e
battles of Falkirk and Preston Pans, they had collected muskets from the
slain on the battle-field. In addition to these weapons, the gentlemen
sometimes wore suits of armour and coats of mail; in which, indeed, some
of the principal Jacobites have been depicted; but, with these, the
common men never incumbered themselves, both on account of the expense,
and of the weight, which was ill-adapted to their long marches and steep
hills.[99]

A distinguishing mark which the Highland Clans generally adopted, was
the badge. This was frequently a piece of evergreen, worn on the bonnet,
and placed, during the insurrection of 1745, beside the white cockade.
When Lord Lovat's men assembled near the Aird, they wore, according to
the evidence given on the State Trials, sprigs of yew in their
bonnets.[100] These badges, although generally considered to have been
peculiar to the clans, were, observes a modern writer,[101] "like
armorial bearings, common to all countries in the middle ages; and
shared by the Highlanders among the general distinctions of chivalry,
were only peculiar to them when disused by others." Thus, the broom worn
by Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count D'Anjou;--and the raspberry by Francis
the First of France, were only discontinued as an ornament to the head
when transferred to the habit, or housings; but the Highland Clans,
tenacious of their customs, wore the plant not only upon their caps, but
placed them on the head of the Clan standard. The white cockade was now
regarded as the peculiar badge of the party; yet it seems not, at all
events among the Clan Fraser, to have superseded the evergreen. Some few
traces are left, in the present day, to certify, nevertheless, that they
were worn during the contest of 1745. "Lord Hardwicke's Act, and
continual emigration," remarks John Sobieski Stuart, "have extirpated
the memory of these distinctions once as familiar as the names of those
who bore them; and all of whom I have been able to collect any evidence
are, the Macdonalds, the Macphersons, the Grants, the Frasers, the
Stuarts, and the Campbells." "The memory of most," mournfully remarks
the same writer, "has now perished among the people; but, within a
recent period, various lists have been composed--some by zealous
enthusiasts, who preferred substitution to loss, and some by the
purveyors of the carpet Highlanders, who once a-year illuminate the
splendour of a ball-room with the untarnished broadswords and silken
hos