Scots Duty

SCOTS DUTY

Henry Farmer

The Old Drum and Fife Calls of Scottish Regiments

“Scotch regiments have their own peculiar heats, that To Arms alone excepted which is general throughout the service”

Charles James The Regimental Companion (1805).

In the seventeenth century, if not earlier, Scottish regiments had their own particular martial music, including calls, which was different from that used by English and Irish troops. In the eighteenth century this music was known as Scots Duty, in contradistitinction from English Duty, and the actual notation of both of these duties, dating from the years 1750-60, has been preserved. The earlier history of this particular music cannot be traced with any degree of certainty, but as the army was rather conservative in most matters of routine in those days, it is more than likely that both Scots Duty and English Duty, as mentioned above, contain elements at least of what was practised in the seventeenth century.

With the fundamental drum beans there can be little doubt of this conservancy, but with the accompanying airs of the fife there cannot be the same assurance. It has to he remembered that the fife fell into desuetude towards the close of the seventeenth century, and it was not revived until I745-7. Yet the hiatus was only about half a century, and as fifers were often, if not generally, boys of tender years in those days, there is no reason why the memory of these airs need have been lost, even if notated examples had not been preserved.

Further, there is a reasonable probability that the hoboy, which ousted the fife from favour during the last quarter of the seventeenth century, took over the old fife airs, since the music itself was well within the gamut of this instrument. It is true that we have flu direct evidence that hoboys in the British service ever played calls, although such a contingency might he assumed from Grose’s statement that about the year 1759 the dragoons exchanged hoboys for trumpets.’ In the French army we know from the marches and calls of Lully and Philidor in the seventeenth century that hoboys were used for both. If, therefore, hobovs in our service did actually take over the old fife airs, it would be a fair assumption that what has come down to us in Scots Duty of the mid-eighteenth century is a relic of the previous century. This suggestion naturally leads us to inquire what was practiced by the Scots in the seventeenth century.

In Scotland in the early seventeenth century there seems to have been some-thing approximating to Scots Duty, since we read that in 1637-8, on the authority of Gordon of Rothiemay, that Scottish drummers were beating “taptoos, reveilles and marches,” and that they were teaching the soldiery to distinguish between the marches of severall nationes … the ScottishMarche… the Irish march,” …the English march,”

The Scots Brigade in the Swedish service in this same century boasted of its own particular martial music, and in the Thirty Years’ War even the Germans borrowed the Scots March when it suited their tactics to deceive the enemy.~ Precisely the same distinction obtained in Holland, where another Scots Brigade had its individual Scots Duty, and the attempt to suppress it in 1782 led to the Scottish officers resigning their commissions.’

Possibly the same special martial music was heard from the drummers of those Scottish companies established in France in 1590, which became the Regiment d’Hebron in 1634. When this latter regiment absorbed the old Scots Brigade from the Swedish service in 1665, it can be supposed that the famous Scots March, which was actually played by the latter on the very day of the link up, as well as other calls in Scots Duty, became part and parcel of the regiment’s routine. We know for certain that when the corps, as Dumbarton’s Regiment, came to England in i666, it paced to the measure of the Scots March, as the talkative Pepys said the following year, although he thought it “very odde.”⁷

In 1684 Charles II named this regiment The Royal Regiment of Foot, and we know that it enjoyed several privileges, among which Scots Duty, or its equivalent, might have been one. That its customs and discipline pleased James II is proved by a letter of i686 from Tyrconnel to Clarendon, saying: “The Scotch battalion, which is newly come to England, has undone us: the King is so pleased with it that he will have all his forces in the same posture.”‘ Perhaps the music of the Rovals ” also interested this last of the Stuarts. At any rate, the Scots Reveille soon became a feature of British military music in general, and when George I landed at Greenwich in 1714 His Majesty ordered that the Guards should beat the English March and the Scots Reveillez.”

