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The tartan once belonged to the monarchs of the House of Stewart. The Stewart dynasty comprised the five kings and two queens regnant who occupied the thrones of Scotland, England and Ireland between 1603 and 1714. However, there are no less than 69 Stewart tartan in the archives of the Scottish Tartans Society, 37 of which are classed as clan tartans, another five as dress tartans and seven as hunting tartans. A particularly idiosyncratic royal tartan was the Prince Charles Edward Stewart, named after the last Stewart to mount a serious attempt at retrieving the throne lost by his grandfather, King James VII (of Scotland) and II ( of England and Ireland ), in 1688.
A sample of the Prince’s sett, also known as the Earl of Moray and dating from around 1815, was placed in the Highland Society of London Collection. It is identical to the Royal Stewart tartan, except that the red squares in the design are reduced. Several other royal tartans were specially created during and after the reign of Queen Victoria ( 1837-1901 ). One was the Balmoral tartan, designed by Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, in 1853, and named after the holiday home built for them in Scotland between 1853 and 1856. The Balmoral tartan is still exclusive to the Royal Family. Other tartans were designed for individual ‘royals’, and from time to time they will wear the tartans of those regiments which they head as colonels-in-chief. |
