Boys Will Be Boys, And So Will Women on Occasion  by Charles Knutson

Contents Introduction and Bylaws Interpretive Clothing Scottish Culture History Music and Dance Military Life Language Bibliography, Sources and Library Materials

There is some pretty clear evidence that some of the women in military camps during the English Civil War were wearing men's clothing, apparently as much for convenience, as to pass themselves off as men. I assume that these were only lower class women. But it seems that it was common enough that Charles I issued the following proclamation against it in July 1643: "Because the confounding of Habits appertaining to both Sexes and the promiscuous use of them is a thing which Nature and religion forbid and our Soul abhors, and yet the prostitute Impudency of some women... have (which we cannot think on but with Just Indignation) thus conversed in our army; therefore Let no Woman presume to Counterfeit her Sex by wearing men's apparel under pain of the Severest punishment which Law and our displeasure shall inflict." Thus, it would be acceptable for women in the Clann, who wish to portray lower class characters, to wear breeches and a coat if they wish, rather than a skirt. Until we find further documentation we should draw the line at wearing the kilt unless they are portraying male characters. My gut feeling is that this might be a line the society of the time may have drawn as well. There also seems clear evidence of a number of women passing themselves off as men and serving in the army. Some did so in order to follow their men. As Antonia Fraser phrased it in her book The Weaker Vessel, "It was often better to be a man's comrade, however rough the going, than to be left as a charge on the parish at home... a soldier's pay, a soldier's keep was at least a form of sustenance." Others seem to have set off in search for their beloved who vanished into the armed services. (We know "vagrants" occasionally were taken off the roads of Scotland and forcibly enlisted.) In these cases male dress was not so much a convenience as a necessity. Ms Fraser cites a number of documented cases of women fighting as men during the English Civil War: "A newspaper of July 1642 told of a girl who disguised herself as a soldier to stay near her lover in the Earl of Lindsay's regiment, but was later detected. And when Shelford, near Nottingham, was taken by Major-General Poyntz of the New Model Army in November 1645, one of the Royalist prisoners there was said to be a woman corporal. Jane Ingleby, who is said to have fought at Marston Moor in the Cavalry, and being wounded, escaped on horseback to her home, was probably a Yorkshire yeoman's daughter." The true numbers of these women will probably never be known - the object of their plan was anonymity to begin with - but it makes it clear that the Clann should feel no embarrassment at having an occasional woman soldier over the years.