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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1974 (SND Vol. IX).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

TRUE, adj. Also trow (Abd. 1754 R. Forbes Shop Bill 32). Sc. form and usage in phr. true blue, applied as adj. and n. orig. to the Covenanters of the 17th c. who chose blue (from the St Andrew flag) as their colour, and hence to any staunch or devoted Presbyterian and consequently to a supporter of the Whigs in the 17th and 18th cs. The expression was appropriated by the English Conservatives in the 19th. The evidence does not support the theory of the 1780 quot.Sc. 1721 Ramsay Poems (S.T.S.) I. 77:
Now what the Friends wad fain been at. They that were right true blue.Sc. 1727 P. Walker Remarkable Passages 61:
Altho' he takes the fool Title to himself of being True Blue, he cannot give his Pamphlet a Title without declaring himself not excessively Cameronian.Sc. 1746 Lyon in Mourning (S.H.S.) II. 219:
Vow! what he [Duke of Cumberland] did to please pappa, And us, his true blue creatures a'.Ayr. 1780 S.H.S. Misc. VI. 263:
It may be remarked in passing that as [the] colour employed was almost always blue as the northern parts of Ireland had been from the beginning enlightened chiefly by ministers of the gospel, who fled thither from that portion of Ayrshire called Carrick to avoid the effects of cruel and bloody persecutions especially under the sway of the Stuarts, and were habited in the finer and better portion of this kind of cloth, which was at once firm in texture, plain in aspect, and durable in wear — hence the designation of true blue presbyterian given to this class of the servants of God, and transferred, in consequence of colloquial use there to our country and language to express whatever in religion is simple and determined in character, plain in manner and stable in principle.Ayr. 1790 Burns Sherramuir iii.:
When in the teeth they daur'd our Whigs And Covenant trueblues, man!Sc. 1814 Dunlop Letters (1953) III. 195:
A private prayer, agreeable to the form of the church of England, which I think a great improvement, but it perhaps would not go down among the true blue.Sc. 1824 Scott Redgauntlet Let. iii.:
They are a sturdy set of true-blue Presbyterians, these Burghers of Dumfries.Sc. 1885 A. Edgar Old Ch. Life 173:
The true blues mustered in full force at hillside communions.Abd. 1901 A. Paterson Monquhitter 46:
As Presbyterians of the “true blue” tint.