SCOTTISH ARMS

Evening Star, Issue 19637, 17 August 1927, Page 5

SCOTTISH ARMS

HISTORY FROM PAGEANT REGIMENTAL ROMANCE. Tho King, accompanied by the Queen, opened llio Royal Tournament at Olympia, Tho chief feature of the tournament was a pageant of Scottish arms. It is related that at a critical moment in tho Battle of Balaclava the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders burst into a cheer and betrayed a tendency to charge prematurely. Thereupon Sir Colin Campbell shouted “Como, come, 93rd. Damn that eagerness I” From this and other evidence it appears that as late as 1854 Highlanders needed a leash. Since that time, according to their own historians, their discipline has been improved. The same authorities ascribe tho change to Lowland and other “ foreign ” infusions (writes a correspondent of ‘ The Times ’)_. But the oldest of the Scottish regiments are far older than those of the Highlands. They came from the Lowlands. Tho Royal Scots is, indeed, tho senior regiment of the British lino. To its antiquity it owes the sub-title of “Pontius Pilate’s Body Guards.” More serious is its claim to represent tho Scottish Archers employed by tho early French kings, to have fought as tho Scots Brigade with Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, and to have served Franco under Turennc. Louis XIV. sent it to. help Charles IL, and it lias helped Britain from Blenheim to Gallipoli, Palestine, and Flanders. Tho Stuarts, who in one way and another are responsible for several of the Scottish regiments, may bo credited with the Scots Guards. Independent companies raised in Edinburgh about the time of tho Restoration became a regiment less than twenty years later, and, after joining James If. at .Hounslow in IGBS, began a brilliant career at Landen with William 111.

These two regiments, with the Koval' Scots Fusiliers, the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, the Camoronians. and tlie Scots Greys, were part of the Scottish Army, which had its own establishment until the union of the two kingdoms. Most of them have shown an aptitude for inspiring romance. Even tho shortest account of the Koval .Scots cannot he read without memories of ‘ Quentin Durward ’ and ‘ A Legend of Montrose.’ Scott’s novels and Ids introductions are full of references to the Highland and Lowland soldier. James Grant’s ‘ Romance of War ’ — does anybody read it in these days?— is.written around tho Gordons. Sterne usurps a place in this association by reason of Undo Toby’s wound, which he suffered, as everybody remembers, at Namur. Now, Namur was a place both of Joss and achievement to the Scottish regiments under William 111. It was at Namur that the Borderers, under the fire of a French regiment approaching with fixed bayonets, discovered by bitter experience that muskets could be discharged when the bayonet was fixed. Both the Royal Scots and the Cameronians knew “that point of the advanced counterscrap ” ivith which the brothers Shandy, for different reasons, were so well acquainted.

The Borderers, however, was the regiment which lost least time in mingling with the history that grows into legend. Within four months of its raising in Edinburgh in 1689 it faced Clnvcrhouse at the head of the Highland clans in the Pass of Killiccrankie. Tho battle forms the first episode in the pageant; and Clavcrhouse is truly famous from ‘ Bonnie Dundee’ and ‘Old Mortality.’ Drumclog and Botbwcll Bridge, to which' Scott takes his humbler hero in tho same novel, were chapters in the earlier history of other regiments.

Tho Black Watch claims to ho not only Scotland’s oldest but her favorite Highland corps. Named from tho dark hue of its tartan, it paraded for the first time as a regiment of the British Army in 1740, and received its baptism of lire at Fontenoy, where, says _ a French writer, “the Highland furies rushed in upon us with more violence than ever did sea driven by tempest.” A few years later its behaviour at Ticonderoga was rewarded by a vast popularity throughout the country, ami by the addition of “Royal” to its title. The red hackle in tho feather bonnet came to the regiment after the Flanders campaign of 170-1-00. Among the Argyll and Sutherlands at Lucknow was “tho Quaker.” His comrades had given him that name on account of his great nnictncss, But the passion with which he and they had heard of tho massacre nf white women and children found vent during Colin Campbell's attack on the Scnindrabagb. “Kempmber Cawnporo!” was the shout heal'd above tho din. while of tho Quaker it is recorded that, fighting like n madman, ho chanted; I’ll of salvation take tho cup, On God’s name will 1 call; i’ll pay my vows now to Ihe Lord Before 11 is people all.

To the Scottish love of emblems the Jloyal Scots Fusiliers may be called as witness. Tliis, by the way, is another of those regiments of the Stuart period, (it was formed in IG7S in Charles U.’s reign), which saw their first important campaign under King William. During the first Boer War a detachment of the Fusiliers held Potchcfstroom very gallantly. The British Hag which they hoisted was buried at the peace of 1881 hy Pretoria loyalists, and afterwards, having been disinterred by a former colonel of the regiment, remained in the possession of Ids family until the second war. About the time of the rcoeenpntion of the Transvaal a party of officers, pipers, and men of the Fusiliers went to Potchefstroom, inking with them this flag, and hoisted it once more on the spot of their comrades’ heroic defence.

The Scottish regiments owe their origin, generally speaking, to two causes. The first cause was the struggle in Scotland between Episcopacy and the Presbyterians; the second was the French Devolution. The Gordons sprang out of Ihe latter ferment. What a crowded century or two has followed the relatively small beginnings of the Scoltish regiments! They were with Marlborough and AVolfe and Wellington. They formed part of the thin red line at the Alma. They were shattered at Magorsfontcin and Modder River. They shared with Ihe most enduring and the most valiant the horrors and honors of the Great War. And, remembering Sir Colin Campbell's “Damn that eagerness! ” it is well to remember too that of the GOO still,, silent heroes of the Birkenhead, a large proportion were young recruits from the Highlands and Lowlands.