Scots fought 'in bright yellow war shirts not Braveheart kilts'

Medieval Scottish soldiers fought wearing bright yellow war shirts dyed in horse urine rather than the tartan plaid depicted in the film Braveheart, according  research.

Historian Fergus Cannan states that the Scots armies who fought in battles like Bannockburn, and Flodden Field would have looked very different to the way they have traditionally been depicted.  Instead of kilts, he said they wore saffron-coloured tunics called "leine croich" and used a range of ingredients to get the boldest possible colours.

"What the Scottish soldiers wore in the country's greatest battles is an area that, up until now, has not been properly studied," he said.
"A lot of historians quite rightly stated that the film Braveheart was not terribly accurate, but what they didn't admit was that they didn't have a clue what would be accurate."
Mr Cannan, a military history specialist, who has traced his own roots back to Robert the Bruce, scoured original medieval eye-witness accounts, manuscripts, and tomb effigies.
Using these and other sources, he built up a picture of what members of Robert the Bruce's forces would have worn in 1314.
Numerous accounts cited by Mr Cannan in his new book, Scottish Arms and Armour, refer to the distinctive linen tunics, usually worn with a belt round the middle.

"Forget about the plaid and tartan," he said.
"The yellow war shirt is never shown in any film or popular image and yet it is something that all the original writers comment on."
Highlanders wore the tunics throughout the Middle Ages and right up until the end of the 16th Century, he said.
Because Saffron was expensive, poor clansmen dyed the linen with horse urine or bark and crushed leaves to get the rich yellow colour.

On top of the leine croich, they would wear a deerskin or cowhide jerkin, which would be waxed or dipped in pitch to make it waterproof.
Angus, Chief of Clan Chattan, recorded in 1572 that the "yellow war shirt" was still venerated by his people as "the badge of the Chieftaines".

Dr Clare Downham of Aberdeen University said that Mr Cannan's analysis fitted with her own knowledge of Celtic Scotland.
She said: "The tartan kilt as we know it today is part of a romantic and more modern imagining of Scotland's past."
The Battle of Bannockburn in June 1314, when Robert the Bruce's forces defeated a far larger invading English army, is widely seen as Scotland's greatest military triumph and secured the country's independence for centuries.

However, the Battle of Flodden Field in 1513 saw James IV's troops routed, with the king himself among the huge numbers of casualties.