Royal Burgh of Crail
Latin Motto
“In Verbo Tuo Laxabo Rete”
“At Thy Word I will let down the net”
Was chosen in 1938 on the suggestion of the Rev. Professor J. H. Baxter of St Andrews University.
Crail appears about 1170 as a Burgh of Ada, Countess of Northumberland, mother of King William the Lion and King Malcolm IV. On her death in 1178, it fell to the Crown and became a Royal Burgh. It subsequently received a Charter from King Robert I between 1314 and 1329. The arms show a night fishing scene. The seal on which it was based is very old.
There is an impression almost exactly the same attached to the 1357 Document relating to the Ransom of King David II, Crail being one of the Burghs which attested that document old sealing instrument, of pre 1550 date, which bore an identical sealing device, was found in 1902 during the demolition of a house in Castle Street in Crail.