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ISSN 1754-1514TheBottleImpIssue 13, May 2013The Scottish bagpipe: political andreligious symbolism in Englishliterature and satireVivien WilliamsIf you try typing the word ‘bagpipe’ inGoogle Images, you might be forgiven forassuming the bagpipe world extends littlebeyond Scotland. Out of the first fifty images,only two show non-Highland bagpipes. Thisis indeed a culturally interesting detail, sincethere are hundreds of different kinds of bagpipein the world – from India to Britain, andfrom Libya to Sweden. And yet in Scotland theinstrument has become a national symbol ofimmense importance. The very word ‘bagpipe’oozes Scottishness – as the word Scotlanddoes bagpipes.The nature of the images which turn up inthe web search gives us an idea of the predominantimagery associated today with theinstrument. To the modern mind, the bagpipeappears to evoke feelings of military pride,with images of sweeping, lush, wild landscapes,stout kilted men and colourful paradesin swaying tartan. The bagpipe unmistakablyspeaks of Scotland, and it has done for centuries.And yet, the terms of reference were notalways quite as positive …If we look at non-Scottish early eighteenthcenturysources (mainly literature and prints)featuring bagpipes, we can understand howScotland as a whole was viewed. ThomasBrown, for instance, was a Grub Street satirist,author of the work Letters from the Dead tothe Living (1702), consisting of invented correspondencebetween well-known characters.Particularly interesting is that between HenryPurcell and John Blow – Baroque organists aswell as friends. From Hell, where Brown relegateshim, Purcell writes to Blow about a numberof composers, musicians etc., and the lifestylethey and he himself lead in this music-filledHades. Purcell mentions a Doctor Stag—s:Dr. Nicholas Staggins, Master of the King’sMusic and Professor of music at Cambridge. 1According to Purcell, Staggins’ permanence inHell is indeed pleasant, and ‘his Business is tocompose Scotch tunes for Lucifer’s Bag-piper.’ 2Should this not be intriguing enough in itself,Blow comments in his response on the erroneousepitaph on Purcell’s marble stone (whichassigns him a place in Heaven) and the relativityof perspectives towards attributed virtue orvice:The Fanaticks especially are very highly offendedat [the epitaph] and say, It looks as if a Man couldToot himself to Heaven upon the Whore of Babylon’sBagpipes, and that Religion consists only in the truesetting of a Catch, or composing of a Madrigal. 3It is interesting that Brown should imagine –or tease his readers into thinking – that noneother than the devil himself should have a personalpiper – not playing just any music, but‘Scotch tunes.’ It is fascinating the way Blowpresents the bagpipe as the lowest step in thehierarchy of musical instruments, and how it ischarged with negative religious connotations:the bagpipes represent the most corrupt versionof Catholicism; as seen by the ‘Fanaticks.’Contemporary politics, religion and culture hadoutlawed the bagpipes, and pushed them tothe fringe.But Brown’s case is by no means an isolatedone. Edward (‘Ned’) Ward, also a Grub Streetpoet, makes some extraordinary remarksabout bagpipes. 4 His Nuptial Dialogues andDebates were published in 1710; they consistof a series of conversations on various topicsby different married couples. Particularly, inDialogue XV ‘Between a Dissenting Alderman,and his High-Church Lady’, the Alderman asksthe High-Church lady:Why to St. Paul’s, my Dear? What make you chuseA Church that Jacobites and Papists use,Where English Mass is lyrick’d o’er by Boys,And Popish Bagpipes make a hideous Noise?How can a sober Christian be devoutAmidst such Fa-la-la, and Toot-a-Toot?A Jargon that profanes the Sabbath-Day,And makes you fitter far to dance, than pray? 5The bagpipes and their music are turned intoa pretext to claim the supremacy of one faithover the other. The Anglican faith shares, inthe view of the dissenting husband, the traitsattributed to Roman Catholicism – and thereforewww.thebottleimp.org.ukThe Bottle Imp is the ezine of the Scottish Writing Exhibition www.scottishwriting.org.ukand is published by the Association for Scottish Literary Studies www.asls.org.uk 1

