit with already hemmed folds. Rawlinson himself wore this new attire, and his partner, Ian McDonell of Glengarry, followed suit. After this, the members of the clan, as usual, followed their leader, and the innovation, as it is said, "was considered so convenient that in a short time it was adopted in all the mountainous lands, as well as in many northern plains."

This story of the origin of the kilt was first told in 1768 by a mountain gentleman who knew Rawlinson personally. In 1785, the story was published without arousing any objections. It was confirmed by two of the then greatest authorities on Scottish customs - and, separately, by witnesses from the Glengarry family. No one began to refute this story for another forty years. It has never been refuted at all. All the evidence that has accumulated since then is in perfect agreement with it. [...] Thus we may conclude that the kilt was a New Age costume first invented by an English Quaker industrialist, and that he put it on the Highlanders, not to preserve their traditional way of life, but in order to transform: pull the highlanders out of the swamp and drag them to the factory.

But if this is the origin of the kilt, then the following questions immediately arise: what kind of tartan was the Quaker kilt made of [...], were there special “sets” of colors in the 18th century ( setts) and when did the differentiation of clans by patterns begin?

The authors of the 16th century, who were the first to notice the mountain attire, clearly did not know such distinctions. They described the "plaids" of the chiefs as colored, and those of their fellow tribesmen as brown, so that any distinction of color then was social, not clan. [...] Portraits of one MacDonald family of Armadale show at least six different "sets" of tartan, and evidence contemporary to the 1745 rebellion—whether pictorial, sartorial, or literary—shows no distinction between clans by pattern or any repeatability. [...] The choice of tartan was a matter of private taste or necessity.

Thus, when the great rebellion of 1745 broke out, the kilt as we know it was a recent English invention, and "clan" tartans did not yet exist. However, the uprising marks a change in the sartorial, as well as social and economic, history of Scotland. After the suppression of the uprising, the British government decided to finally carry out what it had planned in 1715 (and even earlier), and finally destroy the independent way of life of the highlanders. According to the various Acts of Parliament that followed the victory at Culloden, the Highlanders were not only disarmed and deprived of their chieftains of hereditary jurisdiction, but the wearing of the highlander's attire - "a plaid, a filibegge, a trunk, a shoulder harness ... of tartan or partly dyed plaid or cloth" - was banned throughout Scotland under pain of imprisonment for 6 months without bail, and in case of repeated violation - under threat of expulsion for 7 years. This draconian law remained in force for 35 years, during which the entire mountain lifestyle was destroyed. [...] By 1780, the highland outfit seemed completely extinct, and no reasonable person thought of reviving it.

However, history is not rational, or at least only partly rational. The mountain costume has really disappeared for those who are used to wearing it. Having lived a generation in trousers, the simple peasants of the Scottish Highlands saw no reason to return to the belted plaid or tartan they once found so cheap and practical. They didn't even turn to the "comfortable" new kilt. But the upper and middle classes, who previously despised the "servile" attributes, now enthusiastically turned to the outfit discarded by its traditional wearers. In those years when it was banned, some mountain nobles wore it with pleasure and even posed in it at home for portraits. Then, when the ban was lifted, the fashion for this attire blossomed. The anglicized Scottish peers, the wealthy gentry, the educated Edinburgh lawyers, and the discreet Aberdeen merchants—people unfettered by poverty, never forced to gallop over mountains and swamps, sleep in the hills—were parading themselves, not in historical "trousers," the traditional dress of their class, not in a clumsy belted plaid, but in an expensive and bizarre version of this recent innovation - the filibeg or small kilt.

There were two reasons for this remarkable change. One is pan-European: the movement of romanticism, the cult of the noble savage whom civilization threatens to destroy. Until 1745, the highlanders were despised as idle and predatory barbarians. In 1745 they were feared as dangerous rebels. But after, when their unique community was so easily destroyed, the highlanders embodied the combination of the romanticism of a primitive tribe with the charm of an endangered species. It was in a society dominated by such sentiments that Ossian triumphed. The second reason was special and deserves detailed consideration. It was the formation of highland regiments by order of the British government ( Highlanders).

The formation of mountain regiments began before 1745. The very first, "Black Watch" ( black watch), later simply the 43rd, and then the 42nd line regiment, fought at Fontenoy in 1745. But it was in 1757-1760 that Pitt Sr. began to systematically divert the morale of the Highlanders from Jacobite adventures, directing them to imperial wars. [...]

