The Three Kingdoms Backsword Tradition and the Origins of the Highland Broadsword Manuals
By Christopher Scott Thompson
Sometimes solving a puzzle is just not possible until you get enough of the pieces on the table to get a glimpse of the whole picture. So it is with the "Highland Broadsword" controversy, the question of why so many broadsword manuals in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century are described as "Highland Broadsword," "Scotch Broadsword" or the "Scotch Method," and whether or not there is actually any Highland connection to the methods in question. There has been a lot of skepticism about this point. As J. Cristoph Amberger writes of the fencing master Henry Angelo, who published "The Guards and Lessons of the Highland Broadsword" in 1799:
It has to be pointed out that Harry Angelo's training was in the French tradition of the Art of Fencing, focusing strongly on the smallsword and foil, supplemented with a dose of English singlestick play.
The first question is, do we have any evidence as to where and when Angelo himself might have been exposed to methods of singlestick play, and the answer is yes. His own memoirs show that he had a Scottish friend as a regular sparring partner, training with him in (of all places) Newgate Prison:
I have passed many pleasant days in Newgate. My old friend, James Perry, of the Morning Chronicle, who was confined there some months for a libel, was always glad to see me, so that I often partook his fortune de pot, enjoying ourselves, whilst many a distressed object, under the same roof, was loaded with fetters, and perhaps the very next hour might bring his death warrant. We often went to the top of the prison, as he found exercise very necessary for preserving his health, his apartment being confined, far different to the incarceration of my clerical friend in the Bench, for every body knows, that in that prison there is plenty of space to play at racket, which serves for an amusement, as well as to improve the health. Often we mounted the top of the prison there; nobody could see us where we were on the leads, and we amused ourselves, secure from being seen, with playing the Highland broadsword, at which he was very expert, being his favourite national diversion; and often I have seen him at the masquerade, dressed in the true costume of a Highlander, with a party of Scotch lassies, dancing Scotch reels.
This would have been in 1798, when Perry (owner of the Morning Chronicle and native of Aberdeen) was in prison for libeling the House of Lords. This is the very same year that Henry Angelo began publishing his Highland broadsword posters.
According to J. D. Aylward, Angelo's "Highand Broadsword" was "a study of the single-stick play then still popular with the lower classes." Angelo's actual sparring partner, however, was a Scotsman, and both of them seem to have understood that what they were doing was called "Highland Broadsword" and that the use of this weapon was in some sense the "national diversion" of the Scots. Angelo’s "dose of English singlestick play" seems to have actually been a dose of Scottish singlestick play.
This is not to argue that the Angelo broadsword system is uniquely Scottish. The Ten Lessons of John Taylor, Angelo's predecessor as broadsword instructor to the Light Horse Volunteers of London and Westminster, are 80-90% identical to the ten Highland Broadsword lessons Angelo taught to the same regiment and published in his posters.
So why did Angelo refer to his lessons as "Highland Broadsword"? The answer to the riddle lies in what is not said. He doesn't say "I used to fence Highland Broadsword with James Perry in Newgate Prison, and it was rather different from what John Taylor taught in his ten lessons."
Nor does Taylor (or whoever wrote the "Taylor" broadsword manual) treat his system as being something different from Highland broadsword. He paraphrases the earlier Highland Broadsword manual of Thomas Page rather extensively, and refers to him as "an able writer on this science." He draws other material from Anti-Pugilism, the broadsword manual of Captain G. Sinclair of the Black Watch Highland Regiment.
There is no hint in these works that the authors are talking about two completely separate systems- an English broadsword/saber system and a more exotic "Highland Broadsword" system. There is rather the sense of there being a single system of cut and thrust fencing, using a basket-hilted weapon the name of which is the "Highland Broadsword." The same method is also taught for use with curved sabers and even cutlasses, but the term "Highland Broadsword" is still retained for the name of the system as a whole, as if this weapon is seen as the defining or essential cut and thrust weapon to which all others have reference.
