Quote Originally Posted by jfellrath
I got a copy of So You're Going To Wear The Kilt for my latest anniversary and in it, the author states that clans were more likely to be wearing some sort of foliage in their balmoral's pin that would designate their clan than a particular tartan. Could the term "sprigged" actually refer to a sprig of some plant?
The plant badge of Grant is pine, and that's hard to reconcile with red and green. In any event, the full text of the rescript specifies that they be _dressed_ in "red and green broad springed". "Broad springed", incidentally, meant broad, as opposed to narrow, areas of red and green.

The plant badges were the way that they distinguished friend from foe, though. The rescript of 1704 is one of the very earliest instances of everybody being supposed to wear the same colors (not actually the same exact tartan). (I seem to recall that there is a single earlier account of all a Chiefs men wearing the same tartan, but I can't cite chapter and verse.) In any event, it never caught on before the proscription. In fact, nobody blinked when someone wore _different_ patterns for kilt, plaid, waistcoat and jacket. Your foe might be wearing the same tartan as you, if he had similar tastes, and your friends might be wearing different one. The badge you could rely on, barring cheating.

Will Pratt