One of the most romantic stories associated with tartans is attached to
the fragment now reproduced. In the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh, is a
collection of MSS. in ten black-edged volumes bearing the title of _The
Lyon in Mourning_, the reference being to the misfortunes of the House
of Stuart. Fastened to the inner sides of the boards are many relics
of the pathetic experiences of Prince Charles during the interval
between his defeat at Culloden and his escape to France. The documents
were written and the mementoes gathered by Bishop Robert Forbes, an
enthusiastic Jacobite. Under a scrap of tartan with a bit of red lining
he has noted:—
The above are pieces of the outside and inside of that identical
waistcoat which Macdonald of Kingsburgh gave to the Prince when he
laid aside the woman’s clothes. The said waistcoat being too fine
for a servant the Prince exchanged it with Malcolm Macleod. Malcolm,
after parting with the Prince, and finding himself in danger of being
seized, did hide the waistcoat in a cleft of a rock, where, upon his
returning home in the beginning of September 1747, he found it all
rotten to bits, except only as much as would serve to cover little
more than one’s loof, and two buttons, all of which he was pleased to
send to me. The waistcoat had lain more than a full year in the cleft
of the rock, for Malcolm Macleod was made prisoner sometime in July
1746.