This is the first major point in my hypothesis- the name refers to the weapon first ("this is the type of sword associated with the Highlanders") then secondarily to the method of cut and thrust fencing in general, which has taken on that name because the weapon is seen as defining the entire cut and thrust genre.
The authors of the manuals also do seem to be saying that this weapon and its use are particularly associated with the Scots. Otherwise Angelo wouldn't refer to Highland broadsword as Perry's "national diversion," nor would "Roworth" refer to broadsword fencing as the "Scotch Method." However, they do not seem to be saying that the Scots are using it with an entirely different method than the English. Otherwise "Taylor" would not refer to Page (who is unique in actually saying that he teaches the method of the Highlanders themselves) as "an able writer on this science," nor would Angelo refer to what his friend Perry is doing and what his predecessor John Taylor was teaching by the exact same name.
Was this weapon always referred to as the "Highland broadsword"? The answer is no. Technically, a broadsword and a backsword are slightly different, but for all practical purposes they are the exact same weapon- a basket-hilted cut and thrust sword. English, Scottish and Irish masters prior to the 1790s generally used the term "back sword" as the name of the weapon, although some did call it a "broad sword." They did not treat the weapon itself as being uniquely Highland or Scottish.
Englishman George Hale's Private School of Defence of 1614 refers to this weapon as the "Backe-Sword." The English fencing master Joseph Swetnam in 1617 calls it a "Backe-Sword." Zachary Wylde's English Master of Defence of 1711 refers to it as a "Broad-Sword." Scottish fencing master Sir William Hope calls it a "Back-Sword" in 1707. Scottish Highlander Donald McBane refers to it as a "back sword" in 1728. Andrew Lonergan- who, based on his name, was most likely Irish- refers to it as a "Back-Sword" in 1771.
Even Thomas Page, in his The Use of the Broad Sword; In which is shown, The True Method of Fighting with that Weapon as it is now in Use among the Highlanders of 1746, does not refer to the weapon as a "Highland broadsword" but simply as a "Broad Sword," although he does say that the Highlanders are particularly good at using it:
No Modern Nation has arriv'd at such Perfection in the Use of this Weapon as the Scots: and amongst Them the Highlanders are most expert. From their Youth they are Train'd to it, and with the Addition of the Roman Target, they excell in the Roman Method of Fighting; having invented a great many Throws, Cuts and Guards, unknown to the Roman Gladiators.
Page's odd reference to the Romans here can be more confusing than it really needs to be. All he seems to be saying is that the Highlanders specialize in the use of the target or targe, a small round shield (which he seems to associate with the Roman gladiators). This specialization is an important point, to which we shall return.
The Highland Officer, aka Captain G. Sinclair of the Black Watch Highland Regiment, calls it a "Broad Sword or Cut and Thrust" in 1790, but echoes Page's statement associating the Highlanders with skill in its use:
My countrymen, the Highlanders, have, from time immemorial, evinced the utility of the Broad Sword; and, by their skillful management of it in the day of battle, have gained immortal honour. Such has been the effect of their dexterity and knowledge of this weapon, that undisciplined crowds have made a stand against, nay, and have defeated a regular army.
Archibald MacGregor (clearly a Highlander or of Highland background), refers to the weapon as a "Broad Sword" in 1791.
It is only with Henry Angelo's Guards and Lessons of the Highland Broadsword and Hungarian and Highland Broadsword of 1798-1799 that we actually start to see the term "Highland Broadsword" being used by the fencing masters. Then we have Roworth's reference to a "Scotch Method" of using the "Broad Sword" in 1804, followed by Fencing Familiarized: Or a New Treatise on the Art of the Scotch Broadsword by Thomas Mathewson from 1805. Mathewson lists several sword masters with Highland names as his teachers, including Serjeant-major Grant of the 42nd Foot (the Black Watch), Mr. Campbell of Glasgow, Mr. MacLean of Galloway, and Mr. MacGregor of Paisley. The last named may actually have been Archibald MacGregor.
