A Highland Scottish Targe dating to the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion Period

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Price: £15,000

Ref: 52082518

Item Description

A Scottish Highland Targe dating to the second quarter of the 18^th century. The Targe is traditionally made from cross plied wooden boards covered with a thick leather front decorated with patterns of brass bosses and studs. This type of targe is known as a “Five Shilling Targe”. It was made in Perthshire in the Central Highlands for members of the clans and Highland regiments, and, more specifically, for the Jacobite army during the 1745 Rebellion, for five shillings each. A Targe of the same pattern and construction is in the National Museums of Scotland in Edinburgh Collection Reference:  H.LN 37 which is shown in the last photograph with a black background in the sequence below.

Targes started to be used in the Scottish Highlands in substantial numbers in the early 17th century and became synonymous with warrior Highland clansmen and the battle tactic known as the “Highland Charge”. This tactic is thought to have been perfected at the time of the Scottish and English Civil War periods in the mid-17th century. The earliest decorative styles to the fronts of Targes consisted mainly of elaborately tooled leather complemented by decorative brass or silver dome-headed studs. Towards the second quarter of the 18^th century Targemakers generally spent less time on tooling leather and more time on applying bigger and bolder brass studs and bosses to achieve the desired decorative effect. This Targe is covered with patterns of brass studs and bosses which are all hand made and not a quick task to produce in a pre-industrial age society. In all there were 227 studs and bosses made for the targe of which two are now missing.

Although decorative styles changed over the 150 years of their use the methods of Targe construction remained broadly the same. Proscribed as weapons after the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion traditionally made Targes went out of fashion and in general were no longer made. Today, genuine examples dating to before the mid-18^th century are rare.

This Targe is formed in the traditional manner, with a circular base of cross-plied hand-cut pieces of wooden board, held together with wooden pegs and iron nails which formed the grip attachments. The front is covered with a single piece of leather attached to the boards by a ring of decorative hand-made nails with brass domed tops around the rim. Further domed nails inside this perimeter are applied in the form of concentric rings, and equally spaced circle and triangle shapes. The design is is given depth by the selective use of two differently sized bosses. The middle is occupied by a single central dome of brass secured by three iron nails through its broad brim.

The wooden rim of the Targe is chamfered or bevelled in the usual manner, the shaved slope present at the back rather than the front.  In manufacture the edge of the leather front has been stretched over this rim and secured at the back with a ring of small iron hand-made nails. As is common with many surviving  Targes the leather edge has shrunk over time and in places has pulled away from  the  ring of nails at the back intended to secure it. Some of the nails have decayed away. The front of the Targe was originally covered with a coating of protective paint or tar, and in the areas between the studs and bosses, this exterior layer has also shrunk leaving a crackled surface similar to that of an old oil painting.

At the back the remains of an old thin leather backing is present in small patches attached to some of the perimeter nails. A ring of small wooden pegs which secure the planks of the Targe together are evident as well as the iron fixing points for two arm bands and the grip.

Dr David Caldwell (Curator Scotland & Europe – National Museums of Scotland [Retired]) commented in a paper published in the Park Lane Arms Fair that Targes like this were most likely made for the Jacobite army in the early stages of the 1745 Rebellion. As a reference, he uses a Targe gifted to the National Museum in Edinburgh in 1782, not forty years after the ’45 Rebellion (Museum Reference H.LN 37) which is identical to ours and almost certainly made by the same Targemaker (this Targe is illustrated in the last photograph in the sequence enclosed below). Prince Charles’s army, being short of Targes, commissioned a number to be made, some for officers and 500 for clansmen specifically at a price of 5 shillings each, and from which this Targe type acquired its name.

Clearly the primary decorative feature of these three Targes is the use of dome-headed brass nails and bosses applied to relatively simply tooled leather frontages compared to Targe designs through the previous century and a half. It would seem that this type was the dominant Targe type in use by the common clansmen in the second quarter of the 18^th century, both by those armed for their own protection and those recruited into the Black Watch. This observation is supported by the famous illustration of the Battle of Culloden by David Morier “An Incident in the Rebellion of 1745”, painted shortly after the battle. Morier was an artist renowned for his accuracy and is believed to have used actual Highland prisoners equipped with contemporary Highland weapons seized after the battle as his subject matter. Seven Targes are depicted held by Highlanders charging a Redcoat line and six are clearly decorated with bosses and dome headed nails of similar type and size to ours, arranged in a variety of slightly varying patterns. This painting is in the Queens Collection at The Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. See: (https://www.rct.uk/collection/401243/an-incident-in-the-rebellion-of-1745).

The Targe measures 19.75 inches across (just over 50 cm). Given its age and the materials used in its construction the condition is very good with only two nails missing from the front. The leather face is in hardened blackened condition. The rim folded over the edge is fragile in places. The deerskin back is missing other than a few remnants attached to nails. The arms straps and hand-grip are missing. The absence of the deerskin back makes visible the original attachment nails for the straps and grip. The wooden planks are in good condition.