The mountain regiments soon covered themselves with glory in India and America. They also established a new costume tradition. According to the “Disarmament Act” of 1746, the mountain regiments were not subject to a ban on wearing their outfit, and therefore those 35 years that the Celtic peasants got used to Saxon pants, and the Celtic Homer was depicted in a bard’s cloak, it was the mountain regiments alone that kept the industry afloat tartan production and ensured the longevity of the most recent of all innovations, the Lancashire kilt.

Initially, mountain regiments wore a belted "plaid" as a uniform; but as soon as the kilt was invented - and its convenience was recognized and made popular - it was adopted. Moreover, it was probably thanks to these divisions that the idea to distinguish tartan by clan was born; after all, the number of mountain regiments grew, and their tartan uniform had to contain differences. When the right to wear tartan returned to civilians and the Romantic movement supported the cult of the clan, the same principles of distinction were easily transferred from regiment to clan. But this will all happen in the future. So far, we are only interested in the kilt, which, having been invented by an English Quaker industrialist, was then saved from extinction by an English imperialist statesman. The next stage was the invention of Scottish ancestry for him.

It all began with an important step taken in 1778 - with the founding of the Highland Society in London ( highland society), whose main function was to encourage the ancient highland virtues and preserve the ancient highland traditions. Its members consisted of noble families of the Highlands and officers, but its secretary, "to whose zeal the Society is especially indebted for its success," was John Mackenzie, a lawyer from the Temple of London, and also "the closest and most trusted friend", accomplice, business partner and later executor of James MacPherson. Both James Macpherson and Sir John Macpherson were early members of the Society, one of whose greatest achievements, according to its historian Sir John Sinclair, was the publication in 1807 of the "original" text of Ossian in Gaelic. This text was taken by McKenzie from MacPherson's papers and published along with a dissertation authenticating it, written by Sinclair himself. In view of Mackenzie's dual function and the Society's preoccupation with Gaelic literature (which was nearly all either produced or inspired by MacPherson), the whole enterprise can be seen as one of the operations of the MacPherson Mafia in London.

The second and no less important goal of the Society was to ensure the repeal of the law prohibiting the wearing of Highland dress in Scotland. In order to achieve this object, the members of the Society resolved to meet themselves (as they could legitimately do in London) “in this so celebrated attire worn by their Celtic ancestors, and on such occasions to speak expressive language, listen to sweet music, read ancient poetry and observe original customs. their land."

It is worth noting that even then the mountain outfit did not include a kilt: by the rules of the Society, it was defined as a “trunk” and a belted “plaid” (“plaid and filibeg in one”). The main goal was achieved in 1782 when the Marquess of Graham, at the request of the committee of the Highland Society, advanced the withdrawal of the act in the House of Commons. The repeal caused rejoicing in Scotland, with Gaelic poets commemorating the victory of the Celtic girdled plaid over the trousers of the Saxons. From that moment began the triumph of the newly redefined highland outfit.

By that time, the highland regiments had already switched to the "filibeg", and their officers easily convinced themselves that this short kilt had been the national dress of Scotland since time immemorial. When the War Office considered replacing the kilt with a "truz" in 1804, the officers responded accordingly. Colonel Cameron of the 79th was furious. Does the High Command, he asked, really want to stop the "free circulation of clean and healthy air" under the kilt, "so wonderfully adapted by the highlanders for physical exercise?" [...] Under such inspired onslaught the Ministry retreated, and it was the kilted soldiers of the British Highland regiments, after the final victory over Napoleon in 1815, that captured the imagination and aroused the curiosity of Paris. [...]

Meanwhile, the myth about the antiquity of this outfit was actively spread by other military men. It was Colonel David Stewart of Garth, who had joined the 42nd at the age of sixteen and spent his adult life in the army, mostly abroad. As a part-time officer from 1815, he devoted himself to studying the history of the first highland regiments, and later also the life and traditions of the "highlands": traditions that he probably discovered more often in the officers' messes than in the valleys and glens of Scotland. . These traditions now included both the kilt and the clan tartans, which was accepted by the colonel without hesitation. [...] He stated that tartans were always woven with "a special pattern (or 'set' as they called them) by different clans, tribes, families and districts". He did not back up any of these statements with evidence. They appeared in 1822 in his Sketches of the Character, Manners and Present State of the Highlanders of Scotland. This book is considered to be the basis of all subsequent work on the clans.