Of what this captivating Scots Duty consisted after the revival of the fife in 1745-7 we know from several sources, and, as I have already hinted, these calls may very well be survivals of what was played in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There are three early collections of these Scottish fife calls which are contained in:

1 – A Compleat Tutor for the Fife…With a Choice Collection of all the Celebrated Marches that are played upon that Instrument. . . . Printed for Da[vi]d Rutherfoord, London (c. i75~55) “

2 – A Complete Tutor for the Fife Containing . . . a Collection of Celebrated March’s & Airs Perform’d in the Guards & Other Regiments. . . . Printed for and Sold by Thompson & Son, London (c. 1759-60)

3 – The Young Drummer’s Assistant, containing necessary Directions and Instructions for beating the English and Scotch Duties… Longman & Broderip, London (1785).

These works contain the fife calls only. The drum beats which accompany four of these calls are found in a manuscript entitled Scotch Duty in the Farmer Collection, Glasgow University Library, which originally belonged to Robert Collins, Fife-Major of the Royal Artillery, 1806-34.

The notated fife calls in print are eight, although under English Duty there is a second Scotch Reveille given, probably the one to which George I listened in 1714 when he stepped ashore at Greenwich. This second Scotch Reveille is even more interesting than the other in Scots, as we shall see presently. In the meantime we must examine the calls of Scots Duty which are named Reveilly: The General.

To Avrns, The Gathering, Grenadiers’ March, Foot March, Retreat, and Taptoo. For their actual significance I have drawn upon the almost contemporary military authority, Thomas Simes, himself a Scot, who has described them in his” Military Guide ” (1778). Here are their meanings

The Reveille (Reveilly), at daybreak, warns the soldiers to rise, and the sentries to cease challenging.

The General is an order for the whole to make ready to march.

The beat To Arnas, is to advertise them to stand to their arms, or to repair to their alarm post, . . . and the picquet-guard assemble where the colours are lodged.

The Gathering, which, in English Duty, is the Assembly, warns the soldiers to repair to their colours.

The March commands them to move. There are two special marches, the Grenadiers’ March and the Foot March. The former is used when the Grenadier Company does particular duties. The latter is used by the other companies.

The Retreat is beat at sunset, for calling over the roll again, to warn the men for duty, and to read the orders for the day. . . . [It is also] to give notice to those without the precincts of barracks or quarters] that the gates are going to be shut, and that they may have time to come in ts soon as the drummers and fifers have finished the Retrreat, which they should not do in less than a quarter of an hour, the Officer must order the barriers and gates to be shut.

“The Ta~loo (Taptoo) is generally beat at 9 (or 10) in the summer, and at 8 (or 9) in the winter. It is performed by the Drum-Major, and all the drummers and fifers. . .The Tattoo is the signal given for the soldiers to retire to their barracks or quarters, to put out their fire and candle, and go to bed, . . . and every man must remain there till Reveille-beating next morning. . . . The public houses are, at the same time [Tattoo beating], to shut their doors, and sell no more liquor that night.”

One of these titles, The Gathering, had a homely touch about it, since it revived a memory of the old clan call. Indeed, other than this occasion, I have only found the above title in the” Pallas Armata” (1683) of Sir James Turner, himself a Scot. Obviously The Gathering was identical with the Assembly of English Duty. The interesting ceremonial which was part of the “pomp and circumstance” of the sprightly Reveille, the sedate Retreat, and the sombre Tattoo, once had an esoteric significance, only appreciated by the older generation of soldiers. To-day they are shorn of much of their military as well as their musical display. Here is the notation of Scots Duty as given in the Glasgow manuscript. Only four items of Scots Duty are to be found therein-the Reveily, the General, the Retreat, and Taptoo, but they have the fundamental drum beats attached, which are denied us elsewhere. The Taptoo given here is identical with the Scotch Reveille of English Duty, and so must belong to an earlier Scots Duty, even prior to I75~60: Why it was turned to a different use we know not. Perhaps it can be explained by a remark in Tamplini’s book, The Fife Major,” where it says, “The tunes to be played at Tattoo time may be chosen optionally.” This was, of course, in the mid-nineteenth century.

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