Kirkcudbright Castle. 225 



considerable distance beyond Townend. Three years later a 

 most remarkable fact emerges in a charter by James VI. to 

 Sir Thomas M'Lellan of the site and ruins of the place and 

 church of the Greyfriars of Kirkcudbright. In the descrip- 

 tion of the lands, the expression is used, " lying within our 

 burgh of Kirkcudbright between the river and the sea on the 

 north." The present northern and north-western boundary 

 is the river Dee, and the only possible explanation is that 

 tradition is again correct, that the Dee at that period flowed 

 along what is now St. Mary Street on to Sandside, and that 

 the present river front was then a deep inlet of the sea, or that 

 the river here referred to is the old harbour creek. It is an 

 established fact that the old harbour was the sole reminder 

 of a large creek which ran across St. Cuthbert Street, by the 

 back of Castle Street, on to the Meikle Yett, almost exactly 

 to the spot where the English officer depicted the tide adjoin- 

 ing the burgh fosse in 1566. Even up to 1793 we have repre- 

 sentations of this creek. If this did not constitute Kirkcud- 

 bright an island, as well as St. Mary's Isle, then I do not 

 know what constitutes such a physical feature. 



The castle is often mentioned as having been visited by 

 various important personages in after days, but one is in- 

 clined to the opinion that it was dismantled in pursuance of 

 King Robert's wise policy when he had not the means of 

 garrisoning fortresses. It is recorded that, within six years 

 of the death of Edward I., he had dismantled one hundred 

 and thirty-seven strong places of various descriptions. We 

 know, too, that the town lay waste from October, 1335, to 

 September, 1336, and was granted by Edward III. to John 

 Mareschal till he had twenty merks lands elsewhere. There 

 is no mention of the castle in the grant, and the assumption 

 is strengthened that it was then, if not destroyed, in a dis- 

 mantled state. 



We do not know if Scotland's warrior King was ever at 

 Kirkcudbright, but in his reign (1327) it was a " King's 

 Burgh," and paid rent to the Crown along with Dumfries 

 and Wigtown. The title of " King's Burgh " was equiva- 

 lent to the modern title of Royal Burgh, and the charter by 



