The Vestiarium Scoticum, already acknowledged as the earliest and the most elaborate illustrated publication on tartan designs, was edited by the late John Sobieski Stuart from a MS. stated to belong to the sixteenth century. The MS. was printed and published in 1842, with plates executed from drawings by Charles Edward Stuart, the editor’s brother. Of course the drawings are but a development of the descriptions in the MS. It need scarcely be added that the volume is now rare and costly. The MS. was transcribed and illuminated in 1829 by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, for whom Charles Edward Stuart prepared a series of drawings which included several tartans not illustrated in the published work. One of these is here reproduced, and Sir Richard Urquhart, Knycht, the reputed author of the MS., thus describes it: “Mackeane hethe four stryppes of Blak upon ain scarlett feilde, and upon the scarlett sett ain spraig (sprainge) of yellowe of saxteen threidis, havand thereto ain bordure of Blak of twa threidis.” The Mac Ians, whose name is variously spelt in the early clan rolls and elsewhere as M’Kane, Mac Coin, Mac Eoin, Clanayioun, &c., were a branch of the Clan Macdonald. That the use of the design was not confined to this branch is evidenced by a contemporary portrait of Alastair Ruadh of Glengarry (who was prominent in the ’45), in which he is depicted in this tartan. The painting is in the possession of John Alastair Erskine Cuninghame, Esq. of Balgownie, Perthshire, the last lineal descendant and heir-general of Alastair Ronaldson Macdonell of Glengarry.
XXII. MAC KEANE