This brief survey of terminology allows us to trace a series of stages:
What this argues is that the perception of the basket-hilted weapon changed over time, beginning during the final Jacobite rebellion. Prior to that time, England, Scotland and Ireland (the "three kingdoms") had shared the tradition of the stage gladiators. As MacGregor tells us:
Those gladiators (vulgarly called bullies) used to travel from one place to another, challenging whole armies, towns and cities to produce a man who would fight them. There is a tradition to this day among us, that when any of these gladiators came to a place, the people were obliged to give so much money, or produce a man to fight them with the sword. With regard to their demand, and the town or city being obliged to comply with it, I will not take upon me to assert the truth of it at present, having never been furnished with materials to solve this tradition. But, be that as it will, ‘tis a certain fact they were allowed to go about in the manner I have described, and no doubt but it was in order to create emulation and spirit in people to learn the art of defence. I have conversed with people, who were none of the oldest, that remembered of seeing many of these gladiators fight upon stages all over the three kingdoms. From these circumstances it would appear that ‘tis not above fifty years since such practices were abolished.
If MacGregor's sources are correct, the custom of prizefighting with the backsword was dying out in the 1740s and was just a memory by 1791. Page, writing in 1746, describes the custom as still being alive, but after describing what he calls "The Broad Sword, Offensive and Defensive, after the Manner of The Highlanders," he goes on to say:
The Gladiator upon the Stage is very exact in these Lessons, and generally plays an exact round of them with little or no Variation
In other words, the "Highland" method he has just described to us is the same method used by the stage gladiators! Is this seemingly contradictory claim born out by other evidence?
The surviving backsword manuals from that era do describe the same broad method, whether English, Scottish or Irish. Two manuals in particular, however- McBane's and Lonergan's- describe methods with clear similarities to Page's system. Both McBane and Lonnergan use the same circular footwork pattern based on the alternating use of in-line (or "narrow") and square (or "wide") stances, and both of them have the left hand held behind the body on the narrow stances and in front of the body on the wide stances. Attacking on the traverse while changing between these stances allows the swordsman to make powerful cuts delivered by a rotation at the center of the body rather than the elbow or wrist alone. This is Page's "Equilibrio" principle, and while neither McBane nor Lonnergan apply it in the exact same way as Page, they both do apply it.
So, we have Page telling us that his method is the method of the Highlanders, and then telling us in the next breath that it is the method of the stage gladiators. We have McBane (a Highlander and a stage gladiator) describing the use of the same "Equilibrio" principle (although he describes it in much vaguer terms) and we have Lonnergan (possibly an Irishman, as many of the stage gladiators were) using the same principle as well. Vestiges of this principle can be seen in the Highland Officer's Anti-Pugilism of 1790, where the hanging guard is held on a wide stance with the left hand in front of the body, while the inside guard is held on a narrow stance with the left hand behind the body, even though this is no longer used to power the cuts as in Page's Equilibrio.
Mathewson, a student of Highland broadsword masters, uses an even more vestigial version of the Equilibrio, where the inside guard is in-line with the left hand behind the body while the outside guard is held with the right foot just slightly off-line (a bare hint at the "wide" stance) with the left hand on the hip. Angelo does not use this concept at all.
Considering that the one source we have that claims to give us "the method of the Highlanders" makes use of this Equilibrio principle, while our sources written by Highlanders, those with Highland instructors or (possibly) Irishmen apply it in either closely related or vestigial forms, it is possible that the Equilibrio concept was a distinguishing feature of Gaelic swordsmanship. This cannot, however, be established with confidence. It is also possible that it was simply a concept used and taught by some stage gladiators and backsword/broadsword masters, whether Highland or not, but not by all of them.
Other than the issue of the Equilibrio, it is clear that there was a common tradition of cut and thrust swordsmanship practiced throughout the British Isles, and that expert swordsmen in England, Scotland and Ireland thought of themselves as teaching and practicing essentially the same system, which we can refer to for convenience as the "Three Kingdoms Backsword Tradition" or TKBT for short.
