The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

154 THE HIGHLANDERS [parti
proof of their conduct at this time, for they kept together in
one bod}-, and made a very handsome and orderly retreat.
They are armed with broadswords, large bows, and targets."—
And finally, an Act of Council dated 13 December, 1552, ordering"
a levy of rwo ensigncies of Highland soldiers within the bounds
of Huntly's lieutenancy, to go to France with other Scottish
troops for the support of his most Christian Majesty
in his
wars, directs the Highlanders to be accoutred as follows, viz.,.
" with jack and plait, steil bonnet, sword, boucklair, new hose,
and new doublett of canvass at the least, and sleeves of plait
or splents, and ane speir of sax elne lang or thereby."
These passages, to which many others might be added,
are sufficient to show that the Highlanders were not the naked
and defenceless soldiers at that time as is generally supposed,,
but that they were well acquainted with the use of defensive
armour, and that the steel head-piece, the habergeon, or the
shirt of mail, was in general use among them.
When not engaged in regular warfare, or in some
unting. • r 1 1 i
r i
ot the almost constant predatory excursions 01 the
time, the chief occupation of the ancient Highlanders was
that of hunting. In the words of Holinshed, " whensoever
they had entered into league and amitie with their enemies,
they would not live in such security that thereby they would
suffer their bodies and forces to degenerate, but they did
keep
themselves in their former activitie and nimbleness of
lives, either with continual huntinge (a game greatly esteemed
among our ancestors) or with running from the hills unto the
valleys, or from the valleys unto the hills, or with wrestling,
and such kind of pastymes, whereby they were never idle."
As the Highlanders considered that, next to war, hunting
was the most manly exercise and occupation, their great hunting
expeditions seem to have been held with splendid though rude
magnificence, and they were not un frequently made the cover
of deeper designs. Taylor, the water poet, gives so very lively
and picturesque a description of the Highland hunting scene
he witnessed, that although it has already been made the
subject of frequent quotation, it is so very ^ much to the present
purpose that I cannot refrain from inserting a portion here.
" The manner of the hunting is this— five or six hundred