Arms of the Royal Burgh of Sanquhar. 7y 



during- the reign of William the Lion that Sanquhar is sup- 

 posed to have had its first charter erecting- the then town into 

 a Burgh of Barony." He further states in the same article 

 that Sir Robert de Ross of Ryehill was married to a daughter 

 of King William's, and that in all probability the King would 

 \isit the localitv. This, however, is certainly incorrect. It 

 is quite true that Isabel, the natural daughter of King William 

 and the widow- of Robert Bruce 3rd Lord of Annandale, 

 married a Sir Robert de Ros, but he was not Ros of Sanquhar. 

 Isabel's husband was the Sheriff of Cumberland, and 

 afterwards received the English title of Lord Hamelock. Mr 

 Wilson further states (page 184) : — " There is a tradition 

 that the men of Sanquhar were at the Battle of Bannockburn 

 and that for their ser\ ices on that glorious ;24th of June, that 

 for ever secured the independence of Scotland, King Robert 

 granted a charter to the Burgh, augmenting the privileges 

 conferred by King William." How far these traditions bear 

 witness to the truth is a question which every one must settle 

 for himself. Many times ha\e I been told that Sanquhar 

 was one of the oldest Royal Burghs in Scotland, whereas we 

 know that it is among the youngest. Sir Walter vScott has 

 warned us against accepting all we hear as history. " It has 

 been," he wrote, "the bane of Scottish literature and the 

 disgrace of her antiquities that we ha\e manifested an eager 

 propensity to beliexe without enquiry." Christopher North's 

 words, too, are worthy of being kept constantly in mind. 

 " Tradition it is easy to see must from many causes still 

 stray further and further from the truth. What innumerable 

 unintentional inaccuracies must occur in each successive 

 narrator's statement of the facts, from the gathering on them 

 of obscurity through which they loom larger than life or sink 

 into the shade and are only partially discerned or recede into 

 oblivion." Neither of the traditions mentioned by Mr Tom 

 Wilson is recorded by any of the older writers of Sanquhar 

 history. Whatever truth there may be then in those stories 

 there is no doubt that Sanquhar is an old historical town. 

 It is mentioned in the Exchequer Rolls of the reign of 

 Alexander III. in 1264, when two men were beheaded there 

 at the instance of Sir Edward Maccuswell, then Sheriff of 