When the stage gladiators began to fade away after the 1740s, people began to associate this system and its primary weapon with the Scottish Highlanders. Why? Because the Highland Regiments still used the weapon to some extent, and also because the Jacobite rebellions had made a very powerful impression- it is surely no coincidence that this method begins to be associated with the Highlanders in 1746, during the final Jacobite rebellion. It is not that the TKBT was originally Highland (although it was just as Highland as it was English or Irish) but that the Highlanders held on to it longest. They were possibly also (based on the Highland Officer's and Mathewson's vestiges of the Equilibrio, and on the Highland Officer's use of one of George Silver's guard positions) unusually conservative, retaining archaic features of the TKBT longer than most of the English masters did.
Page does use a few ambiguous phrases, though, suggesting that there is a little bit more to the story. After telling us that his "Highland" method is the same method used by the stage gladiators, he goes on to say:
But the Highlanders in the Field make use of but a few of those Principles; but having another Instrument of defence turns his Sword chiefly to the Offensive Part, the outside and inside Throws are the Principle Offensive Uses of his Weapon; whilst he receives every Cut from his Adversary upon his Target which is a Shield fixt upon his Left Arm
.In other words, the Highlanders in battlefield combat don't really use the method he has already described as such, because they parry with the target and use the sword for offense. In describing the sword and targe methods of the Highlanders, he says:
We come now to the Method us'd by the modern Highlanders, Fighting with the Sword which is founded upon the Rules and Lessons already given; from which it differs only by making use of a Target upon the Left Arm, as was before observ'd...
This clarifies the picture. The Highland method of sword and targe is indeed the same art that Page has just told us was used by the stage gladiators (it is " founded upon the Rules and Lessons already given") but it differs somewhat due to the use of the targe.
We come here to an interesting point. There is some evidence that the typical Highland warrior of the elite class was trained only in the sword and targe, and that only professional champions such as stage gladiators could also use the sword alone. The story of Ronald of the Shield actually says as much:
An English dragoon who had been taken prisoner, mocking the Highlanders for relying on the target, proposed a challenge. He would fight a single combat against the best sword and target man in Montrose's army, armed with the broadsword alone. He must have been confident enough in his skill, as the wager was to be for his liberty or his life.
"Man, do you think any Highlander would take such an advantage in fighting you?" was Ronald's reply. "I have not been taught to use the sword without a target, but I will fight you dirk and target against your sword, which puts the advantage on your side."
The Augustinian Priory of Dungiven in Northern Ireland was a monastic college at which the monks taught both the classical liberal arts of medieval learning and the art of the sword and targe to the children of the Highland chiefs:
To the seminary of Doon-even were sent the youth of both sexes, from the most respectable families in Ireland for education; for among the many others with which our nation abounded, it had acquired a high character, as well for the purity of its learning as the beneficence of the family that patronized it. The first abbot that presided here was Paul O'Murray, a man deeply read in the learning of the times, and well acquainted with the fathers: under him were educated many of the Scottish M'Donnells, which was the principal cause of establishing a lasting friendship between them and the O'Cahans. The students here were daily instructed in the use of the broad-sword and targe...
Note that only the sword and targe is mentioned, with nothing of the single sword. Although the memoirs of Donald MacLeod are a questionable source, his description of his own training also refers only to the sword and targe. The phrase employed in his memoirs, that he spent his time "training up himself, by cudgel-playing, to the use and management of the broad-sword and target," implies that his study of the weapon was informal- probably carried out in the back yard with his older cousins, helped along by the occasional pointer from a nearby adult. Surrounded by warriors who had lived through battles and duels, and with plenty of fencing partners, a Highlander of the warrior class would have had every opportunity to build genuine skill despite being taught informally.
Many of the Filipino weapon arts were taught that way until the present generation, with students being expected to absorb the principles of the art through imitation of more experienced fighters and the occasional hint or tip from one's elders. It is only in the current generation that some of these arts have been formalized into systems with a pedagogical structure, even though the principles and strategies from which those structures have been derived were actually present in the art all along.