Stuart promoted the "highland cause" not only with the help of a printing press. In January 1820 he founded the Celtic ( Celtic) Society of Edinburgh: a society of "young civilians" whose first purpose was to "encourage the general use of the ancient highland dress in the mountains" - and to do this by wearing it in Edinburgh. The President of the Society was Sir Walter Scott, a native of the lowlands of Scotland. Members of the Society met regularly for dinner, "wearing kilts and berets in the old fashion, and armed to the teeth." Scott himself wore a "trunk" at such meetings, but declared that he was "very pleased with the extreme enthusiasm of the Gaels ( the Gael) when they are freed from the bondage of pants." “You never saw such jumps, jumps and screams,” he wrote after one such dinner. Such were the consequences - even in prim Edinburgh - of the free circulation of clean and wholesome air under the Highlander's kilt.

Thus, by 1822, largely through the efforts of Sir Walter Scott and Colonel Stuart, the "mountain coup" had already begun to be carried out. It acquired a special scope this year, thanks to the official visit of King George IV of Great Britain to Edinburgh. It was the first time a monarch from the Hanoverian dynasty was visiting the capital of Scotland, and careful preparations were made to ensure the success of the visit. We are interested here in the identity of the one who was responsible for these preparations. For the master of ceremonies who undertook all practical matters was Sir Walter Scott; he appointed Colonel Stuart of Garth as his assistant; the guard of honor, which Scott and Stewart had entrusted with the protection of the royal person, government officials and the regalia of Scotland, consisted of "filibega enthusiasts", members of the Celtic Club, "dressed in appropriate attire". The result is a whimsical caricature of Scottish history and reality. Taken into circulation by his fanatical Celtic friends, Scott, apparently, decided to forget both historical Scotland and his native plains. The royal visit, he announced, would be "a meeting of the Gaels." And so he began to demand from the mountain leaders that they come with "a retinue of their fellow tribesmen to pay tribute to the king." The highlanders came right away. But what kind of tartans did they need to wear?

The idea of ​​clan-based tartans, so publicized by Stuart, apparently came from resourceful manufacturers of manufactory, who for 45 years had no customers other than highland regiments, but since 1782 - the year of the abolition of the act - hoped for an expansion of the market. The largest was William Wilson & Son of Bannockburn. Messrs. Wilson and son saw the benefit in creating a whole line of tartans, differing by clans, in order to stimulate competition between them, for which they entered into an alliance with the Highland Society of London, which offered a historically respectable cloak or "plaid" for their commercial project. In 1819, when the idea of ​​a royal visit first arose, the company prepared the "Key Pattern Book" and sent various tartans to London, where the Society regularly "certified" them as belonging to one or another clan. However, when the date of the visit was already confirmed, there was no time for such pedantry. The influx of orders was such that "any piece of tartan was sold, barely leaving the machine." Under such circumstances, the firm's first responsibility became to maintain an uninterrupted supply of goods and provide ample choice for the mountain chiefs. Therefore, Cluny MacPherson, heir to the discoverer Ossian, received the first tartan that came across. In his honor, this tartan was named "MacPherson", but shortly before that, a large batch of the same "filibegs" was sold to Mr. Kidd to dress his West Indian slaves, and then it was called "Kidd", and even before that it was simply "No. 155 ".

Thus, the capital of Scotland "tartanized" to meet its king, who arrived in the same costume, played his part in the Celtic procession, and at the climax of the visit solemnly invited the assembled nobility to drink, but not for the genuine or historical elite, but for the "leaders clans of Scotland. Even Scott's devoted son-in-law and biographer, J.J. Lockhart - was taken aback by this collective "hallucination" in which, as he put it, the Celtic tribes, "always a small and almost always an unimportant part of the Scottish population," were recognized as "marking and crowning Scotland with glory." [...]

The farce of 1822 gave new impetus to the tartan industry and inspired a new fantasy. Thus, we pass to the last stage of the creation of the mountain myth: the reconstruction and dissemination in the ghostly and sartorial form of the clan system, whose reality was destroyed after 1745. The main characters in this episode were two of the most quirky and seductive characters who ever sat on a Celtic "horse" or a witch's broom - the Allen brothers.

The Allen brothers came from a family of well-connected naval officers. [...] Both were talented in many kinds of arts. [...] Whatever they undertook, they did carefully and tastefully. The circumstances of their first appearance in Scotland are not known, but they were clearly there with their father during the royal visit of 1822, and perhaps even earlier - say, in 1819. The years from 1819 to 1822 were devoted to preparing for the visit. It was then that the firm of Wilson & Son of Bannockburn was considering a nomenclature of tartans for the Highland clans, and the Highland Society of London was considering the idea of ​​publishing a sumptuously illustrated book on patterns on Scottish skirts. There is reason to believe that the Allen family was in contact with Wilson and Son at this time.

