Instrument of War
Photo: Remembrance Day 2016
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Playing the tunes of glory, of inspiration, and of remembrance, the piper communicates the poetry of the warrior, evoking a primal, emotional and inspiring effect on the gathering clans.
Music has the capacity of elevating the thoughts and feelings of people in a unity of friendship and harmony; and yet the Great Highland Bagpipe has lit fires in the hearts of a people to bid them to do battle and then to lament their dead. My article may enlighten you on the passion of the Scottish nation towards the instrument rather than the music and workings of the instrument itself; for no one can truly understand the Great Highland Bagpipe without an understanding of it's history. I have entitled this artical Instrument of War, and for good reason.
After the defeat of the Highland Clans at Drumossie Moor, Culloden in 1746 Piper James Reid was placed on trial as a Jacobite rebel accused of high treason. His defence was that he was mealy a piper to his Clan.The judge did not except this defence stating that “the plea of not carrying arms and of being merely a musician is spurious and the case of armed rebellion against the crown is proven, for it is in the experience of this court that a Highland Regiment has nether marched nor fought without a piper, and therefore in the eye of the law the bagpipe is an instrument of war”. Piper James Reid was hung, drawn and quartered at the gates of York.
Music has served a number of major military functions. It magnified the effect of military ritual and display, it served in conjunction with physical drill to enhance the effect of movement, it served to fortify the morale of one’s own troops while generating fear in the enemy during combat, and it served communications as a means of command and control. It is said that the sound of the Piob Mohr or Great Highland Bagpipe could be heard above the noise of battle and that the penetrating notes can carry around six miles in open country. The music of the Great Highland Bagpipe is primal and emotional, and playing martial airs and laments has always had an inspiring effect upon soldiers from many nations and in many wars. The two things that the Highland Pipes do well, is to get the blood moving to do battle and there after to lament the dead.
The earliest written record of pipers accompanying troops into battle occurs in the archives of the Chiefs of Menzies. Mention is made there of the hereditary pipers of the clan (The M'Intyres) being at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314. One of the great heirlooms of the clan is a bagpipe played on that great day.
Field-Marshal Lord Roberts V.C., stated: “I can speak from my own experience. I have seen men weary, worn out with the fatigue of battle, stand and brighten up at the sound of the pipes. It has the greatest effect upon men in barracks or battle”.
The origins of the pipes in Scotland are uncertain. Historians can only speculate, however, the popular thought is that they were introduced to Britain in some form by the early Celts, Gael (Irish) or the Romans and then developed further in Scotland. It is known that the Roman Army marched to the sound of pipes and their cavalry to the trumpet. The earliest ancestor of the bagpipe is found in the Middle East as the ‘Shawm’, a simple reed pipe chanter. Throughout the British Isles, Europe, North Africa, Arabia, and the Caucasus some form of bagpipe is to be found.
The Great Highland Bagpipe was not and is not the only instrument of its kind in Britain; there is also the Northumbrian Small Pipe, the Shuttle Pipe, the Border Pipe, and the Lowland Pipe. The Uillean pipes of Ireland are similar but utilise bellows instead of a blowpipe.
The pipes were being played in Scotland by about 1400, but probably much earlier. However, they achieved their recognisable form about the mid 16th century when they overtook the harp as the musical instrument of Gaelic society.
The one thing that is certain is, that it was the people living in the Highlands of Scotland that developed the bagpipes to make it both in peace and war as their national instrument.
The first recorded mention of the Great Highland Bagpipe was in 1623 when a piper from Perth was prosecuted for playing his pipes on the Sabbath.
In the Lowlands of Scotland, pipers occupied well-defined positions as town pipers, performers for weddings, feasts and fairs. There was no recorded “master pipers” nor were there any schools of piping or pipe bands. Lowland pipers played to the mood of their audience. In the Highlands however, pipers, were strongly influenced by their Gleaic traditions and legends. The Highland piper occupied a position of honour within the Clan system. Clan pipers were mostly hereditary and held in high esteem, even by rival Clans. Every Clan-Chief had his own piper that played during gatherings, festivities and battles. To be a piper was sufficient and, if he could play well, nothing else would be asked of him.
It is said ‘that if you play the pipes well, the music can paint a picture, weaving the past and present, through the skill of the fingers you are at one with the ancestors.
