This series of pictures were taken at Bothwell Castle July 1999. Bothwell Castle is the home of the Moray family their coat of arm is blue with three stars The most famous Moray was Sir Andrew who fought with Bruce and Douglas.
It shows a 14th century Lowland muster and the group is Gaddgedlar. Specifically this is how soldiers would be dressed in the time of Bruce and Wallace. And as the lady who did the voice over said " look not a kilt nor a blue face among them"
The Camp was set up in the middle of the castle and this picture was taken from one of the turrets.

The Lowland foot soldier was dressed in a kettle helmet ( so called because it doubled as a kettle when in camp) A jacket made of linen which was heavily quilted with straw and wool. This jacket severely limits movement because it is so stiff but it will deflect a sword blow. The hood is an affectation, the bigger the hood the more wealth a man had.

Under the coat the soldier wore linen shorts, akin to today's boxer shorts however they had suspenders on them to hold up the linen leggings.

Their most famous manover is the schiltron, if the schiltorn stayed intact it was impenaterable, it was also highly manouverable and could pivot on a comand.	This is abviously quite a small one a larger one is far more effective
This fight took place at the other end of the field but it was very vicious	While Scotland was not well known for her archers, she did have them Infact Edward the 1st of England out lawed the sale of yew wood to the Scots and yew is not indigenous to Scotland. Therefore all arrows were valuable and children ( wee people) were used on the battlefield to gather them in. (Thus leading to the oft used football sloggan 'we arra people'.....actually that's a joke!)

The group went on to do knights and their attire but I ran out of film So that's Bothwell Castle for you, my local castle.

My old guest buik

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