In subsequent years, the brothers "Scottishized" their surname, turning it first into Allan ( Allan), then through Hay Allan ( Hay Allan) – just in Hay. The brothers encouraged rumors that they were descended from the last bearer of this surname, Earl Errol. [...] Most of the time the brothers spent in the far north, where Earl Moray gave them the forest of Darnaway, becoming experts in deer hunting. They never lacked aristocratic patrons. Practical ambitious people from the plains also fell for their bait. Such was Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, to whom they revealed in 1829 that they were in possession of an important historical document. It was a manuscript which (they say) had once belonged to John Leslie, Bishop of Ross, Confidant of Mary Queen of Scots, and which had been given to their father by none other than "the young pretender," "Prince Charlie." The manuscript, titled Vestiarium Scoticum, or Wardrobe of Scotland, contained descriptions of the clan tartans of Scottish families and was allegedly the work of a knight, Sir Richard Urquhart. Bishop Leslie marked it with the date 1571, but the manuscript may have been older. The brothers explained that their father had the original document in London, but showed Dick Lauder a "rough copy" that they had inherited from the Urquhart family of Cromatrie. Sir Thomas was very excited about this discovery. The document was not only important in itself, but it was also an authentic and ancient authoritative source on various clan tartans, and also certified that tartans were used by the inhabitants of the plains, as well as the mountains. [...] Sir Thomas made a transcript of the text, which the younger of the brothers respectfully decorated with illustrations. Then he wrote to Sir Walter Scott, whose voice was to him in such matters the voice of an oracle. [...] Scott's royal reputation did not shake under such pressure, he did not succumb; and the story itself, and the content of the manuscript, and the character of the brothers - everything seemed suspicious to him. [...]

Confounded by Scott's authority, the brothers withdrew back to the north, where they gradually improved their image, their knowledge, and their manuscript. They found a new patron, Lord Lovat, the Catholic head of the Fraser family, whose ancestor had died on the scaffold in 1747. They also chose a new religion, Catholicism, and a new, much grander origin. They dropped the Hay name and adopted the royal name, Stuart. The older brother called himself John Sobieski Stuart (Jan Sobieski, the heroic Polish king, was the great-great-grandfather of the "young pretender" on the maternal side); the eldest became, like Prince Charlie himself, Charles Edward Stuart. From Lord Lovat they received the gift of Eileen Egas ( Eilean Aigas), a romantic mansion on an island in the middle of the Pawley River in Inverness, and set up a miniature courtyard there. They became known as "princes", sat on thrones, maintained strict etiquette and received royal gifts from visitors who were shown Stuart relics and hinted at mysterious documents lying in a locked chest. The royal coat of arms was hung over the doors of the house; when the brothers sailed upstream to the Catholic church at Eskdale, the royal standard fluttered over their boat; they had a crown on their seal. It was at Eileen Egas that the brothers finally published their famous manuscript, Vestiarium Scoticum, in 1842. . It appeared in a deluxe edition of 50 copies. For the first time, a series of color illustrations of tartans was published, which in itself was a triumph of technological progress. [...] The manuscript itself, as pointed out, was "carefully connected" with a second, recently discovered, certain Irish monk in a Spanish monastery, alas, now closed. [...]

Printed in such a small print run, the Vestiarium Scoticum went almost unnoticed. [...] However, as it soon became clear, it was only preliminary documentary basis much more work. Two years later, the brothers published an even more luxurious volume, the result of many years of study. This stunning tome, generously illustrated by the authors themselves, was dedicated to Ludwig I, King of Bavaria, "the restorer of Catholic art in Europe", and contained an appeal, in Gaelic and in English, to the "highlanders". According to the title page, it was printed in Edinburgh, London, Paris and Prague. It was called "The Outfit of the Clans" ("The Costume of the Clans") .

"Outfit of the Clans" is an amazing work. From the point of view of erudition alone, he makes pitiful all previous works on the same topic. It cites secret sources, Scottish and European, written and oral, handwritten and printed. He refers to artifacts and archeology as well as to literature. Half a century later, a meticulous and learned Scottish antiquarian described him as "a perfect marvel of diligence and talent." [...] This work is smart and critical. The authors acknowledge the modern invention of the kilt (after all, they ended up staying with the Macdonells of Glengarry). Nothing they say can be refuted without preparation. But you can't trust anything there. The book is made up of pure fantasy and outright fakes. Literary ghosts are seriously called upon to be authoritative witnesses. Ossian's poems are used as sources, obscure manuscripts are heavily cited... and, of course, the Vestiarium Scoticum itself is now firmly dated "by internal evidence" to the late 15th century. The hand-painted illustrations feature monumental sculptures and ancient portraits. [...]