HLI Chronicle 1921 - The Royal Highland Fusiliers

HIGHLAND LIGHT INFANTRY CHRONICLE. 101
a dress so notably becoming. Of course I was
t.old that in the days gone by in the far north
the clansmen wrapped a plaid about his loins,
fastened it with a pin, and threw the loose end
over his shoulder, and that the only man who
had the means or the credit, or at any rate the
authority, to get himself made trousers or
trews, was the chief.
But I was young, and I don't know that
then I quite followed the argument. Long ago
I found out my own ignorance, but as I lately
came across a book which enters into the question
with great preciseness, I send you one or
two extracts from it on the chance that there
may be others as ignorant as I was.
"Ancient Scottish Weapons," by the late
James Drummond, R.S.A., with descriptive
notices by J oseph Anderson, custodian of the
National Museum of Antiquities in Edinburgh,
is a most exhaustive work which was published
as late as last year. It contains much information
about the old Highland dress, from which
I glean the following :­
Captain Burt writes in the beginning of last
century- .
Few besides gentlemen wear the trews-that is
the breeches and stockings all of one piece and drawn
on together; over this habit they wear a plaid, and
the whole garb is made of chequered tartan or plaiding.
Later on, speaking of the lower ranks :~
A small part of the plaid is set in folds and girt
round the waist, to make of it a short petticoat that
reached halfway down the thigh; the rest is brought
over the shoulder and fastened below.the neck in
front with a bodkin or sharpened piece of stick. 'In
this way of wearing the plaid they have nothing else
to cover them, and are often barefoot.
Again, Mr. Robert Farquharson, a chaplain
in the Earl of Mar's army in 1715, is equally
distinct on the point of the trews being the
dress ·of the more prominent men. He says
that, after the battle of Killicrankie,
There were sevarals of the common men that died
in the hills, for having cast away their plaids at going
into the battle, they had not wherewithal to cover
them but their shirts; whereas many of the gentlemen
that instead of short hose did wear trewis under their
belted plaids, though they were sore pinched, did fare
better in their short coats and trewis than those that
were naked to the belt.
Messrs. Drummond and Anderson go further
than this, for they print a drawing of an engraved
hunting horn supposed to have belonged
to Sir George Mackenzie of Tarbat, an ancestor
of Lord MacLeod, who raised the 71st, in
which the laird is dressed in tartan trews,
while the gillie who stands alongside of him
wears a plain short kilt, with no appearance.of
any pattern on it. I would quote more on the
same points did I not fear to encroach on your
valuable space; but I do feel that having
reproduced an authentic account of the trews
and the belted-plaid, and their respective
wearers, I should fail in my duty did I not go
on to quote a tale, a page or two later, as to
the regulation kilt and its inventors.' I giv~
the story with all reserve :­
The invention of the kilt, as now worn, is ascribed
by a writer in the "Edinburgh Magazine" to two
Englishmen, Mr. Rawlinson, manager of the works
of a Liverpool Iron Smelt·ing Company in Glengary,.
and Mr. Parkinson, an army tailor, who was on a.
visit to the establishment and saw the inconvenience
of the belted·plaid as a working dress.
The problem to be solved was to make a dress,
not higher in price than the belted plaid, that would
reta.in the plaits and admit of the free use o.f the limbs
when at work. The tailor solved the problem with
his shears. He cut off the lower part of the plaid
that belted round the loins, and formed permanent
plaits in it with the needle-and.10, the kil.t I-while "
the upper part forming the shoulder plaid could be
fastened round the shoulders as before.
Sir, in these days we are so accustomed to
see every second soldier in tartan trousers of a
beautiful War Office pattern, we read so much
of the kilt and the woe and tribulation of the
Cameron Highlanders at being deprived of it,
that we may be pardoned if at times we look
on its swinging folds with envy. And we
know that the women adore it! But do you'
think that the Highland soldier of eightythree
years ago saw the matter in that light?
Do you think that when the order came that
his regiment was to exchange the kilt for the
trews, he did not remember that in the days of
his for~bears the trews were the dress of his
chief? He was mindful of his traditions; let
us be mindful of ours. Ay, and right proud
of them too!
We were raised with the kilt; we should be
wearing it at this moment had not the king
delighted to honour us; and the form that
that honour took was that for the first time in
the annals of the British army he gave to every
private soldier of the 71st the right, while
retaining the old tartan, to wear the garb ofa
chieftain.
TRUTH.
Who was the N.C.O. ijc the Quarter-Guard
who went up to the R.S.M. and saluted
smartly, saying "May I dismiss the guard,
sir" ?
R.S.M.-" Yes, ' Sergt. X.', but you know
perfectly well you musn't salute me. Don't
do it again, do you understand? "
Sergt. X.-" Yes, sir-very good, sir." (and
smartly slapping his butt!! he walks' off.'}""