We know that formal schools of swordsmanship were maintained by some chieftains, such as the school of Stuart of Ardshiel. We know that some warriors sought out private instruction from renowned broadsword masters, as M'Comie Mor (chief of the MacThomases of Glenshee) was said to have done. And it seems to be fairly well established that professional broadsword champions and stage gladiators would have been fully conversant in the broad tradition we're referring to as the TKBT, even if there were regional variations such as the Equilibrio.
However, the average clan warrior of the elite class was not a professional champion, and would quite possibly have learned his art almost entirely through rough-and-tumble sparring with his peers using cudgels and targes, helped along by the occasional tip from an interested elder: "Don't do it that way, you'll get killed! Here, do it like this..."
This brings me to the next point of my hypothesis. Dr. Milo Thurston of the Linacre School of Defence has suggested that Page may have been a skilled backsword fencer who heard second-hand accounts of Highland sword use, and then developed the sword and targe material in his book based on what he heard. My suggestion is slightly different.
I propose that Page may have met a Highland soldier at some point in his life, possibly only briefly. As Page was a backsword fencer trained in the TKBT, he would have been very curious about how the Highlander used his sword and targe. Not being a professional champion or instructor, the Highlander couldn't give a full account of the principles. Instead he showed Page a few of his personal favorite techniques and tricks, in the sort of exchange-of-ideas conversation that martial artists of different styles have always enjoyed. This would explain why the targe sections of Page's manual read like a collection of random tricks rather than a system.
As a backsword fencer, Page would have felt fully confident to describe whatever techniques and tricks he may have been shown, especially as they would not have been from a completely separate tradition but a closely related regional variation. Even though he was not given the underlying logic or principles of the sword and targe, these are still present in the techniques themselves and may be deduced by careful study.
There is one other feature of the Highland Broadsword systems that merits close attention, because it was described at the time by more than one writer as being a characteristically Highland tactic- and because it is also the defining tactic of Angelo’s supposedly "English" Highland Broadsword system.
This tactic is described in a fascinating tale of a prize-fight with a wandering stage gladiator in a book called Tales of My Grandmother by Archibald Crawfurd, which is a collection of short fiction based on Scottish folk-tales known to the author:
As Davie, at this period, was one day proceeding to his labour, he observed the town-crier making a proclamation, that on that afternoon a fencing-master would display, on a public stage, his method of attack and defence, and all lovers of that noble art were invited to come and witness the science which was to be displayed; and that he would with broad sword or rapier, for five gold nobles, try an exchange of hits with any native of this realm. Davie felt himself not a little interested, and at the hour appointed he mingled with the crowd, merely with the intention of being a spectator at this trial of skill.
Davie was aware, at such a scene as this, that both courtier and plebeian would be present; he therefore thought, that his humble grinding attire which he wore at his labour would best suit the occasion, for fear of again coming in contact with the Laird of Brodie’s butler.
The hour at last arrived, and Lieutenant Lugar made his appearance. After haranguing the mob which surrounded the stage for a considerable time, and again repeating the challenge, no one appeared to contend for the five gold nobles.
At this period, John of Middleburgh vaulted on the stage; Lugar then informed them, this gentleman was a Knight of Malta, a friend of his own, and that they would make play, to give time for some gallant to come forward willing to contend for the prize.
Lugar and John of Middleburgh now set to with rapiers, displaying some little activity, after the manner of these Bear Garden heroes, giving and taking of few hits; and they received abundance of applause. After which, Lugar again harangued them, ordering the town-crier to make proclamation again, saying "That the prize purse was the gift of that noble gallant who had just left the stage; therefore, it was only risking a little blood, or perhaps a limb, for five gold nobles; and hoped, for the honour of the gay gallants of this city, that some one would come forward to contend for the palm of victory. '
No one appearing to enter the lists with the fencing-master, he now made a few flourishes and hits at a post which rose from one angle of the stage, on which hung the purse which contained the gold. He was about to take it down, when a voice from among the crowd shouted "Hooly, my friend, you and I maun hae twa words anent that first. You see, lathies, I wad be laith to reap your hearst field, sae dinna blame me; for if there's ony o ye wad like to try your hand, I'll surely make way for you."