to Jacobites also, since the Jacobites followedthe Stuart dynasty: a Catholic monarchy. Thehusband responds harshly to his wife’s opinionson the church and bagpipe music: sucha ‘Babylonian Noise’ and ‘Jargon Sound’ is notfit for Church, but rather her ‘Heathen Bagpipes’ should be of use in ‘Smithfield Booth, orWapping Musick-house’. 6 He calls them ‘filthy’,‘odious’, ‘noisy Pipes, that do in Brothelsstand’; it is a ‘great Abuse’ to use ‘thosewicked Instruments’, as their ‘Whistles roaraloud in Fairs and Brothels’: the pipes are usedin ‘ill Houses’, and ‘Moorfields Bawdy-houses.’ 7These comments are of no small sociologicalconsequence. It would be extremely difficultto find a similar assertion in the works of aScottish author; even if the bagpipes are alsoseen in Scotland as an instrument for accompanyingmerriment.The vilifying role of ‘Whistles’ is particularlyworthy of note. Since Medieval times whistlingwas considered morally inappropriate, especiallyfor women; it is in fact a popular sayingthat ‘A whistling maid and a crowing hen areneither fit for God nor men.’ Ward’s descriptionis suggestive of the bagpipe being unsuitablefor receiving the word of God: that its soundshould be equalled to a whistle is no coincidence.The ‘ungodliness’ of the instrumentis not a trait attributed to Scottish bagpipesalone, as also elsewhere in Europe the bagpipecould (and still can) be seen portrayed – andeven built – with Luciferian characteristics,i.e. in the shape of a goat. The goat is one ofthe possible representations of the devil, andsince goat’s skin is one of the most frequentlyemployed materials for the bag of the instrument,the connection is easily made.The bagpipes seem to incarnate the defectsof the Catholic faith – or rather, they appearto be the perfect means to portray them; theirsymbolism and characteristics are used byboth sides to attack the other. The dissentinghusband explodes in a strong expression:“I’d rather hear the Tower Lyons roar; I tellthee they’re the Bag-pipes of the Whore.’ 8 The‘Lyons’ Ward refers to are the ones which usedto be kept in the Tower of London, and whichbecame a symbol of the Crown: the authorityof Protestant succession, and as such theemblem of the opposition with the Whore ofBabylon – the Roman Catholic faith. The husbandshows all his wrath and disgust towardsmusic, and particularly towards bagpipes. It isas if the bagpipe were in itself an evil, corruptinstrument, much in the same way as theflute in the song ‘The Old Orange Flute’, whichwould keep playing the tune ‘The ProtestantBoys’ even as it burned in front of the Catholicpriests who ordered its destruction. 9 ‘I tell theethey’re the Bag-pipes of the Whore’ is a strongstatement which unquestionably links the bagpipesto the Catholic faith.In order to further tighten the bond betweenthe elements of what truly appears as a trichotomy– Scotland, Catholicism, and bagpipes– the husband furiously exclaims:Am I possest with an infernal Sprite,You Witch of Endor, nay, you Jacobite?[...] I’m a true Low-Church Protestant, and hateTo hear your Pipes, in whose Defence you prate:Their odious Sound shall never take with me;Their very Breath smells strong of Popery;And when their Anti-christian Toots I hear,I fancy that the scarlet Whore is near. 10To the dissenter’s eyes, bagpipes are evil tothe extent of being anti-Christian. The essenceof all evil is enshrined in the symbol of thebagpipes and their apparatus of signifiers. Thedialogue ends with the husband leaving for hisown business, and letting the question dropunsolved.An alternative interpretation of the symbolicmeaning and value of the bagpipe cannot bealtogether ruled out: the word ‘bagpipe’ mayin fact have been used by the two authors as aderogatory term to identify the organ, whoseconstitutive elements do include a form of bag– the bellows – and pipes. Purcell and Blow ofBrown’s work were organists; and playing theorgan in church is to this day a Catholic tradition;while it is difficult to find references to bagpipesbeing played during services in church.Ned Ward refers to bagpipes being played inbrothels: in his opinion, ‘noisy Pipes, that do inBrothels stand’ have ‘profan’d’ the Church. Thesexual allegory of these references is unmistakable,though one cannot exclude the possibilitythat the author is hinting at the use of organs,or also portative organs, which could be transportedeasily – in brothels, churches, or fairs,as Ward suggests. A portative organ was onmany occasions, such as mass, processions orprivate entertainment, a possible alternativeto the better-known church organ (or ‘kist o’whistles’, as it was also known in Scotland, 11whence possibly the reference to the ‘vileunhallow’d Whistles’). Church organs are alsoknown to have ‘found their way’ to taverns andmusic houses during the Commonwealth, 12which may have appeared deplorable to Ward’sangry Low-Church husband.www.thebottleimp.org.ukThe Bottle Imp is the ezine of the Scottish Writing Exhibition www.scottishwriting.org.ukand is published by the Association for Scottish Literary Studies www.asls.org.uk 2

