demiwassals

Updated: May 14, 2025

At the head of the table the lords and lairds pledged his Lordship in claret, and sometimes champagne; the tacksmen, or demiwassals, drank port or whiskey-punch; tenants, or common husbandmen, refreshed themselves with strong beer; and below the utmost extent of the table, at the door, and sometimes without the door of the hall, you might see a multitude of Frasers, without shoes or bonnets, regaling themselves with bread and onions, with a little cheese, perhaps, and small beer.

Mrs. A. T. Thomson - Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745: Volume II.