"Well said, Aberdeen !" shouted the mob, who had now found a hero to contend with the fencing-master in our old acquaintance Davie Garrie. When Davie was lifted upon the stage, the whole mob burst into loud laughter at poor Davie's squalid figure, for poverty and hard labour had made its impression upon his form.
"Some o' you, lathies, maun len' me a Ferrara, for mere chance brought me here. I could never dreamt o' getting in my hand, whan sae monie brave gallants war at hand."
"Bravely spoke," shouted the crowd, when a dozen of swords were handed up for Davie to make choice, when, after trying one or two, and shaking the blade, he returned the others to the owners. Davie now threw himself into an attitude, saying, " Come away, an' let us see wha the gold belongs to."
The fencing-master by this time began to discover his old friend, who had disarmed him in the shop of Earwind; he, therefore, began to demur about the degree of genteelity of Davie's family; but this was overruled by the mob, as the challenge was a general one.
"An wha kens," was exclaimed by the mob, "but the sword-slipper may be as guid a man as the sword-wearer." Lugar, therefore, had no method of retreat left with any degree of honour. The combatants therefore set to, the fencing-master discovering no little caution in all his movements. Davie Garrie was a much more expert swordsman; and there is one movement in the broad-sword exercise gives it a superiority over all others, which is the movement of the advanced leg, which had been neglected in Lugar's Backsword and Bear Garden education. Had Davie been inclined, he could have made minced meat of the fencing- master. He, however, had only applied the broadside of his blade, which brought the applause of the crowd with loud shouts, which so provoked the master of defence, that in his rage he became furious.
Davie now thought he had humbled this vain boaster enough; and again applying his old favourite trick, he made Lugar's sword twirl into the air, as if it had been shot out of an air-bolt.
"Bravely done," shouted the mob. "Well done, Aberdeen !" shouted another;" he maun put on his gloves when he claws wi the cat;" with a thousand other attempts at plebeian wit, while Davie took his five nobles from the post ; and it was with no little difficulty that he could shake off his numerous new made friends, which his success and cool bravery had created him.
According to this tale: "there is one movement in the broad-sword exercise gives it a superiority over all others, which is the movement of the advanced leg, which had been neglected in Lugar's Backsword and Bear Garden education."
The "movement of the advanced leg" would seem to refer to the tactic of slipping or shifting the lead leg, a defining characteristic of the later Regimental Highland Broadsword systems such as that of Henry Angelo (although not unknown in other systems of course).
Normally, no distinction is drawn between the backsword and the broadsword in terms of method, but this anecdote does draw such a distinction. The "Bear Garden" was where the London backsword masters fought their prizes, and the story specifically says that this tactic of slipping the lead leg was "neglected in Lugar's Backsword and Bear Garden education." This does not imply that the Bear Garden backsword players were completely unfamiliar with this tactic (which is, after all, found in nearly all systems of swordplay) but that they were unfamiliar with the near-constant use of this tactic in the broadsword exercise.
The tale also describes this tactic as the "one movement in the broad-sword exercise (that) gives it a superiority over all others". The hero of this tale seems to be an Aberdeen man, based on the reaction of the mob to his victory ("Bravely done," shouted the mob. "Well done, Aberdeen !" shouted another). The weapon Davie asks for is a "Ferrara," which refers to a Highland Broadsword.
James Logan, in "The Scottish Gael," mentions that even in the 1830s the youths of Aberdeen excelled at singlestick play. Interestingly, Henry Angelo’s broadsword sparring partner was also an Aberdeen man, and Angelo’s training with this man occurred in the same year that he published his Highland Broadsword posters. The defining tactic of the Angelo broadsword system is to slip the lead leg with every parry, rather than only slipping when the leg is attacked.