Whether Brown and Ward were actuallyreferring to bagpipes all along, or whetherthe term was being employed as a derogatory‘synonym’ for the organ, the connectionwith the Roman Catholic faith is in either caseconfirmed: the bagpipe appears to be theperfect icon to represent popery, and corruptCatholicism.The devil-and-bagpipes dichotomy wasvery much a popular theme when describingScotland even in the late eighteenth century.‘The thistle reel’ is a fascinating engravingpublished in The London Magazine in February1775 (with a dissertation on the theme, called‘The thistle reel: a Vision’). 13 It depicts LordsBute, North and Mansfield dancing around athistle in the shape of a Holy Chalice. The thistlebears a garter with the motto honi soit quimal y pense, and in the top right-hand cornera devil plays a set of bellows-blown bagpipes.The print satirises the Scottish influence onthe Quebec Bill. The Quebec Act of 1774 guaranteedFrench law code, religion and status inthe Canadian region. The smiling devil playingfor the noblemen evidently representsthe legitimisation of immorality. The bagpipe,well-established emblem of Scottishness, ishandled by no less than the master of all evil;it is as if the sound of the pipes, the echo ofScotland, dominated the situation making theLords dance – commit evil deeds.‘The Mitred Minuet’, dated 1774, is anotherengraving on the topic of the Quebec Bill. Thetheme is treated in a very similar way to ‘TheThistle Reel’: 14 four bishops cross hands overa copy of the Bill, while three ministers witnessthe scene. Lord Bute, in Highland attire,is playing a set of bellows-blown bagpipes – orat least no mouthpiece is discernible. Hoveringover the ministers is, yet again, the devil.It should not surprise us to see that thebagpipes featuring in these prints have verylittle to do with the Scottish (Highland) bagpipeas we know it today. To start with, it isonly recently that stricter categorisations onethnic or national lines have been applied toBritish bagpipes. In the past, classificationsand varieties were much more flexible, andindeed the characteristics of each instrumentwere variable. Secondly, and perhaps moreimportantly, many English printers did notnecessarily have in mind a specific model of aScottish piper for their depictions. Artists oftentook their models from Dutch representationsof pipers, or from the model of the musettede cour, the bellows-inflated bagpipe whichbecame very fashionable in France during theseventeenth century. The accuracy of the representation,ultimately, was not so important:essentially all it took was for a bagpipe of anyform to be present on the page to convey anidea of Scottishness.What emerges from both these images– which are but two of a number of examples!– is the underlying message that thetendency towards malevolence is an integralpart of the national behaviour. Whether thedevil plays the bagpipe to induce the Lordsto dance, or whether he witnesses the sceneas the bagpipe is being played, the instrumentcontributes in creating a bond betweenScotland, religion and politics. The bagpipe’ssound provides the background music for allthings unlawful, corrupt and unacceptable. Itsconnection with Scotland, in the eyes of manyan English satirist, is so strong that its merepresence in literature or prints is enough toconvey a plethora of signifiers which speakof Jacobitism, devotion to the Stuart dynastyand a Catholic monarchy, and the disruptiveeffects this would have on the EnglishEstablishment.The kind of diabolical symbolism hithertodescribed took a long time to disappear frompopular imagination. Scots themselves willemploy it; perhaps the most famous exampleis that of Robert Burns’ ‘Tam O’ Shanter’,where ‘auld Nick, in shape o’ beast’ was incharge of giving music to the dancing spiritsand witches with ‘hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys,and reels’; he ‘screw’d the pipes and gartthem skirl.’ 15 The bagpipe’s diabolic and phallicconnotations found Europe-wide since theMiddle Ages made the instrument a perfectsymbol to represent bawdiness, degeneracy,and debauchery – ‘lascivious practice(s) tooindecent for explanation’, as Francis Groseputs it in his Classical Dictionary of the VulgarTongue. 16The fascination for the satanic associationwith the bagpipe is still present to this day,although its connection with Scotland hasweakened enormously. Already by the end ofthe eighteenth century it is almost impossibleto find English works in which the bagpipe isportrayed quite in the same way as it was byWard or Brown. As the threat of the Jacobiterebellions was seen to fade, and Scotland wasno longer seen as an enemy, the terms andimagery employed to describe the bagpipetook up softer terms.The bagpipe’s presence in literature and artdid not stop altogether evoking feelings of disquietude:its implications in war and conflictswww.thebottleimp.org.ukThe Bottle Imp is the ezine of the Scottish Writing Exhibition www.scottishwriting.org.ukand is published by the Association for Scottish Literary Studies www.asls.org.uk 3

