The man who invented Scotland

Warning: This post may go off on a seemingly unimportant tangent at any time, but believe it or not, it's all relevant....

Tartan has become synonymous with Scotland, yet the existence of tartan far predates the existence of Scotland, Sumeria, Akkad or possibly any civilisation you care to name. In this little piece I'll try to dispel a few myths, in doing so I'll probably upset some of the other “kiltophiles” as most of what they believe to be written in stone, isn't – it's written on water. The biggest myth of all is that tartan was invented or conceived in Scotland.

What is a tartan? The electronic fount of all knowledge will tell you:-

Tartan is a pattern consisting of criss-crossed horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colours. Tartans originated in woven wool, but now they are made in many other materials. Tartan is particularly associated with Scotland. Scottish kilts almost always have tartan patterns. (Tartan is also known as plaid in North America, but in Scotland, a plaid is a tartan cloth slung over the shoulder, or a blanket.) Tartan is made with alternating bands of coloured (pre-dyed) threads woven as both warp and weft at right angles to each other. The weft is woven in a simple twill, two over - two under the warp, advancing one thread each pass. This forms visible diagonal lines where different colours cross, which give the appearance of new colours blended from the original ones. The resulting blocks of colour repeat vertically and horizontally in a distinctive pattern of squares and lines known as a sett.

Using this definition, the Burberry check is, believe it or not, in essence, a tartan.

There are fabrics found with the mummies in the Turim Basin (also known as the Tocharian mummies) which are, by the above definition, tartan (that's apart from the bodies being, apparently, Caucasian). These are normally dated to around 3,000 BCE. If anyone is interested in the Tocharians or the history of tartan, I recommend Elizabeth W. Barber's "The Mummies of Ürümchi" (ISBN 0-393-04521-8). Tartan, being as it dates to at least 3,000 BCE isn't something we Scots can be blamed for, nor can we claim any credit.

As I've said, tartan has become synonymous with Scotland, yet it was banned by the Proscription and Dress Acts after the last Jacobite Rising in1745. How did this happen? Well, these were yet more of those stupidly pointless knee-jerk reactions so characteristic of governments – even to this day. In this instance they included a half-arsed attempt at genocide, the destruction of the clan system (which did indeed need reform), and the belated realisation of “If you can't beat them, use them”.

Pitt the Elder, in a speech to the House of Lords in 1766, said:- “I have called to your service a hardy race of men [yet] it is no great matter if they fall”. Which indirectly led to the state of the world today. I base this claim (state of the world today) on the established fact that the “British” army wasn't much use until it got an infusion of regiments and recruits from parts of “Britain” which preserved a militaristic society (although I accept this will be seen by some as total nonsense).

Before going on I'll deal with a few very common misconceptions (they're common here in Scotland too).

Originally tartans (breacan an feile or an clo mor in Gaelic) weren't associated with specific families. The different setts (patterns) were due to the varying amounts of plants available in the area where the dyes were processed. There was also the fact that each and every weaver used these dyes in different combinations – so there would be a variety of designs produced in every township. In effect this meant that a sett, with slight variations, was common in a certain district due to the varying abundance or scarcity of of plant dyes.

No clans had specific tartans before a certain date in the early 19^th century. However, a regiment of the British Army did. The 43rd Highland Regiment of Foot (it became the 42^nd Royal Highlanders in 1748) or the Black Watch (Am Freiceadan Dubh ). This regiment evolved from “watch” companies raised from loyalist clans after the '15 as a sort of paramilitary police force. These “watch” companies were uniformed in a tartan which is variously referred to as “Government” or “Campbell”. Somewhat to my horror, this is the earliest known sett which can be properly authenticated.

Incidentally there were no clans outwith the Gaeltachd, so there were no tartans associated with Douglas, Bruce, Armstrong, Johnston or Singh. 

As I've said, there were no such things as clan tartans. That doesn't actually matter as it's very difficult to change what are, by now, ingrained preconceptions. Besides, largely due to the almost obsessive love Queen Victorian had for the Highlands, tartan has developed into an industry which rakes in huge amounts of lovely money every year (yes please, keep it coming).

The modern kilt - the waist to knee garment now associated with Scotland (which was NOT worn at the Battle of Stirling Bridge – despite what you saw in Braveheart), is commonly thought to be the creation of an Englishman, Thomas Rawlinson, who owned and operated an iron foundry in Glenmoriston around 1730.

