From the Highlands to the Enlightenment: Five Defining Moments in Scotland's Cultural Past

Scotland’s allure is undeniable. From its rugged Highland landscapes to its storied past, the nation has captured imaginations for centuries. This is a nation where ancient clans forged bonds that would endure for centuries, where the origins of tartan tell a tale of tradition and reinvention, and where the arts flourished during the Enlightenment, leaving an indelible mark on the world.

Our fascination with Scotland isn’t an entirely new phenomenon. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert famously fell in love with Scotland after their visit in 1842, igniting Victorian enthusiasm for all things Scottish. Poets Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns used their work to pay homage to their Scottish roots, further launching Scotland into the cultural zeitgeist. Today, Burns Night stands as an annual celebration of Scotland’s national poet and his enduring legacy.

To celebrate this colourful history and the publication of The Highland Clans by Alistair Moffat, we invite you to explore five fascinating chapters of Scotland’s rich cultural past.

1. The earliest map of Scotland  

The earliest surviving map of Scotland dates back to around 2 AD, and was created by the Greco-Roman mathematician and scholar, Claudius Ptolemy.

Oddly enough, Ptolemy never set foot anywhere in the region, instead turning to the Library of Alexandria for his research. It is likely that he consulted a copy of On the Ocean by Pytheas as well as other texts that have also been lost to time.

On the Ocean detailed Pytheas’s own explorations of the British Isles and offered many insights into early Scotland. In Scotland’s Forgotten Past, Alistair Moffat tells us that during his exploration, he took regular measurements of latitude and longitude, and that ‘one of the most northerly readings he recorded places him on the Isle of Lewis, off the Atlantic coast of Scotland.’

Perhaps the most impressive thing about both Pytheas and Ptolemy was the accuracy of their recordings. Pytheas measured his progress as he circumvented the island and calculated a circumference of around 4,600 miles. Today we know that the British coastline is around 4,710 miles. Ptolemy’s map fills in the patchwork of small kingdoms, and many of the names he noted are recognizable even today.

2. The emergence of the Highland clans

The word ‘clan’ derives from the Gaelic ‘clann’ meaning ‘children’. As Alistair Moffat explains in The Highland Clans, ‘clansmen and women saw themselves as descended from common name-fathers, often distant ancestors who in some meaningful sense were the first of that name.’

Beyond ancestry, clan names also acted as geographic markers, identifying the lands where generations of communities with the same surname lived, hunted and farmed. Some clans trace their origins to the Dark Agres, though, as Moffat notes, ‘many name-fathers had real historical personalities and those men usually emerged some time between 1150 and 1350.’

These familial networks were more than communities, they were Scotland’s social backbone – a system of loyalty and kinship that weathered centuries of change.

3. The origins of plaid and tartan 

Few symbols are as closely tied to Scottish identity as tartan. This distinctive fabric has a storied history that predates its current iconic status. The word plaid stems from the Gaelic plaide, meaning blanket, a large piece of checked material used both as daywear and for sleeping under.

By the 16th century, Highlanders had begun dying yarn with natural pigments from plants that grew in the landscape, producing a vibrant palette of colours. The dyes were fixed not by chemicals as they are today, but by human urine, carefully collected, allowed to mature, then passed to the spinners and weavers to use in their work.

It is easy to see the threads of this iconic item of clothing take shape, but its real defining moment came at the hands of Sir Walter Scott in 1822. In the aftermath of the Jacobite rebellion, the Highland culture was all but decimated. As Moffat explains in The Highland Clans, ‘not only had there been a concerted campaign of genocide and clearance after Culloden, acts of Parliament banning the wearing of tartan and the playing of the pipes were put in place and lasted until 1782.’

When King George IV decided to make a state visit to Scotland in 1822 – the first appearance of a monarch in Scotland in centuries – Scott was asked to manage the event, given that he was perhaps the most famous living Scotsman at the time. When the King appeared, he was, at the behest of Scott, swathed head to toe in tartan – dirks, bonnet, kilt and all. In Scotland’s Forgotten Past, also by Alistair Moffat, this moment is described as ‘the beginning of the wholesale adoption of Highland iconography by all Scots.’

4. The founder of Scotland

By the time the Romans left Britain in 430AD, Scotland was made up of four main groups: the Picts, the Scots, the Britons and the Teutonic Anglo-Saxons. There was a great deal of conflict between them that would go on for centuries and it wasn’t until 843, under Kenneth MacAlpin, that Scotland would have some sense of unity.

Kennth I, considered the founder of Scotland, conquered the Kingdom of the Picts between 843 and 850, assuming the position of King of the Picts.

In his book Scotland: A Concise History, Fitzroy Maclean says that MacAlpin ‘fell upon the Picts, to whose ruling dynasty he was related, after they had been weakened by the raids of the Norsemen, and, having disposed of all rival claimants, made himself King of everything north of the Forth.’

It would take another century and a half to unite Scotland, as despite his best efforts, MacAlpin failed to conquer the Angles of Lothian. But in 1018, his descendant Malcolm II was finally successful in bringing Lothian under Scottish rule, thus unifying the kingdom.

5. The artistic growth of the 18th century

Much of our idea of Scotland today is rooted in the flourishing of literature and the arts that happened in the second half of the 18th Century. Most famous perhaps is the work of Robert Burns and Walter Scott, though many others took part in this extraordinary efflorescence.

Painters, writers and philosophers like David Hume, Adam Smith, Allan Ramsay and David Wilkie made their mark not just on Scotland but also the world. In Scotland: A Concise History, Fitzroy Maclean explains that the work of these great minds, particularly of Robert Burns and Walter Scott, ‘helped to restore to the Scots themselves the self-confidence and self-respect which the events of the past century had done so much to destroy, to dispel the unhappy feeling of inferiority and lost identity which had followed the Union.’

This new understanding of Scotland redefined what it meant to be Scottish and has been steadfastly upheld well into the present day. As Maclean puts it:

‘The Scots soon became in the popular imagination paragons of all the virtues, at once fearless heroes and shrewd, merry, honest, hospitable folk with their hearts in the right place and their heads screwed on the right way, while Scotland and the Highlands in particular became the goal of innumerable enthusiastic sightseers from all over the world.’