emained discernible well into the nineteenthcentury. In William Wordsworth’s pastoralpoem ‘Michael’, the South wind is described asmaking ‘subterraneous music, like the noise /Of bagpipers on distant Highland hills’. 17 Thesound-quality of the rumble of distant Highlandbagpipes in the background, especially itsmenacing implications of battle and upheaval,is compared with the stormy threat of a southwind, the warmth of which proverbially bringstempest. The sound of the bagpipe is threateningand disquieting; it feels like somethingunavoidable, irrepressible; almost sublime.The icon-bagpipe is so heavily charged that itis not merely pastoral and rustic. It is a disturbingpresence, which reminds the readerthat even the rural haven of the Northumbriancountryside of the poem is not free from melancholy,disquietude, and mortality.In Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage Lord Byronwrote about the battle of Quatre Bras (1815),and how the ‘pibroch thrills, / Savage andshrill’ sounded ‘in the noon of Night’, instilling‘The stirring Memory of a thousand years,/ And Evan’s – Donald’s fame rings in eachClansman’s ears!’ 18 ‘Evan’ and his successor‘Donald’ are the Camerons of Lochiel: Evanfought in the 1715 rebellion, and Donald followedPrince Charles to France after Culloden.The Jacobite rebellions are ever-present inthe author’s mind.The same battle was described by WilliamMakepeace Thackeray in Vanity Fair: the ‘shrillpipes of the Scotch’ 19 awakened Brussels, andJos Sedley snoozed ‘in spite of all the drums,bugles, and bagpipes of the British Army’. 20 Inthe latter instance we can see how the bagpipesare now quite comfortably termed ‘ofthe British Army’ (my italics) – they are nolonger the ‘bagpipes of the Whore’. Instead,they are the instrument which marks theproud presence of the British Army in battle.The sound of the bagpipe enshrines ideasof a long-lost past of war, conflict, rebellionagainst the Establishment. But as these laterpassages illustrate, the derogatory termshave subsided to make room for a kind ofdiscourse which tickles the reader’s imaginationwith the memory of Jacobitism, butwhich is altogether free from its burdensomehistoricity. Jacobitism is part of a dangerouspast which is no more: it is a concept, whichspeaks of loyalty to a lost cause, attachmentto ancient values and traditions, and martialvalour. It has become a world sufficiently distantto be re-evoked, re-shaped and revisitedin an exotic form of novel-like imagination.The sound of the bagpipe can now safely belistened to and enjoyed, precisely for theideals and values it has come to embody.Many thanks to Hugh Cheape for hissuggestions.Vivien WilliamsEnglish Literature DepartmentUniversity of GlasgowNotes1 Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. EricBlom, George Grove and Denis Stevens (New York: St.Martin’s Press, 2001), s.v. “Staggins, Nicholas”.2 Thomas Brown, ‘Letters from the dead to the living,and from the Living to the Dead, both Serious andComical’, in The Works of Thomas Brown, fifth edition(London: Printed for Sam Briscoe, 1719), vol. 2,p. 298.3 Brown, The Works of Thomas Brown, p. 300.4 Howard William Troyer, Ned Ward of Grub Street(London: Frank and Cass Company Limited, 1968),pp. 3–5.5 Edward Ward, Nuptial Dialogues and Debates: or, anUseful Prospect of the Felicities and Discomforts ofa Married Life, in two volumes (London: printed forC. Hitch et al., 1759) vol. 2, p. 199.6 Smithfield is a locality in London, where cattle andother livestock were sold. The Oxford English Dictionary,prepared by John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C.Weiner (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), s.v. “Smithfield”.7 Ward, Nuptial Dialogues, vol. 2, pp. 202–04.8 Ward, Nuptial Dialogues, vol. 2, p. 204.9 See Matthew John Caldwell Hogart, The Faber Book ofBallads (London: Faber & Faber, 1965), pp. 216–17.10 Ward, Nuptial Dialogues, vol. 2, pp. 206–07.11 O.E.D., s.v. “kist”.12 Geoffrey Cox, Organ Music in Restoration England(New York: Garland, 1989), vol. 1, pp. 16–17.13 The London Magazine, or Gentleman’s monthly Intelligencer,vol. XLIV (London: Printed for R. Baldwin, February1775), p. 56.14 BM 5228.15 The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, ed. AndrewLang (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1926), p. 441.16 Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue(London: Printed for S. Hooper, 1785), s.v. ‘bagpipe,to bagpipe’.17 Wordsworth Poetical Works, ed. Thomas Hutchinson(London: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 104.18 The Complete Poetical Works of Byron, ed. Paul ElmerMore (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1933),p. 39.19 William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair (London:Oxford University Press, 186?), p. 360.20 Thackeray, Vanity Fair, p. 370.ASLSASLS is a registered charity no. SC006535ASLS is supported by Creative Scotlandwww.thebottleimp.org.ukThe Bottle Imp is the ezine of the Scottish Writing Exhibition www.scottishwriting.org.ukand is published by the Association for Scottish Literary Studies www.asls.org.uk 4