Author: Alan Radford

Orders of the Day, Volume 35, Issue 2, Apr/May 2003

The bagpipe was a good marching instrument used by the English, Swedes, Germans and French. Indeed, Kastner in Manuel General de Musique Militaire of 1848 states that the French originally borrowed it from the English. The earliest record of the military use of the bagpipe in Scotland is at the Battle of Balrinnes (1594).

When Edward III defeated the Scots at Hallidon Hill in 1331:

“This was do with merry sowne
With pipes, trompes and tabers thereto
And loud clarionnes thei blew also.”

When the King entered Calais in triumph in 1347 music was played upon ‘trompes, de tambours, de nacaires, de chalemies et de muses’ to greet him. ‘Muses’ is a contraction of ‘cornemuses’, the French name for bagpipes.

In the infantry reorganised by Gustavus Adolphus, according to Fortescue’s History of the British Army, each company was allotted three pipers and three drummers.

Military use of the bagpipe in England started a slow decline with the Restoration, but its use did persist for some considerable time. In 1674 Peter Vanhausen was appointed to instruct a man in each company of the King’s Regiment of Foot Guards in the use of the bagpipe. Sir James Turner in Pallas Armata (1683) says, “In some places a piper is allowed to each company; the Germans have him, and I look upon their pipe as a warlike instrument. The bagpipe is good enough musick for them who love it; but sure it is not so good as the Almain Whistle (fife). With us any captain may keep a piper in his company, and maintain him too, for no pay is allowed him, perhaps just as much as he deserveth.” Obviously Turner was not a great fan of the bagpipe, but he certainly testifies to its military use in late seventeenth century England.