Historical Objects in Heraldry VI

 Continuing the theme of actual historical objects in Scottish heraldry, I thought I might stretch a point and take a look at Edinburgh Castle. Its commanding presence on its rock dominating the Edinburgh sky-line rather misleads the viewer into thinking it more coherent than it is - in reality it is a bit of a jumble of heterogeneous elements without the mediaeval splendour of Bothwell or the Renaissance beauty of Stirling, say. Perhaps because of this, on the countless coats of arms with Edinburgh connections which show a castle, the image bears no relation to the original. 

Here, for example, are the former arms of the City itself:

The blazon reads: Argent, a castle triple-towered and embattled Sable, masoned of the First and topped with three fans Gules, windows and portcullis shut of the Last, situate on a rock Proper.

Deriving from a mediaeval seal of the city, we now think when we see it, "Oh yes, Edinburgh Castle," but in reality of course, it bears little resemblance to the thing itself. We see this very stylised drawing again in the 4th quarter of the arms of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh:

The blazon reads: .....Argent upon a rock Proper castle triple-towered Sable masoned of the First, windows, port, turret caps and vanes Gules. 

This seems to me to be good heraldry and no enthusiastic armorist , one hopes, would leave Edinburgh disappointed at the lack of a black triple-towered castle with red windows and door.

There are countless examples of this symbolic, stylised castle in Edinburgh-related arms but I want to look at one in particular - the arms of the Convenery of Incorporated Trades of Edinburgh granted in 1977.  

When the Convenery applied a few years ago for revised arms, changing the order of the trades and adding that of the Candlemakers, they wanted to move away from this version of the castle to the ancient, very beautiful Renaissance palace-style image on the Convenery's 16th century seal of cause:

Once again, of course, we have an image which does not resemble the actual castle but is symbolic and stylised. The complexity of the drawing, with its maidens and olive-branches is such that the Convenery initially suggested simply saying: a representation of Edinburgh Castle as it appears on the Seal of Cause of 1578.

This would not be acceptable as one should not need to refer to anything outside the coat of arms to understand it so the following blazon was devised: 

Argent, on a rock a castle of five round towers Proper, windows and port and pennons flying Gules the towers linked by walls machiocholated and ending in two towers from each of which is issuant a demi-lady Proper vested Gules each holding in her exterior hand an olive branch downwards and in her interior hand a pennoned staff Proper.

So what we have in effect is a stylisation of a stylisation of the castle. Confused?