Taking all these points together, there seems to be some implication that slipping the lead leg frequently was a known feature of Aberdeen Highland Broadsword play, and was seen as something that distinguished it from English Backsword play. It is unclear how this figures in with other factors such as the Le Marchant broadsword manual (which also uses this tactic) or with the ten lessons of John Taylor, but some connection to the Angelo Highland Broadsword method does seem to be implied. We know so little about John Taylor that it is even possible that his broadsword lessons (which are found only in the so-called "Taylor" manual, written most likely by someone in Angelo’s circle) were originally taught to Taylor by Angelo and not the other way around. It may be- although this is speculation- that the Ten Lessons of Angelo derive from his Aberdeen training partner James Perry, and that they represent the only surviving record of the Aberdeen Highland Broadsword school.
As supporting evidence, consider also this passage from James Grant’s The Romance of War, a novel from 1849:
In the fashion of the Highland swordsman, he placed forward his right foot with a long stride, presenting it as a tempting object for a blow, while he narrowly watched the eye of his adversary, who instantly dealt a sweeping stroke at the defenceless limb, which the young Gael withdrew with the rapidity of light, bestowing at the same time a blow on the conde, which broke the shell of his Toledo and wounded his right hand severely.
Although this is a later and completely fictional source (as opposed to the Garrie story, which was fiction based on oral tradition) it does support the idea that the slipping of the lead leg, which is such a defining feature of the Angelo system, was perceived as a characteristically Highland technique.
To sum up my conclusions:
Is it legitimate to describe the late 18th-century and early 19th century "Highland Broadsword" manuals by that term?
Yes. The term refers primarily to the weapon itself, which had come to be known by that name because the Highland Regiments continued to use it after the decline of the stage gladiator tradition.
Did Highlanders actually use and teach the Regimental Highland Broadsword systems of that era?
Yes. These systems were taught and used in the Highland Regiments such as the Black Watch, and by Highlanders in other regiments as well. (Charles Metcalfe MacGregor, a Highlander and an expert swordsman who fought in the Sepoy Mutiny, was a student of the Angelos.) Highland fencing masters and retired soldiers were seen as experts in the broadsword by English swordsmen of the late 18th-century and early 19th century, and were sought out for instruction in some cases. According to Mathewson, Highland Societies were still granting the ranks of Master and Scholar in this art as of 1805.
Were these systems uniquely Highland in some way?
Broadly speaking, no. They were a late survival of a common British Isles tradition I refer to as the "Three Kingdoms Backsword Tradition." To describe this TKBT as Scottish, English or Irish would be inaccurate, because it was common to all three kingdoms. However, regional variations on the TKBT may well have existed.
Was there anything different about the Highland use of the broadsword?
There seem to have been regional variations in the TKBT unique to the Gaels, and the Equilibrio may be one example. There is some evidence that Highland swordsmen may have been more conservative, retaining archaic techniques longer than the English. Also, there is some evidence that the average Highland clan warrior may have been trained informally in the sword and targe alone, with only expert professional swordsmen receiving formal instruction in the single broadsword. The tactic of slipping the lead leg frequently was seen as a particularly Highland way of using the broadsword, and was also the defining feature of Henry Angelo’s Highland Broadsword system.
Does Page's system represent a genuine Highland tradition?
Most likely yes, in the sense that Highlanders would have fought in a way recognizably similar to what Page describes. However, his system is not really uniquely Highland; it is a version of the TKBT with some specifically Highland features such as the focus on the targe and (possibly) the Equilibrio. It is reasonable to think that the sword and targe techniques described by Page were actually learned from a Highlander in an informal context, and that they display (even though they do not explain) the sword and targe principles used by the Highland warriors.
This explanation provides an account for all of the available information without forcing us to hypothesize a lost "genuine Highland broadsword system" for which there is no evidence, and without forcing us to ignore the fact that these systems were referred to as "Highland" in their own era without any contradiction from Highland broadsword fencers. These methods were used by the Highlanders, but not only by the Highlanders, and the basket-hilted broadsword came to be associated with the Highlanders so strongly because they kept using it after it had become archaic in England. The tactic of slipping the lead leg frequently- the defining feature of Angelo’s method, which has so often been described as English in origin- was actually a known characteristic of Highland Broadsword play, and Angelo may well have learned it from his Scottish training partner James Perry.