The final thing that is worth noting is regarding the arms themselves. They have some notable differences from the arms that David Watson of Saughton had matriculated by the Court of the Lord Lyon in 1673. The most obvious difference is the acorns; in the matriculated arms, a single acorn appears on the blue fess (the stripe across the middle of the arms), whereas in the engraved arms we see the oak tree itself heavily loaded with acorns. We also see the oak tree growing from a green mount in the matriculated arms, whereas the roots appear to be exposed and unsupported in the engraved arms. What is especially interesting is that the engraved arms bear a striking resemblance to the arms of prominent Watsons in other parts of Scotland, at least some of whom we suspect are related to the Watsons of Saughton. Could it be that these Watsons took their own variation of the family arms with them when they relocated as part of the expansion of the Watsons' trading empire, or is it mere coincidence that all of their arms are variations on a common theme? As a counterpoint, it should be noted that once the Lord Lyon established the public register of arms in 1672, it was generally assumed that all people of the same surname who matriculated arms were of the same family, and so many Watson arms matriculated after this would have incorporated an oak (or acorn) theme whether or not they were directly related to the Watsons of Saughton; it is unlikely that such uniformity would have been a feature of the arms of unrelated people of the same name before the register was established, however.