The Highlands of Scotland is a somewhat vagye and indefinite geographical division of Scotland, forming that part of Scotland north of a line drawn from the Moray Frith to the river Clyde, or from Nairn to Glasgow. The Highlands are generally subdivided into two parts, the West Highlands and the North Highlands The whole of the district, which embraces the formerly Celtic-speaking part of Scotland, is wild, rugged, and mountainous, with much grand and picturesque scenery. The western coast is indented by many narrow arms of the sea, and is flanked by numerous islands. Forming, by their natural characteristics, a region distinct from the Lowlands of Scotland, the Highlands were long in a state of political semi-independence, and socially and otherwise - and particularly in retaining the use of the Gaelic tongue - the people have still certain characteristics peculiarto themselves. What especially separated this region from the rest of Scotland, was not only the Celtic language and blood, but also the clan system and all connected with it.
In the earliest times the Highland chiefs gave allegiance to higher chiefs or princes, by whom the Scottish kings were acknowledged as sovereigns merely in name. Among these native princes were the powerful lords of the Isles, who flourished from very ancient times to the reign of James V. They ruled over all the Western Islands (the Hebrides) from Islay north, and over the western part of the county of Inverness, and as powerful allies exerted an influence over the greater part of the Highlands. In the early part of the 15th century the Highlanders threatened to overrun great part of the Lowlands, but they received a check in the defeat of Donald of the Isles at Harlaw in 1413. From this time onward their incursions on the Lowland parts of Scotland were confined chiefly to occasional plundering raids.
In the wars of the 17th century the Highlanders were largely engaged on the side of the Stuarts, and great numbers fought under both Montrose and Dundee. After the suppression of the rising of 1715 a strenuous attempt was made to break up the tribal organization of the Highlanders. An act was passed in 1724 for their disarmament; between 1726 and 1737 great military roads were formed under the direction of General Wade, and a chain of fortified military posts constructed, to overawe the people. The chieftains made every effort to maintain their threatened power, and to destroy the effect of the innovations with which the government sought to weaken the bonds of the clans, but the weakening went on. The rebellion of 1745 gave the government an opportunity of hastening the process, by the abolition of heritable jurisdictions, and of the ancient privileges of the chiefs.
A stringent law for disarming the people was passed, and they were even prohibited from wearing their national dress, a prohibition not formally removed until 1782. The great extension of sheep-breeding and the appropriation of large tracts to game tended much to depopulate some parts of the Highlands. In other parts, notably in some of the Western Islands, the population increased during the 19th century beyond a point where their circumscribed condition could support them, and much discontent, agitation, and trouble resulted.
The Highland dress, so well known at the present day, is modern in a good many of its features, and especially so in the great variety of tartans that have been invented, and of which each clan now appears to claim one.
Abbreviations
Gazetteer
Research Highlands