Royal Stewart

The record gives red as the ground, with dark blue, black, yellow, white and green. A threadcount appears on this record from the Tartan Dictionary, R/36 DB4 K6 Y1 K1 W1 K1 G8 R4 K1 R2 W/1, and the page draws the sett from it. The register's own count is behind a login and was not read, so the dictionary is the source for the sett shown.

The register adds that early samples show interchangeable use of blue shades, so the blue is not as fixed as the other colours in the early record.

The register says the sett appears in Wilsons of Bannockburn records from around 1800 under the name Royal Stewart. How it came about is unclear, and the register treats stories of a late eighteenth-century origin or of use at the 1745 rising as unproven and probably myth.

Wikipedia, as a pointer, says the sett was first published in 1831 in James Logan's The Scottish Gaël. If that is right, it would be the earliest printed record, though it is secondary and not checked here against the book.

The royal link comes from 1822. The register says George IV wore the tartan during his visit to Scotland that year and that Queen Victoria then adopted it for the royal family. The register's c. 1800 date for the Wilsons record is earlier than that visit.

Later, according to the register, George V tried to restrict the tartan to royalty but gave up because it had become a popular fashion tartan, and the Balmoral pattern was reserved for royal use instead. The register does not give dates for those steps.

The dress version, Stewart Dress, is dated by the register to about 1850 and linked to the 1842 Vestiarium Scoticum.

The register's name is Stewart, Royal, and Royal Stuart is the alternative spelling. The register and its sources use both Stewart and Stuart.

Balmoral is a different tartan. The register's note and the kiltmaker Kinloch Anderson both say it, not Royal Stewart, is the royal-only one.

The Stewarts' association is a family one and a royal one. Royal Stewart is the best-known Stewart tartan, but the Stewart Society notes that clan members have others, including dress versions, so this tartan is not the only Stewart pattern. A Stewart surname does not make it yours, and wearing it does not require one.

The register notes the tartan became popular as a fashion tartan, which is why George V's restriction failed. Wikipedia, as a pointer, adds that the pipers of the Black Watch, Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and Scots Guards wear it, that Jackie Stewart wore a band of it on his racing helmet in the 1960s, and that punk fashion adopted it in the late 1970s. Those uses are secondary claims and not checked here.

Three sources date this tartan in three ways, and they do not strictly agree.

• The Scottish Register of Tartans gives about 1800, from Wilsons of Bannockburn records under the name Royal Stewart.
• The Stewart Society says the pattern was "known at the end of the 18th century" and first appeared in print in James Logan's The Scottish Gael of 1831, and that early samples show the blue as a light azure.
• Wikipedia, as a pointer, gives 1831 as the first formal documentation and attaches the Stewart name to the sett retrospectively.

These can all be true together. A weaver's record of about 1800 and a printed plate of 1831 are different events, and neither shows that the Stewarts used the pattern before a weaver sold it. What none of them supplies is a Stewart chief or the royal household choosing it before 1822. The Stewart Society and Wikipedia both name the 1822 visit of George IV as the moment the tartan became royal.

One wording difference is worth knowing. The Stewart Society's page speaks of the personal tartan of Her Majesty the Queen, which reflects when it was written. Wikipedia now names King Charles III. The tartan belongs to the monarch of the day and the title on the page changes with the reign.

Wikipedia, as a pointer, says permission from the monarch is theoretically required to wear Royal Stewart, and quotes the Scottish Register of Tartans as saying that in practice, because of its popularity, it has become a universal tartan that anyone without a clan tartan of their own may wear. The register's own record, read for this page, gives the George V episode instead: an attempt to restrict the tartan to royalty that was dropped because the tartan had become a fashion cloth.

The two accounts agree on the result. There is no enforced rule, the tartan sold widely, and the one pattern that was reserved for royal use is Balmoral. The older theory that permission is still formally needed is a tradition, not a law, and the register says no law governs what tartan a person wears.

Two register entries show how far the Stewart name travels beyond the clan.

• Racing Stewart (SRT 2306, Corporate) was designed by Kinloch Anderson Ltd on 1 August 1995 "for Jackie Stewart's Formula One motor racing team". The register marks it as restricted to that corporate use and records that a woven sample is held by the National Records of Scotland. This is the only Stewart pattern read for this page that is formally restricted, and the restriction is by a company, not by any royal rule.
• Hay Stewart (SRT 1850, Name) was designed by Wilsons of Bannockburn and dated 1838. The register describes it as like the Victoria Stewart pattern with a double red overcheck on the white, and notes a letter of 1938 saying it was probably designed by or for the Sobieski Stuart brothers.

Both are separate setts with their own numbers. A cloth labelled with a Stewart-sounding name should be matched by register number before anyone assumes it is Royal Stewart.