Singularly enough, scarlet was early adopted among the grim Scottish Covenanters. At the battle of Kilsythe, where Montrose routed their troops with great slaughter, we find that "the red-coat musketeers" were cut to pieces by Viscount Aboyne and his Gordons. It may be worth mentioning here that the chequer on the bonnets of our Highland regiments was first adopted by the clans under Montrose, as significant of the _fess-cheque_ of the House of Stuart. The great Marquis wore scarlet at his barbarous execution in Edinburgh, in 1650; and in the course of that year we find Sir James Balfour recording, in his "Memorialls of Church and Staite," that an English ship was made a prize by the Scots, who found in her "eleven hundred elles of broad clothe, seven hundred suites of made clothes, and als many _read cottes_, 250 carabines, 500 muskets, with powder and matches," being supplies for the troops of Cromwell, several of whose regiments appear, however, to have been clad in blue. Balfour, at this period, mentions on several occasions the "four-tailled" coats of the Scottish infantry and artillery, which must have been something like the old Highland doublet now worn by our Highland corps. At the Restoration, when forces were established in England and Scotland, each country having its separate guards, line, and artillery, scarlet was the colour almost uniformly adopted, save in one instance, when the King clothed in blue, faced with red, the Royal Regiment of English Horse Guards, which was embodied on the 26th August, 1661, under Aubrey, Earl of Oxford. These colours it still retains; but a corps of marines raised about the same time, oddly enough, wore yellow coats--the old Dutch uniform.* * William III. had a regiment of Dutch Horse in London, styled the Blue Horse Guards; they returned to Holland on the 20th March, 1689, after which the present Oxford Blues got that appellation permanently. On the 2nd April in the same year, 1661, the Scottish Life Guards rode through the city of Edinburgh "in gallant order," says Nicol the Diarist, "their carbines upon their saddles, and swords drawn in their hands. It pleased His Majesty to clothe their trumpeters and the master of the kettle-drum in very rich apparel." Colours were presented, and soon after the King gave to each gentleman a buff coat. In February, 1683, General Sir Thomas Dalzell obtained from the Privy Council at Edinburgh a licence permitting the manufacturers at Newmills "to import 2536 ells of _stone-grey_ cloth from England," for his dragoon regiment, the _Scots Greys_, which had been raised two years before--hence their costume, as well as their grey horses, may have led to their present well-known appellation. This grey cloth cost five shillings an ell.