A.D. 1370.—The arms of Winchester School, founded in 1370, show an angel playing a bagpipe, and a silver-mounted crosier, presented by the founder to the New College, Oxford, has among other figures that of an angel playing the bagpipe. Some enthusiast might surely have adduced the frequent connections of the instrument with angels as proof of its sacred origin. A.D. 1377.—One “claryoner,” two trumpeters, and four pipers were attached to the fleet of Richard, Earl of Arundel (Richard II). The bagpipe often appears in the English sculpture of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and, of course, very frequently later. A.D. 1380.—There are no English literary references to the pipes till the time of Chaucer, when the poet makes the miller in the _Canterbury Tales_ play on the instrument:— “A baggepipe wel cowde he blowe and sowne, And therewithal he broughte us out of towne.” So it seems that the company of pilgrims left London, accompanied by the strains of the bagpipe. It must have been in fairly general use, else the poet would not have worked it into his composition, but there are no means of discovering how long before this it had been in favour in England. A.D. 1390.—At the battle between the clans Quhale and Chattan on the North Inch of Perth, Rev. James Mac Kenzie tells us in his _History of Scotland_, which is generally accepted as authoritative, the clans “stalked into the barriers to the sound of their own great war pipes.” A.D. 1400.—The bagpipe is supposed to have been first used officially in war in Britain at the beginning of the fifteenth century, quickly superseding the war-song of the bards. A.D. 1406–37.—James I. of Scotland played on the “chorus,” a word which some interpret as meaning the bagpipe. Besides we are also told that he played on “the tabour, the bagpipes, the organ, the flute, the harp, the trumpet, and the shepherd’s reed.” He must have been a versatile monarch. If he really wrote _Peblis to the Play_, the fact proves that if he did not play the pipes he was quite familiar with their existence, for he says:— “With that Will Swane came smeitand out, Ane meikle miller man, Gif I sall dance have done, lat se Blow up the bagpype than.” And also in another place:— “The bag pipe blew and they outhrew Out of the townis untald.” Except that he gives us the first really authentic historical Scottish reference to the pipes, King James and his connection with the music is rather a puzzling subject. A.D. 1409.—What is believed to be the oldest authentic specimen of the bagpipe now existing is that in the possession of Messrs. J. & R. Glen, of Edinburgh, which bears the date 1409. Except that it wants the large drone, which was added at the beginning of the eighteenth century, it is very much the Highland pipe of the present day. The following is a description of the instrument:—