Dynasties of pipers emerged, such as MacCrimmon, MacKay, MacGregor, and Cumming who performed the duties of official piper for their patrons through successive generations and who sustained and generated the music of the bagpipe. In the mid-fifteen hundreds Donald Mor MacCrimmon of Skye (1570 – 1640) was responsible for elevating the music of the pipes to a new level. This music is called piobroch. This classical music is an art form closely connected with specific events, which can compare to the great music of any other country or nation.
With the defeat of the Highland Clans at Culloden in 1746 their Army was demilitarised and the old customs forbidden. The Act of Proscription was enforced throughout Scotland with almost unbelievable severity. The Government of the day had a policy to put an end to the Scottish Clan system. Playing the pipes was outlawed, as was speaking Gaelic, the wearing of kilts, tartan and other clan symbols. A whole generation passed before the old customs were permitted once again, and ironically it was the British Army, which saved the pipes as well as the kilt from complete extinction with the raising of Highland Regiments.
Before the Act of Proscription was abolished in 1782, more than a score of Highlands Regiments had been embodied into the now British Army.
It was through the raising of Highland regiments that the bagpipes received a new stimulus and their resound spread throughout the world with the over sea posting of Scottish Regiments and emigrating Scots.
The original idea of listing the disaffected clans as regiments of the British Army is generally ascribed to Lord-President Forbs of Culloden, but it was Pitt, Earl of Chatham who persuaded the Government to put the scheme into effect. In his famous speech to Parliament in 1766, Pitt had this to say on the Highland regiments:
“I sought for merit wherever it was to be found. It is my boast that I was the first Minister who looked for it and found it in the mountains and glen of the north. I called it forth and drew into your service a hardy and intrepid race of men, who when left by your jealousy became a prey to artifice of your enemies, and had gone nigh to have overturned the state in the war before last. These men in the last war were brought to combat on your side; they served with fidelity as they fought with valour, and conquered for you in every part of the world.”
Prior to 1854, Highland regiments were allowed in their letters of service to recruit two pipers to the Grenadier Company, they were the equivalent of two fifers in the English Line Regiments. Like the clans before them, the Highland regiments treated the music of the Great Highland Bagpipe as a normal part of regimental life in war and peace. The pipers were expected to play on the march, to rouse the spirits of men in battle, and to provide music off duty.
It became normal practice to maintain at least one piper per company, and to recruit a recognised player as Pipe Major with the rank of sergeant. Because the appointment of piper was not recognised by War Office authority, the pipers duties were largely a matter of regimental custom. In some cases this included playing the calls of daily routine. In early 1854, anticipating war with Russia, the War Office authorised regiments to recruit up to war establishment of 1,000 rank and file. As part of this increase each Highland regiment was permitted an increment of a Pipe Major and five pipers, thus providing a piper for each of the six service companies in the field. With the pipers on the establishment of Scottish regiments it quickly became the custom for pipers to accompany the drummers instead of fifes for the duty of beating Reveille, Troop, Retreat, and Tattoo, the four main events of the soldier’s day.
By the 1870’s the custom of pipers and drummers playing together was firmly established in all Highland regiments. But there was inevitable uncertainty about the correct order in which pipers, drummers and bandsmen should form up on parade. In 1871 the matter was resolved by Queen Victoria who ordered that “The pipers must always lead.” That remains the correct precedence to this day.
Until World War II the pipers and drummers remained on the strength of their own companies within the battalion. A committee under the Pipe President managed the pipers, their pipes and uniform, funded by the Pipe Fund. Since World War II the pipes and drums have remained prominent as ever in the Scottish regiments, although the increment of pipers for battalions was discontinued in the 1970’s. Today the pipes and drums form an infantry platoon, within support company of a battalion.
Like the pipers of ancient time, pipers from the Scottish Regiments are expected to pipe the troops into battle.
In the Great War of 1914 –18 over 1,000 pipers were killed leading the troops “over the top” from the trenches. Because of the great slaughter of men, the most played tune of that war was the graveside lament “Flowers O’ the Forest”.