There are problems with this attribution as foundry workers would have been, to a degree, protected by the sheer amount of cloth in the great kilt, if they were being overcome by heat, it's most probable they would have removed their kilts and worked in their shirts – the leinne (shirt) worn with the great kilt was a garment which reached to the mid-thigh. Surprisingly (or not), I disagree. I think it much more likely to have been a cost-cutting exercise by an army bean-counter. After all, one great kilt (Feile mor) could make two little kilts (Feile beag) – thus equipping two soldiers for the price of one (and probably increasing his pension fund at the same time).

Before a certain event in the early 19^th century, no self-respecting, intelligent, money-hungry Scot of the Lowland variety would have been seen dead in either kilt or tartan. In addition, the clan chiefs, who had been “primus inter pares” in their kinship groups, had been infected with a need for money with which to maintain their extravagant and Anglophile lifestyles. When the clan chiefs had been first among equals, they were educated at the most prestigious universities in Europe (Sorbonne, Padua, Bologna, Leiden, Heidelberg etc), in little more than 15 years after the last Jacobite Rising, this changed inasmuch as they began to favour Oxford and Cambridge for the education of their sons.

They also became monolingual to all intents and purposes, although, to be fair (which I don't really want to be), in the Lowlands, the language (Scots) of the common people was seen as degenerate. This was aggravated by the educational system applying some “interesting” punishments on those who spoke Scots (in class or out). In the Gaeltachd this wasn't as much of a problem at first as virtually no-one spoke Scots.

What changed?

Prior to the event I'm leading up to, neither tartan or kilt would have been acceptable wear in Lowland Scotland (except when they were associated with the military). However, in the run-up to this event, Highland regiments had been busy kicking arse and taking names (and sometimes being kicked back) wherever the British Empire was involved. In the Penisular / Napoleonic wars they, and the Irish regiments had provided over half of Wellingtons' British regiments (not to mention the Irishmen in non-Irish regiments). The 2 / 73^rd Highlanders were a case in point. This nominally Highland formation was formed in 1809 from local militia companies in the Nottingham area, many of the rank and file of these companies were, at the time, English, but by the time of Waterloo (where it fought a Quatre Bras and Waterloo) it was mostly Irish. This formation, due to it's reluctance to wear the kilt, gained the not entirely complimentary nickname of “The Perthshire Greybreeks”. However this battalion didn't gain fame on a battlefield but on a ship (HMS Birkenhead).

There was, in Europe at the time, a sort of Celtic revival centred on Scotland. Napoleon for instance, reputedly carried a copy of James Macpherson's “Ossian” on campaign. This Celtic revival was centred on Highland Scotland (a bit like the later Scandinavian revival in the northern USA – Kensington Runestone anyone?)

Who was this man who re-invented tartan and invented the modern conception of Scotland?

The man was Sir Walter Scott (and no, there hadn't been a Scott tartan previously). Scott was a poet, a playwright, a novelist and a lawyer. He was probably the first mass-market author to gain fame in the English language – in many ways he was the proto-typical Dan Brown.

The occasion in question was the visit, in 1822, of King George IV (aka “Prinny”), a fat, womanising and intellectually challenged member of the Royal Family of the United Kingdom (not much change there – other than they've slimmed down a bit - physically that is). {Aside: there are still something approaching 5,000 legally acceptable claimants to this throne}. He is most famous for his bigamous marriage to Caroline of Brunswick in 1795 (this marriage was bigamous as he had, in 1785, conducted a morganatic marriage with Maria Fitzherbert). Needless to say, the Establishment disapproved. However, even though Mrs Fitzherbert was a widow, (she was also Catholic) and, what was worse, she was a commoner, the marriage took place. Contrary to what the histories tell us, he never divorced her (basically because getting a divorce from a Catholic at that time involved the Pope...).

