A history of the Highlands and of the Highland clans : with an ...

HIGHLAND OAllB. 101
Till of late years the general opinion was that the plaid, philebei;,
and bonnet formed the ancient garb of the Highlanders, but some
\vriters have maintained tliat the philebeg is of modern invention, anti
tliat the truis, whicli consisted of breeches and stocliings in one piece,
and made to fit close to the limbs, was the old costume. Pinkerton
says, that the kilt " is not ancient, but singular, and adapted to their"
—the Highlanders'— " savage life,—was always unknown among the
Welsh and Irish, and that it was a dress of the Saxons, who could not
afford breeches."* We like an ingenious argument even from the pen
of this vituperative writer, with all his anti-Gaelic prejudices, and have
otlen admired his tact in managing it ; but after he had admitted that
" breeelies were unknown to tiie Cclt.s, from the beginning to this
day,"f It was carrying conjecture too far to attribute the introduction of
tin; philebeg to the Saxous, who were never able to introduee any of
their customs into the Highlands ; and of all changes in the dress of a
people, we think the substitution of the kilt for the truis the most im
urobable.
That the truis are very ancient in the Highlands is probable, but
they were chiefly confined to the higher classes, who always used them
when travelling on horseback. Beague, a Frenchman, who wrote a
history of the campaigns in Scotland in fifteen hundred and forty-
nine, printed in Paris in fifteen hundred and fiftv-six, states that, at
the siege of Haddington, in fifteen hundred and fiirty-nine, " they
(the Scottish army) were followed by the Highlanders, and these
last go almost naked ; they have painted waistcoats, and a sort of wool-
len covering, variously coloured."
The style of dress is alluded to by our older historians, by Major,
Bishop Lesly, and Buchanan. Lindsay of Pitscottie also thus notices
it :— " The other pairt northerne ar full of mountaines, and very rud
and homelie kynd of people doeth inhabite, which is called the Reid
Schankes, or wyld Seottis. They be cloathed with ane mantle, with
tuie schirt, fachioned after the Irish manner, going bair leggeil
to the knie."J Another who wrote before the year fifteen hundred and
ninety-seven, obser%'es that, in his time, " they"—the Highlanders—" de-
light much in marbled cloths, especially that have long stripes of sundry
colours ; they love chiefly purple and blue ; their predecessors used short
mantles, or plaiils of divers colours, sundrie ways divided, and among some,
the same custom is observed to this day ; but, for the most pai't now,
they are brown, most near to the colour of the hadder, to the ettect when
they lye among the haddcrs, the bright colour of their plaids shall not
bewray them, with the which, rather coloured than clad, they suffer the
most cruel tempests that blow in the open fields, in such sort, that in
a night of snow they sleep sound."§
» Introduction to History of Scoilanri, II. 73. f Ibid. I 3gt
I Clitonicles of Scotland, Ixniv.
§ Cri-taj-ne Malterc concerning Suotlanil, London, printed 1003.