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

Ixxviii KIRKINTILLOCH BURGH COURT BOOK
easier to re-grant than to destroy. When Glasgow became
expressly ‘ royal ’ in 1611, the archbishop’s right to nom¬
inate the magistrates was reserved, and the city even had
to pay two burgh fermes from 1636. Relieved from these
burdens during the ‘ Troubles ’, it had to submit after 1660
to arbitrary and sometimes scandalous appointments of
its provost by the archbishop, or by Lennox as bailie of the
regality ; only in 1690 did a new royal charter and Act of
Parliament make it really free.1
Two others of the ‘ big Church burghs ’ were unable to
make clean breaks with their past. Arbroath, re-erected
as a royal burgh in 1599, reappears as a nominal burgh of
barony belonging, with the lordship and regality, success¬
ively to the marquis of Hamilton (1625) and William
Murray (1641).2 These rights passed in 1642 to Patrick
Maule of Panmure, cum potestate nominandi ballivos burgi
de Aberbrothok 3—an utterly incongruous condition for a
royal burgh. Attempts were made to limit Panmure’s
right to merely monetary dues (1644 and 1661) and the
provost protested in favour of his burgh’s rights 4 ; but a
retour of 1671 bore the words cum privilegio eligendi ballivos
dicti burgi.5 Meanwhile Brechin, from its elevation in 1641,
was expressly subject to Panmure’s right to choose one of
its bailies,6 and this right was confirmed in 1661 and 1695.7
In practice, the Brechin routine was followed at Arbroath :
both burgh setts (1709-10) allowed Panmure to choose one
bailie from the council’s leet.8
In the far north, it was the poverty as well as the remote¬
ness of the small burghs that induced Convention in 1580
to declare that (whether ancient or new erections) they
1 Charters of the City of Glasgow, vol. i, pt. ii, 278-83, 375-94 ; vol. ii,
236-40 ; A.P.S., ix, 153-4. And see ‘ The City and Burgh of Glasgow,
1100-1750 in R. Miller and J. Tivy, The Glasgow Region (1958), 142-3.
2 Inquis. Ret. Abbrev., Forfar, no. 154 ; R.M.S., ix, 1035.
3 lb., 1255.
* A.P.S., VI. i, 231-2 ; vii, 109-10.
8 Inquis. Ret. Abbrev., Forfar, no. 450 ; cf. ib., nos. 384, 502.
« A.P.S., v, 528 (c. 303), 542-3 (c. 315).
7 Ib., vii, 347-8 (c. 373); ix, 510-11 (c. 132).
8 Misc. of Burgh Rees. Soc. (1881), 194-5.