Lets look at the occasion now. The visitation upon Scotland of this august personage was not just a drop-in. The British government was happy as this removed him from participation in the Congress of Verona, Scott and his cohorts were happy as they were in the news, the clan chiefs were happy as it gave them an occasion to “get in touch with their roots” to use a modern phrase. Himself was actually here in Scotland for a whole two weeks – this being the only time since the Coronation of Charles II in 1651, that a “Scottish” monarch had actually been in Scotland. Many of the cartoons of the time show him in a somewhat abbreviated kilt, yet, according to newspaper reports, he only wore the kilt once, This occasion was reported in the “Edinburgh Evening Courant” where it was suggested that many of the ladies who were presented to him were shocked at the display of his “meat and two veg”. This doesn't accord with the other reports that he wore pink or “flesh-coloured” stockings or tights (pantyhose) beneath the kilt.

However, he wasn't really the focus of this Royal Visit. He was the excuse Scott needed run an advertising campaign – with Royal approval. At the time Scott's lifestyle was far more extensive than his income. In essence this Royal Visit was a publicity stunt and an advertisers wet dream. The Royal family got favourable publicity in Scotland as no Royal had shown face there for 170 years, Scott got to exercise his imagination regarding “noble savages” and legends – many of which he invented. Mind you, he was a novelist.

The advertisers wet dream I referred to is a by-product of the new demand for tartan clothing from those who would be “attending” the King. They dressed themselves and their retinues in fantastical costumes which had no basis in reality (it shouldn't be forgotten that the Highland Clearances are still on-going at this time). The merchants and shop-keepers of Edinburgh (among them one Ebenezeer Scroggie, whom I have mentioned before) made several very nice fortunes from the visit.

Although I've named Scott as the instigator of the current vision of Scotland as a place of romantic mist-covered mountains peopled by tartan-clad, noble, bare-arsed savages (for varying values of each), and he was indeed the guilty party. He could not have been guilty of what followed. Although he came up with original concept, the Victorians took the idea and ran with it. They invented even more fantastical costumes which included a person wearing at least four different tartans at one time, they also invented clans to go with the newly designed tartans.... (Scott for example). The Borderers didn't have clans – they had Graynes or Surnames. While they shared many of the same traits as clans they were also very different – one aspect being that they could switch between countries at will. Mind you, having stated that the Borderers weren't clans, Parliament didn't agree with me, a 1597 Act stated “"Chiftanis and chieffis of all clannis… duelland in the hielands or bordouris". The use of the terms Graynes or Surnames for the border families appears to be of 19^th century origin.

While Scott is most famous for the Waverley novels he had an effect on Scotland which can't be disregarded. He, almost single-handedly invented the modern concept of the place in world culture. Now, myself being a Scot, I can't assess what other peoples have taken from his writings, but in my opinion (which I value) he propounded a society which never existed. To me he seems to have conflated a romanticised version of the Border legends with which he grew up, and an invented chivalric tradition (which didn't exist) in the highlands. While ignoring the fact that both the Borderers (especially the Reivers on both sides of the border) lived short, hard and often brutal lives and the Highlanders (other than the land-owners who had previously been chiefs) lived a hand-to-mouth existence at the best of times.

This invented tradition comes through in the “Lady of the Lake” where one passage (Canto 5) says:-

“Ill fared it then with Roderick Dhu,
That on the field his targe he threw,
Whose brazen studs and tough bull-hide
Had death so often dash'd aside; ”

That's nonsense. In a fight, nobody ditches a weapon unless it's broken – and make no mistake, a shield (even a broken one) is a weapon.

I'm not going to critique his poetry or his novels, just his intentions. Scott was a Tory and a Unionist (which isn't the same as a modern Conservative as much as they would like it to be). He was also very interested in money.

Scott was born in the “Old Town” of Edinburgh in 1771, the son of a lawyer. As a child he contracted a disease which may have been the spinal variety of Poliomyelitis. In any case he became lame and, in 1773, he was sent to his grandparents home near Smailholm Tower, which had been the family home.

In 1779, he was entered into the Royal High School of Edinburgh. He began a course of study in the classics at the University of Edinburgh in 1783, aged 12 (this may look strange to 21^st century eyes), but he would have had to study Latin, Greek, Rhetoric and Philosophy in addition to Law). In 1786 at the age of fifteen, he became apprenticed in his father's firm to become a Writer to the Signet. For those not totally au fait with the arcane terminology of Scots Law, a Writer to the Signet is a solicitor (one who solicits) while an Advocate presents cases in court (a somewhat basic definition, but broadly true until relatively recently). In 1790 while acting as a lawyers clerk, he made his first visit to the Highlands, where he supervised an eviction (while not wishing to cast any aspersions, the Highland Clearances were, technically, evictions).

