Quote Originally Posted by Peter C. View Post
I understood that the government banned the wearing of kilts before clan tartans came into being, and rescinded the law so that the new regiments could wear kilts as part of their uniform in order to improve recruitment figures. This would indicate that regimental tartans came first.

This is a bit like the chicken and egg argument, except it is:-"It was my tartan before it was your tartan!"

Scottish history is so full of myth and legend, it is often difficult to pin down the facts, and most of us haven't studied the subject broadly enough to be authorities. I would tend to go along with Matt N as he seems to be the most knowledgable guy on xmarks and does produce logical argument and as many facts as possible to get to the truth, without an agenda of his own.

So many people dogmatically argue the facts the way they would like them to be rather than looking at all available evidence and accepting things the way they are.

Peter
Quite so Peter ,
evidence such as this

'' Clearly the periodic muster of fencible men stiffened loyalty and dependency in a period
when both were frequently tested in the Highlands. Entries for 1704 in the Regality Court Books
of the Laird of Grant record the calling out, on 48 hours' notice, of the 'fencible men' of Badenoch
and Strathspey for the Laird's 'hosting or hunteing'; each man was to be dressed in 'Heighland
coates, trewes, and short hoes of tartane of red and greine sett broad springed and also with gun,
sword, pistoll and durk ... And the Master to outrig the servantes in the saids coates, trewes, and
hose out of there fies' .''

Stewart 1893, 27-8

and this

'' A sense of kinship and identity must have been strengthened when Ludovick Grant of
Freuchie made a settlement of his estates on his eldest son, Colonel Alexander Grant of Grant, in
1710; at a formal and elaborate ceremony the old laird resigned the leadership of the clan to his
heir. This selection of the heir to the estate before the witness of the clan is reminiscent of the
'tanistry' of the early Irish law tracts by which the successor designate or heir presumptive, an
tanaiste, was chosen within the ruler's lifetime.
[The Laird of Grant] made all the gentlemen and commons of his name wear whiskers, and make all
their plaids and tartan of red and green, and commanded them all to appear before him at Ballintome,
the ordinary place of rendezvous, in that uniform, in kilt and under arms, which order was complied
with . ''

Fraser 1883, III, 326-7


Note the dates Peter , and note also , the dates of the Clan Grant
paintings by Richard Waitt .