Series 3 > Ayr Burgh accounts, 1534-1624

XCV1
AYR BURGH ACCOUNTS
John Osburne claimed over £150 for attending Parliament
in Edinburgh (including £64 for his mantle). He received
350 merks for the foremail of the wool-tron custom, and
other advances to bring the total above £320. His dis¬
charge was completed by expenditure on work at the
Tolbooth and in preparation for the expected visit of the
Lord Treasurer of Ireland (who, after all, did not come).1
Hence in the Scots burghs it was only by exceptional
allocations from the Common Good that the provost
exercised any financial functions.
(d) The Bailies
The bailies, unlike the provost, had a distinct financial
province. From early times it was they who collected
the burgh-fermes or mails,2 and it was in their name that
payment was made to the Exchequer. Further, the
burgh-court was the bailie-court,3 and the unlaws went to
the bailies. Fines were exigible for breaking the prices
fixed at the assizes, for absence from burgh-court,4 council¬
meeting 5 or even burials,6 for trublance, drawing a weapon
or striking any one (blood-unlaws),7 for defamation of
1 P. 266.
2 The Edinburgh bailies kept thair quarter buikis of the mailles : Edin.
Rees., V, 153, 159.
3 Jurisdiction was vested in the magistrates, not the council: Bankton,
Institute of the Laws of Scotland (1751-53), II, 577- The head-courts
(Michaelmas, Yule and Easter) were held for recurrent and formal business,
especially the assizes : Edin. Rees., I, 61, 79, no. Cf. Bateson, Borough
Custumals, II, cxlv-cxlvi, 50-5. In 1624 the Edinburgh bailie-court sat
three times per week, from xo a.m. to 12 noon, for criminal causes:
Edin. Rees., VI, 283. Commissions of justiciary were got for important
cases. Stir. Rees., I, 24, 42, 53, 71. Edin. Rees., II, 150-1. Muniments
of Irvine, Nos. 27, 31, 36, 38, 40. Cf. infra, 102 (to punish breakers of
the pest regulations) and 224 (to try incestuous women).
4 Edin. Rees., I, 59, 90 ; II, 50.
5 Stir. Rees., I, 41. Glas. Rees., I, 145. Aberd. Rees., II, 378.
6 Annals of Banff, I, 147, 156. Lyon, Ayr in the Olden Times, 34.
t Aberd. Rees., I, 228. Edin. Rees., Ill, 242 ; IV, 218-9 ; VI, 43, 150,
154. Lan. Rees., 154. Hay, Hist, of Arbroath, 153.