Celtic character about it; instead of the usual decorations, it has patches of silver chasing in the form of warlike weapons and emblems, while at the centre, in the place of a boss, is a chasing in relief of the Medusa’s head. In the armoury at Warwick Castle was a rival shield of similar design, also said to have been used by the Prince. This was unfortunately destroyed during the fire at the castle in 1871.

The same difficulty as to date is experienced with Scandinavian weapons of various sorts, and is well illustrated in a quaint kind of powder-horns, very antique in design, on which are carved a series of the heroes of antiquity, each armed with a circular shield, which at first sight looks very like the Highland target; but on examination it has a large central boss, with a series of studs between it and the rim, not unlike bronze specimens in the Museum at Copenhagen, like these also in having only one handle. I have two powder-horns of this kind, on one of which the date is only 1739; while on the other, which is evidently of an earlier period, there seems a fringe of some kind round the outer rim of all the shields.

In the quaint account of the Duke of Somerset’s “Expedicion into Scotlande” in 1547, “Set out by way of Diarie, by W. Patten,” there is notice taken of the “Targetts” used by some of the Scots at the disastrous battle of Pinkie. “Nye this place of onset, whear the Scottes, at their runynge awey, had let fall their weapons (as I sayd) thear found we, bysyde their common maner of armour, certyn nice instrumentes for war (as we thought). And they wear, nue boordes endes cut of, being about a foot in breadth, and half a yarde in leangth; hauyng on the insyde, handels made very cunnynly of ii cordes endes: These a Gods name wear their targetts again the shot of our small artillerie, for they wear not able to hold out a canon. And with these, found we great rattels, swellyng bygger than the belly of a pottell pot, coouered with old parchement or dooble papers, small stones put in them to make noys, and set vpon the end of a staff of more then twoo els long, and this was their fyne deuyse to fray our horses when our horsmen shoulde cum at them: Howbeeit bycaus the ryders wear no babyes, nor their horses no colts, they coold neyther duddle the tone nor fray the toother: so that this pollecye was as witles as their pour forcedes.” The above must not be looked upon as the ordinary military shield, but rather as an extemporised makeshift to answer the same purpose, by the irregular troops got together so hurriedly and with so much difficulty by the governor, the Earl of Arran, who had recourse to the desperate measure of sending the Fiery Cross through the country to raise the army. This old Celtic and Scandinavian custom was, even by these nations, only used in cases of eminent peril; but when this Cross, the:—

“Dread messenger of fate and fear,
Stretched onward in its fleet career,
The fisherman forsook the strand,
The swarthy smith took dirk and brand;
With changed cheer, the mower blithe
Left in the half-cut swathe the scythe;
The herds without a keeper stray’d,
The plough was in mid-furrow staid,
The falc’ner tossed his hawk away,
The hunter left the stag at bay;
Prompt at the signal of alarms,
Each son of Alpine rushed to arms.”[6]

And so it was on this occasion; the summons was at once obeyed, and a motley, undisciplined, and poorly-armed crowd were assembled, but unfortunately, not like the Highlanders, who were accustomed to the almost daily use of their weapons. I have given the whole paragraph from Patten’s diary, as it clearly shows that both the “Targetts and Rattells,” from the