During operations at Loos, France on the 25th September 1915, Piper Daniel Laidlaw, of the 7th Kings Own Scottish Borderers was awarded the VC. The battalion was preparing to attack, when the Germans fired the trenches with gas and shell, which had a stupefying effect upon the troops. Above the bombardment and the choking and coughing of the troops could be heard the sound of the regimental march “All the Blue Bonnets over the Border” being played by Piper Laidlaw as he marched along the parapet of the trenches, quite heedless of the din and danger of the shelling and gas fumes about him. The men put aside their troubles and with light heart went “over the top” to the tune “The Braes O’ Mar”. Piper Daniel Laidlaw emulated the conduct of Piper Kenneth MacKay of the 97th Cameron Highlanders at Waterloo (1815). “When the regiment had been formed into hollow squares, ready with fixed bayonets to receive a charge of the French cavalry, Piper Kenneth MacKay coolly stepped from the ranks to the outside of the square of his Grenadier Company, and marched round and round the bristling bayonets of his comrades, playing the ancient rallying tune “Cogadh no Sith” (War or Peace- the Gathering O’ the Clans). Piper MacKay was awarded a set of silver-mounted pipes by King George III for his inspiring deed.
The notes of the bagpipe playing martial airs have always had an inspiring effect upon men in battle. This fact is fully realized by the pipers themselves, who will disregard all in an effort to play the music which will bring comfort and cheer to weary soldiers, particularly when times are tough. In every battle in every war where Scottish Regiments have fought there have been pipers, and some pipers have stood in other wars; one such person was John McGregor, one of 28 volunteers from the British Isles who fought and died at the Alamo in Texas, in 1836. It is recorded that John McGregor, who served as a second sergeant at the Alamo, was also a piper, and entertained the defenders with lively tunes during the thirteen-day siege, often accompanied by Colonel Davy Crockett playing the fiddle.
Today, two institutions are responsible for setting the standard and traditions of the Great Highland Bagpipe: the College of Piping in Glasgow and the Army School of Piping and Drumming in Edinburgh; and the National Piping Centre in Glasgow deserves a mention, Association have also emerged over time, led by the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association. Pipe Band Associations exist in America, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, India, Japan, Germany, and France, and probably many more countries.
The popularity of the Great Highland Bagpipe is surely linked to the constant stream of up and coming young pipers through the ages, a not insignificant percentage of these are from or in the Army. However, there have also been associations, bands, individuals, and families who have maintained the art of the Great Highland Bagpipe. Pipers are indeed the custodians of a rich heritage.
Yours Aye. Iain D Townsley
Playing the tunes of glory, of inspiration, and of remembrance, the piper communicates the poetry of the warrior, evoking a primal, emotional and inspiring effect on the gathering clans.
Music has the capacity of elevating the thoughts and feelings of people in a unity of friendship and harmony; and yet the Great Highland Bagpipe has lit fires in the hearts of a people to bid them to do battle and then to lament their dead. My article may enlighten you on the passion of the Scottish nation towards the instrument rather than the music and workings of the instrument itself; for no one can truly understand the Great Highland Bagpipe without an understanding of it's history. I have entitled this artical Instrument of War, and for good reason.
After the defeat of the Highland Clans at Drumossie Moor, Culloden in 1746 Piper James Reid was placed on trial as a Jacobite rebel accused of high treason. His defence was that he was mealy a piper to his Clan.The judge did not except this defence stating that “the plea of not carrying arms and of being merely a musician is spurious and the case of armed rebellion against the crown is proven, for it is in the experience of this court that a Highland Regiment has nether marched nor fought without a piper, and therefore in the eye of the law the bagpipe is an instrument of war”. Piper James Reid was hung, drawn and quartered at the gates of York.
Music has served a number of major military functions. It magnified the effect of military ritual and display, it served in conjunction with physical drill to enhance the effect of movement, it served to fortify the morale of one’s own troops while generating fear in the enemy during combat, and it served communications as a means of command and control. It is said that the sound of the Piob Mohr or Great Highland Bagpipe could be heard above the noise of battle and that the penetrating notes can carry around six miles in open country. The music of the Great Highland Bagpipe is primal and emotional, and playing martial airs and laments has always had an inspiring effect upon soldiers from many nations and in many wars. The two things that the Highland Pipes do well, is to get the blood moving to do battle and there after to lament the dead.
The earliest written record of pipers accompanying troops into battle occurs in the archives of the Chiefs of Menzies. Mention is made there of the hereditary pipers of the clan (The M'Intyres) being at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314. One of the great heirlooms of the clan is a bagpipe played on that great day.
Field-Marshal Lord Roberts V.C., stated: “I can speak from my own experience. I have seen men weary, worn out with the fatigue of battle, stand and brighten up at the sound of the pipes. It has the greatest effect upon men in barracks or battle”.