In 1796, a James Ballantyne founded a printing press in Kelso. Through Ballantyne, Scott was able to publish his first works and his poetry then began to bring him to public attention. The Lay of the Last Minstrel was published in 1805 and made the “Wizard of the North” an established author. Before the publication of the Lays, in 1799, Scott became the Sheriff-Depute of the County of Selkirk, a post he held for most of the rest of his life. In 1806 he became a Clerk of Session, as such, his duties involved reducing to written form decisions orally pronounced from Bench, authenticating registered deeds by signatures, and looking up law papers and authorities. This brought in an additional £800.00 per annum on top of his salary of £300.00 as Sheriff-Depute and was entirely separate from his income from writing.

On Christmas Eve 1797, he married Charlotte Carpenter, a ward of Lord Downshire (except he didn't. He married Charlotte Charpentier, a ward of Lord Downshire).

In 1811 he bought the farm of Clartyhole (most of you will be able to parse out this name) which, at the time comprised 110 acres. For the next 12 years he kept on buying land in the area, by 1823 he owned in the region of 1,000 acres (roughly 400 hectares). He had a house built for himself, it's now known as Abbotsford House which was completed in 1824. The contents of the house allegedly include Rob Roys' dirk and some relics of Bonnie Prince Charlie (which I take leave to doubt). The interiors however are a great example of late Georgian architecture.

Twice in his career as a writer, his publishers went bust. In 1813 the publishing house of John Ballantyne and Co which had published “The Lady of the Lake” in 1810 fell into difficulty. Unfortunately for Scott he held a half interest in the enterprise. This company was bought over by Archibald Constable and Co, on terms very favourable to the new owner, yet from 1816 to 1822, Scott was the sole owner of the Ballantyne press.

The second time his publisher went bust was in 1826 when Archibald Constable and Co fell victim to the relatively new concept of paying for an authors work before it was produced (can anyone say advances?). This was exacerbated by financial shenanigans in London in 1825. In 1825 the City of London was swept by a wave of speculation. This soon gave way to panic selling, tumbling prices, and a credit squeeze by the Bank of England. At the height of speculation fever, J.O. Robinson of Constable's English agents, Hurst, Robinson, & Co. spent over £40,000 on hops in the hope of cornering the market (he didn't – the market was glutted).

Anyways, after this second loss of a publisher, Scott found himself in debt to the tune of £121,000. when he died, in 1832, this had been reduced to £53,000 and the debt was finally cleared in 1847 by the sale of his remaining copyrights.

Yup. I wanna destroy it. Just send your money, we'll spend it for you.....

It's Rabbie, not Robbie, but he had a far lesser impact in some ways than Scott did, although if you say that in Scotland you'll get an argument. Burns was, on the other hand, a "common man" in that he didn't have rich, influential friends (or not to start with anyway), he was also "flawed" inasmuch as he liked the cratur and women.

Scott provided a very romanticised perspective of a place which never existed and Burns supplied amore  down to earth  view of the same. That said, I prefer Burns to Scott as, like most Scots (note spelling) I'm a socialist.

I guess without Scott Brigadoon would never have been made.

Why did the Scots and Irish choose to go barelegged in such a cold climate? According to this 1543 letter highlanders were known as Redshanks

Originally posted by Nick1986 As there's still no sign of Chookie, perhaps Michael Collins can help with my questions. Did the Scots and Irish share a common culture or did one group copy the other?

I'm here Nick, and the answer to your question is that the Irish and the Highland Scots shared both culture and blood (and for a while language).

Then there's the Ryhnie Man which has been dated to before 800CE.......

There was also a Viking called Magnus Bare-legs who adopted Gaelic dress after becoming King of the Isles in 1099. The Hebrides have long been associated with the production of tartan and tweed

Medieval tombstone featuring what looks like a warrior in a kilt


Edited by Nick1986 - 30-Nov-2012 at 08:03

Nick, reference the Irish and the Scots. While the Picts were definitely in Scotland first, Scotland was later settled by waves of immigrants from Ireland. Ergo the modern Irish and Highland Scots descend from the same stock.