Quote Originally Posted by GlassMan
I do remember reading somewhere that during Queen Victoria's time when all the Clans were asked what "their" tartan was, some of the wealthier nobles tried to outdo each other with the numbers of colors used. (That might help explain why the Royal Stewart is so damn loud.) Maybe that bit of one-up-manship is what gave rise to the misunderstanding.
In 1815, the Highland Society of London began to collect examples of "named Highland clan tartans" for a collection. All clans were asked to submit a sample, along with appropriate documentation. Blair Urquhart, in his "Tartans: The new compact study guide and identifier", says that many Chiefs were not even aware of what a "clan tartan" was, and in the case of Lord Macdonald, Urquhart quotes a letter from him where he states:

"Being really ignorant of what is extactly the Macdonald tartan, I request you will have the goodness to exert every means in your power to obtain a perfectly genuine pattern..."

Most of the time, the Chiefs were writing to writing to the tartan suppliers, like Wilson's of Bannockburn, asking them for "their" clan tartan, with some very funny results:

http://www.albanach.org/sources.htm

Cheers,

Todd