First: the Highland Warrior.
Hatwear, legs and body print however suggest a more recent historical date than the original Highlander; I'm thinking about the Battle of Culloden or thereabouts. I wonder whether a musket wouldn't have been more suitable than a sword and shield.
Definitely. The Jacobite army ordered a couple of thousand targes to be made but in the end most didn't get used. Muskets were the preferred weapon, a mix of French and British designs depending on where they could source them. Swords are the iconic weapon but most didn't have them. The sword was a basket hilted sword, the pirate cutlass is probably the closest sword, not the big sword featured in this set. Those big swords stopped being used probably in the early 18th century, they weren't around by the time of Culloden. Also the bonnet should be blue, practically all the bonnets in Scotland, lowland and highland, were some shade of blue but I guess you could claim this one was a very dark blue.
After the failed rising in 1715 the British parliament enacted a Disarming Act which saw a lot of traditional weapons taken out of circulation. 30 years later the Jacobites were scraping the bottom of the barrel to find weapons of any kind, the poorer sorts were showing up with rusted blades and various antique firearms with some not even in working order.
Would love to see a tartan version of the grey coat on this figure and a white cross on the bonnet representing the Jacobite cockade. As it stands the figure would make a good represenation of a recruit from the Lowlands equipped with a plaid and targe to show what side they were on.