The origins of the pipes in Scotland are uncertain. Historians can only speculate, however, the popular thought is that they were introduced to Britain in some form by the early Celts, Gael (Irish) or the Romans and then developed further in Scotland. It is known that the Roman Army marched to the sound of pipes and their cavalry to the trumpet. The earliest ancestor of the bagpipe is found in the Middle East as the ‘Shawm’, a simple reed pipe chanter. Throughout the British Isles, Europe, North Africa, Arabia, and the Caucasus some form of bagpipe is to be found.
The Great Highland Bagpipe was not and is not the only instrument of its kind in Britain; there is also the Northumbrian Small Pipe, the Shuttle Pipe, the Border Pipe, and the Lowland Pipe. The Uillean pipes of Ireland are similar but utilise bellows instead of a blowpipe.
The pipes were being played in Scotland by about 1400, but probably much earlier. However, they achieved their recognisable form about the mid 16th century when they overtook the harp as the musical instrument of Gaelic society.
The one thing that is certain is, that it was the people living in the Highlands of Scotland that developed the bagpipes to make it both in peace and war as their national instrument.
The first recorded mention of the Great Highland Bagpipe was in 1623 when a piper from Perth was prosecuted for playing his pipes on the Sabbath.
In the Lowlands of Scotland, pipers occupied well-defined positions as town pipers, performers for weddings, feasts and fairs. There was no recorded “master pipers” nor were there any schools of piping or pipe bands. Lowland pipers played to the mood of their audience. In the Highlands however, pipers, were strongly influenced by their Gleaic traditions and legends. The Highland piper occupied a position of honour within the Clan system. Clan pipers were mostly hereditary and held in high esteem, even by rival Clans. Every Clan-Chief had his own piper that played during gatherings, festivities and battles. To be a piper was sufficient and, if he could play well, nothing else would be asked of him.
It is said ‘that if you play the pipes well, the music can paint a picture, weaving the past and present, through the skill of the fingers you are at one with the ancestors.
Dynasties of pipers emerged, such as MacCrimmon, MacKay, MacGregor, and Cumming who performed the duties of official piper for their patrons through successive generations and who sustained and generated the music of the bagpipe. In the mid-fifteen hundreds Donald Mor MacCrimmon of Skye (1570 – 1640) was responsible for elevating the music of the pipes to a new level. This music is called piobroch. This classical music is an art form closely connected with specific events, which can compare to the great music of any other country or nation.
With the defeat of the Highland Clans at Culloden in 1746 their Army was demilitarised and the old customs forbidden. The Act of Proscription was enforced throughout Scotland with almost unbelievable severity. The Government of the day had a policy to put an end to the Scottish Clan system. Playing the pipes was outlawed, as was speaking Gaelic, the wearing of kilts, tartan and other clan symbols. A whole generation passed before the old customs were permitted once again, and ironically it was the British Army, which saved the pipes as well as the kilt from complete extinction with the raising of Highland Regiments.
Before the Act of Proscription was abolished in 1782, more than a score of Highlands Regiments had been embodied into the now British Army.
It was through the raising of Highland regiments that the bagpipes received a new stimulus and their resound spread throughout the world with the over sea posting of Scottish Regiments and emigrating Scots.
The original idea of listing the disaffected clans as regiments of the British Army is generally ascribed to Lord-President Forbs of Culloden, but it was Pitt, Earl of Chatham who persuaded the Government to put the scheme into effect. In his famous speech to Parliament in 1766, Pitt had this to say on the Highland regiments:
“I sought for merit wherever it was to be found. It is my boast that I was the first Minister who looked for it and found it in the mountains and glen of the north. I called it forth and drew into your service a hardy and intrepid race of men, who when left by your jealousy became a prey to artifice of your enemies, and had gone nigh to have overturned the state in the war before last. These men in the last war were brought to combat on your side; they served with fidelity as they fought with valour, and conquered for you in every part of the world.”
Prior to 1854, Highland regiments were allowed in their letters of service to recruit two pipers to the Grenadier Company, they were the equivalent of two fifers in the English Line Regiments. Like the clans before them, the Highland regiments treated the music of the Great Highland Bagpipe as a normal part of regimental life in war and peace. The pipers were expected to play on the march, to rouse the spirits of men in battle, and to provide music off duty.
