Series 3 > Court book of the Burgh of Kirkintilloch 1658-1694

xxii KIRKINTILLOCH BURGH COURT BOOK
freely as any set up by any king within the kingdom, and
on 14 February 1372/3 the royal officers were warned to
respect the chartered rights burgi nostri de Irvyne.1 On
10 November 1397 Robert III set the burgh of Renfrew
ad feodifirmam to the burgesses and community at an
annual reddendo of £10, 6s. 8d. ; no other market was to
be held within the barony of Renfrew, and the burgesses
were to be as free from toll and petty custom sicut aliqui
burgenses regni Scotie.2 Prior to 1400, therefore, alienations
of king’s burghs outnumbered accessions by eleven to two.
Between the two groups of burghs in this period, besides
the definite movements in one direction or the other (and,
in the case of Renfrew, in both), lay an intermediate sub¬
group, halving, so to speak, the difference. During the
reigns of Malcolm IV and William provision was made for
near relatives of the king by the allocation to them, inter
alia, of entire burghs. In 1153 x 1165 Countess Ada,
mother of Malcolm and William, gave the priory of St.
Andrews a toft in burgo meo de Hadington 3 and about 1170
William confirmed a similar gift by his mother to the priory
in the burgh of Crail.4 Not later than 1195, again, Robert
de London, natural son of the king, granted Lindores vnum
plenarium toftum in burgo meo de Inuerkeithin.6 Such
transfers seem to have been personal arrangements within
the royal family, and they did not survive the lifetime of
the grantee ; since William was his mother’s heir and
Robert de London died childless, all three burghs reverted
to the Crown.6
1 lb., i, 11-14. Both grants were confirmed by Robert III and James I :
ib., 17-18, 22.
2 The transaction was confirmed by James V’s charter of 28 June 1542 :
iii, 2705.
2 R.P.S.A., 207.
4 Ib., 226. There is also record of toft-grants by the countess in each
of these towns to Dunfermline and Cambuskenneth : Reg. de Dunfermelyn,
88 ; Reg. de Cambuskenneth, 44, 88, 252-3, 279. The words in burgo meo
reappear in her confirmation of David’s gift to Dryburgh of a manerium
in Crail: Liber de Dryburgh, 10-11.
6 Chartulary of Lindores (S.H.S., 1903), 91-2. So, too, Robert confirmed
(ante 1200) a gift to Inchcolm by Malcolm IV in that burgh (in burgo meo) :
Charters of Inchcolm, 7.
6 For Haddington as one of William’s burghs, see Raine, North Durham,
App. no. L (p. 10). For Crail under William, see R.P.S.A., 228-9 (bis);