Wilsons tartans sans Charles Allen?

[OC Richard]

I thought struck me as I was reading through one of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder's letters to Sir Walter Scott concerning the "very curious Manuscript" which the Allen brothers had shown him.

The letter is from 1829, over a decade before the Vestiarium Scoticum was published.

(Charles Stuart Hay was one of Charles Allen's aliases.)

The descriptions [of the tartans] are all so very particular that it is quite impossible to mistake them, and as I wished to posses myself of a copy of the Manuscript (which I wrote out myself) Mr Charles Stuart Hay with very great politeness agreed to illuminate it for me with drawings of all the tartans...

...Scott which is as follows:
Scott hath four stryppis upon ain fyeld etc etc.

But to illustrate this perfectly to you I have begged Mr Charles Stuart Hay to make for you the accompanying colored drawing on the back of which you have the different colours accurately laid down of their proper relative breadths, and the whole of the proper size for wearing, so that you have only to send the sheet to Messrs Wilson, Carpet and Tartan Manufacturers at Bannockburn who will make you any quantity of the tartan...in every respect perfectly correct as to pattern, they having already executed many orders from similar drawings and directions by Mr Hay.

Here's the complete passage from the "Cromarty Manuscript"

Scott heth fovr stryppis grein vpon ain fyeld scarlatt
and vpon the ylk ynnerward strype ain cord or spraing quhite
an throuchovt the scarlet sete ain stryppe grein
and vpone the ylk syde hard by ain sprainge blak

That's clear enough to know the arrangement of the various stripes.

But Charles Allen is said to know the "proper relative breadths" of the Scott tartan, and from what Sir Thomas says the same is true of a number of other tartans, which Wilson of Bannockburn wove "from similar drawings and directions from Mr Hay".

And since Charles Allen produced drawings for Sir Thomas of all the Manuscripts' tartans, Sir Thomas seems to believe that Charles Allen knows the "proper relative breadths" of all.

The Manuscript itself only has verbal descriptions. There are no illustrations or thread counts.

Where did Charles Allen's unique knowledge of the "proper relative breadths" come from?

Which leads to the question:

What would have happened if there was no Charles Allen to create "drawing and directions" for the Wilsons to follow?

How would the Wilsons have interpreted the Manuscript's verbal directions?

I feel confident that the Wilsons, working directly from the Manuscript without the interference of a person with no knowledge of weaving, would have produced far more handsome tartans, with lovely proportions, utterly unlike Charles Allen's often blocky efforts.

Since no one, not Charles or his brother John, ever claimed that the drawings were anything other than Charles' original work, why on earth should we follow them to this very day? Whether the Manuscript is genuine or a hoax it would be wonderful if a good weaver could ignore Charles' drawings and weave the tartans therein according to their own weaver's instincts.

[MurrayInGA]

This is a very interesting thought. I appreciate simplicity in tartan design but agree that the Allen/Sobieski tartans are unfortunately recognizable from a distance, primarily due to their 'blocky-ness'.