Dumfries : Irs Burghal Origin. ItU 



Galloway, we may speculate with equal reason that the 

 castles of Lanark and Dumfries had the same object. First 

 in William the Lion's charters does there emerge mention 

 of both, and the same general argument of cause applies to 

 each. If Lanark has a castlehill, Dumfries is still better 

 furnished with the material vouchers of a military past, 

 having both Mote and Castledykes, to say nothing of the 

 adjacent Mote of Troqueer. If baronies of Lanarkshire held 

 by castleguard, so did baronies of Dumfriesshire; if judges 

 of Galloway are recorded to ha\e sat at Lanark, so they 

 did at Dumfries ; if Lanark is a county town, so is Dumfries ; 

 if events made the one famous as a military centre, the same 

 fact is clear of the other ; and if speculation is equally 

 needed for the origins of both, one might with some force 

 contend that Ayr is a legitimate example to appeal to — an 

 example of the founding of a burgh at a particular time and 

 under conditions which may be assumed to have been much 

 alike in all the fringes of Galloway. 



Suppose, then, that Ayr is the best key we can use, 

 what doors unlock themselves? The irreducible minimum 

 of certainty is that there William the Lion builds a new 

 castle, and that that produces a new burgh. It has been 

 argued that a new castle implies an old one. But no proof 

 of such an earlier castle exists, and the verbal argument 

 by itself is worthless. When Sweetheart Abbey was built 

 it was called, and has ever since been called, the New Abbey. 

 Did that infer that an abbey was there before? When 

 Robert Curthose in 1080 built the New Castle upon Tyne 

 did that mean there was a previous fortress? Not so. 

 ^^'ho will say there was an older castle of Ayr must bring 

 us different proofs, and no such proofs have ever been 

 advanced. Ayr historically was the creation of William the 

 Lion, and its dominating purpose was evidently military. 

 We may fitly reckon it a garrison town. 



Of the beginnings of Lanark we have no chronicle. 

 William the Lion was often there, and the county tenures 

 shew that its castle was maintained by contributions from 

 the baronies. The history of the institution known as castle- 

 ward appears to be, that at first the barons in turn had to 



