Arms ov the Rovai. Btrcih of S.wqlhak. 8;> 



the middle of the eighteenth century. Other eng-ra\inys of 

 date 1790 appear in Grose's Autiquitics. 



A castle is one of the favourite devices in Scotland. It 

 appears on the arms of Edinburgh and of a number of other 

 Scottish burghs. Wade (The Synibolisni of Henihhy) says : 

 A castle is the emblem of grandeur and solidity and has been 

 granted to one who has held one for his King or who has 

 captured one by force or stratagem. It would be interesting 

 to know whether Sanquhar Arms were granted by the King 

 by reason of the capture of the castle from the English. In 

 Blind Harry's Wallace is an account of the capture of the 

 castle. Some are inclined to think, however, that here 

 Blind Harry is simply making a tale modelled on the capture 

 of Linlithgow Castle in the time of Bruce. But in the poem 

 Blind Harry mentions that Douglas men " Lodged in a 

 cleugh. By the Water of Crawick," and tradition pointed 

 to the deeply wooded cleugh of the Conrig Burn as the place 

 in question. About thirty years ago there was picked up in 

 that spot a silver coin of Edward I., and it is quite probable 

 that it had been dropped then. Hume of Godscroft (1644) 

 in his History of the House of Douglas tells us that a man 

 named Anderson was in the habit of supplying the English 

 garrison daily with wood for fuel and Lord William Douglas 

 arranged with him that Thomas Dickson — a servant of 

 Douglas — should on a particular day take his waggon and 

 drive it to the castle. Dickson did so, and when he had the 

 wagg-on underneath the Portcullis he stabbed the porter, and, 

 to quote Hume of Godscroft, " gave the signall to his Lord 

 who lay neere by with his companies set open the gates and 

 received them into the court. They being entered killed the 

 Captaine and the whole English garrison, and so remained 

 master of the place. The captaines name was Beuford, a 

 kinsman to his own Ladie, who had oppressed the country 

 that lay neare to him very insolently." 



In the Royal Charter of 1598 mention is made of the 

 " good faithful and gratuitous services performed and 

 afforded to us and our predecessors by the burgesses and 

 inhabitants of the said burgh according to their power and 

 ability," and it is possible that the arms on the burgh seal 



