92 Arms of the Royal Burgh of Sanquhar. 



occasion of unprecedented rejoicing-. . . . The King might 

 well grant some extra honourable aug^mentation of arms to 

 Sanquhar after that. His reception certainly deserved some 

 special recognition." I need hardly emphasise that the 

 worthy Cornet is here making a conjecture and a most in- 

 teresting one, but in July, 1914, there appeared a paragraph 

 in our local papers, in which the conjecture was stated as if it 

 were an absolute certainty. " This motto," it was said, 

 " has been the motto of the burgh since James VI. visited 

 Sanquhar in 1617." This statement was challenged, and the 

 writer of the parag-raph then stated that in the absence 

 of written records one had to fall back on tradition, 

 and that it had long been the proud tradition of San- 

 quhar that the motto came to be used after the King-'s 

 visit. I never heard of such a tradition, although my 

 boyhood was spent under circumstances well qualified to 

 make me acquainted with the floating traditions of the 

 district, for my father's shop was frequented by many 

 of the older g-eneration of Sanquharians whose working days 

 were over and who came to " ca' the crack." Many an old 

 tale I have heard there, but of the tradition in question never 

 a word. Dr. Simpson, Dr. Moir Porteous, and Mr Brown, in 

 their respective histories of the district, all deal with the visit 

 of King James, but not one of them hints that the burgh 

 motto had any connection therewith. The same may be said 

 of Mr Wilson in Folklore and Mr Douglas Crichton in his 

 Sanquhar and the Crichtons. In 1877 there was published a 

 small work called The Sanquhar Monument, by an able though 

 eccentric Sanquhar scholar, Alexander Weir. Sandy, as he 

 was usually called, was a very well read man. He published 

 at least three books, all of which show that he possessed a 

 mind much above the average. In the little book I have 

 mentioned Weir deals with the privileges and honours which 

 Sanquhar received from her Kings. Indeed the whole argu- 

 ment of his book is to show that since the town had received 

 such honours from royalty her townsmen ought to have taken 

 the King's rather than the Covenanters' side, but he does not 

 even hint at any such honour as that now claimed. The 

 Large Description of Galloway (1684) the old and new 