It became normal practice to maintain at least one piper per company, and to recruit a recognised player as Pipe Major with the rank of sergeant. Because the appointment of piper was not recognised by War Office authority, the pipers duties were largely a matter of regimental custom. In some cases this included playing the calls of daily routine. In early 1854, anticipating war with Russia, the War Office authorised regiments to recruit up to war establishment of 1,000 rank and file. As part of this increase each Highland regiment was permitted an increment of a Pipe Major and five pipers, thus providing a piper for each of the six service companies in the field. With the pipers on the establishment of Scottish regiments it quickly became the custom for pipers to accompany the drummers instead of fifes for the duty of beating Reveille, Troop, Retreat, and Tattoo, the four main events of the soldier’s day.
By the 1870’s the custom of pipers and drummers playing together was firmly established in all Highland regiments. But there was inevitable uncertainty about the correct order in which pipers, drummers and bandsmen should form up on parade. In 1871 the matter was resolved by Queen Victoria who ordered that “The pipers must always lead.” That remains the correct precedence to this day.
Until World War II the pipers and drummers remained on the strength of their own companies within the battalion. A committee under the Pipe President managed the pipers, their pipes and uniform, funded by the Pipe Fund. Since World War II the pipes and drums have remained prominent as ever in the Scottish regiments, although the increment of pipers for battalions was discontinued in the 1970’s. Today the pipes and drums form an infantry platoon, within support company of a battalion.
Like the pipers of ancient time, pipers from the Scottish Regiments are expected to pipe the troops into battle.
In the Great War of 1914 –18 over 1,000 pipers were killed leading the troops “over the top” from the trenches. Because of the great slaughter of men, the most played tune of that war was the graveside lament “Flowers O’ the Forest”.
During operations at Loos, France on the 25th September 1915, Piper Daniel Laidlaw, of the 7th Kings Own Scottish Borderers was awarded the VC. The battalion was preparing to attack, when the Germans fired the trenches with gas and shell, which had a stupefying effect upon the troops. Above the bombardment and the choking and coughing of the troops could be heard the sound of the regimental march “All the Blue Bonnets over the Border” being played by Piper Laidlaw as he marched along the parapet of the trenches, quite heedless of the din and danger of the shelling and gas fumes about him. The men put aside their troubles and with light heart went “over the top” to the tune “The Braes O’ Mar”. Piper Daniel Laidlaw emulated the conduct of Piper Kenneth MacKay of the 97th Cameron Highlanders at Waterloo (1815). “When the regiment had been formed into hollow squares, ready with fixed bayonets to receive a charge of the French cavalry, Piper Kenneth MacKay coolly stepped from the ranks to the outside of the square of his Grenadier Company, and marched round and round the bristling bayonets of his comrades, playing the ancient rallying tune “Cogadh no Sith” (War or Peace- the Gathering O’ the Clans). Piper MacKay was awarded a set of silver-mounted pipes by King George III for his inspiring deed.
The notes of the bagpipe playing martial airs have always had an inspiring effect upon men in battle. This fact is fully realized by the pipers themselves, who will disregard all in an effort to play the music which will bring comfort and cheer to weary soldiers, particularly when times are tough. In every battle in every war where Scottish Regiments have fought there have been pipers, and some pipers have stood in other wars; one such person was John McGregor, one of 28 volunteers from the British Isles who fought and died at the Alamo in Texas, in 1836. It is recorded that John McGregor, who served as a second sergeant at the Alamo, was also a piper, and entertained the defenders with lively tunes during the thirteen-day siege, often accompanied by Colonel Davy Crockett playing the fiddle.
Today, two institutions are responsible for setting the standard and traditions of the Great Highland Bagpipe: the College of Piping in Glasgow and the Army School of Piping and Drumming in Edinburgh; and the National Piping Centre in Glasgow deserves a mention, Association have also emerged over time, led by the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association. Pipe Band Associations exist in America, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, India, Japan, Germany, and France, and probably many more countries.
The popularity of the Great Highland Bagpipe is surely linked to the constant stream of up and coming young pipers through the ages, a not insignificant percentage of these are from or in the Army. However, there have also been associations, bands, individuals, and families who have maintained the art of the Great Highland Bagpipe. Pipers are indeed the custodians of a rich heritage.
Yours Aye. Iain D Townsley
