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THE
CHARTERS OF THE BURGH – COPY OF THE CHARTER GRANTED BY ROBERT III. –
OBSERVATIONS REGARDING IT – THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES CONFERRED BY IT AND
PRECEDING CHARTERS – RISE OF THE TRADE COPORATIONS – MANNER OF THEIR
ERECTION – ST. MICHAEL CONSTITUED PARTON OF THE TOWN – THE BURGH ARMS AND
MOTTO – PLACE OF WARLIKE RENDEZVOUS ON THE LORDBURN – THE TOWN WALL – THE
VARIUS MODES OF DEFENCE ADOPTED.
THE
original charters granted by William the Lion to the Burgh have been lost
sight of for centuries, and not even a copy of any of them has been
preserved. In the subjoined memoranda a list is given of the principal
writs belonging to Dumfries in 1633. It is dated on the 8th May
of that year. “The said day thair is taking from out of the Towns’s box
the particular wryts under wrytting to be sent to Edinburgh, viz.: Ane
charter of the Friar’s lands, and annual rents granted be King James to
the town, daited the fourt January, 1591. Item: excerpt of sesine relating
to the above, 2nd February, 1591. Item: extract of the town’s
original charter of this Burghe grantit be King Robert, 28th
Apryll, 1395. Item: a Commission for halding of tua fairs, 30 Nov., 1592.
Item: the original charter of the Brig Custome grantit be James, Erle of
Dowglas, to the Freirs Minories of Dumfries, 4 January, 1452. Item: ane
charter of the said custome, and of lands therein, grantit be King James
to John Johnstoun in College of Lynclowden, datit 8th July,
1591.” We subjoin the text of Kin Robert’s charter: -
“Robertus, Dei gratia Rex Scotorum, omnibus probes hominibus totius terræ
suæ clericis et laicis, salutem: - Sciatis quia assedavimus et ad firmam
dimissimus Præposito, Ballivis, Burgensibus, et Commitati Burgi nostri de
Drumfriess dictum Burgum nostrum eis et eorum successoribus de nobis et
hæredibus nostris, in feodo et hereditate in perpetuum tenens et habens
cum omnibus et singulis libertatibus commoditatibus asiamentis et justis
pertinenciis suis quibuscunque ad dictum burgum spectantibus, seu juste
spectare valentibus quoque modo in futurm,cum primis nostris et anuis
dicti Burgi, cumsuis custumis et tolloniis cum curiis et curiarum exitibus
ac terries Dominicis ejusdem Burgi, cum molendinis multuris et suis
sequelis; una cum piscariis aquæ de Nith ad nos pertinentibus (piscariæ
tamen datæ et concessæ per predecessores nostros reges Frateribus
Minoribus ejusdem loci Divini caritatis intuitu duntaxat exceptæ) ac cum
omnibus aliis previlegiis tam citra Burgum quam infra quibuscunque quo
iisdem Burgenses nostri et Communitatas temporibus nostris et antecessorum
nostrorum reges Scotiæ aliquo tempore hac tenus habuerunt et possederunt
adeo libere et quiete plenarie integre et honorifice bene et in pace sicut
aliquis Bugus infra regnum nostrum Scotiæ libere et quiete do nobis
tenetur seu possidetur per omnes cectas melas suas antiquas et devisas
suas; Solvendo inde nobis et heredibus nostris, dicti Prepositus, Ballivi,
Burgenses, et Communitas qui pro tempore, fuerint ac eorum successores
annuatim pro perpetuo in cameram nostrum viginti libras usualis monetæ
regni nostri, ad Festa Pentecostes et Sancti Martini in hieme proportiones
equales. In cujus rei testimonium presenti cartæ nostræ sigillum nostrum
precepimus appari; testibus Veneralibus in Christo, Patribus Waltero et
Matheo, Sancti Andreo et Glasguæ Ecclesiarum Episcopis; Comite de Fyffe et
de Menteith; fratri uno charissimo, Archibaldo, Comite de Dowglass, Domino
Galwidiæ; Jacobo de Dowglass, Domino de Dalkeith, Thoma de Erskyn,
consanguineis nostris dilectis militibus; et Alexandro de Cockburne, de
Langtown, custode magni nostri Sigilli. Apud Glasgow, vicessimo octavo die
Aprilis, anno gratiæ millesimo ecc. nonagesimo quinto, et regni nostri
anno sexton.”
[TRANSLATION.]
“Robert,
by the grace of God King of Scots, unto all trusty men of his whole realm,
clergy and laity, greeting: -
“Know ye
that we have granted to the Provost, Bailies, Burgesses, and Community of
our Burgh of Dumfries our said Burgh, to be held by them and their
successors, of us and our heirs, in feudal inheritance for ever. With all
and every the liberties and privileges, the immunities and just pertinents
whatsoever, appertaining to the said Burgh, or which may afterwards in any
way rightly belong to it. Together with our feus and rents in the said
Burgh, with their customs, tolls, courts and court revenues, markets and
roads thereof, and our Lord’s lands in the same Burgh. As also the
thirlages, multures, and their pertinents. Together with the fishings in
the Water of Nith belonging to us, excepting only the fishing granted by
our royal predecessors out of Divine charity [or love] to the Minorite
Brothers of the same place, and with all other privileges both without and
within the said Burgh which our said Burgesses and Communities have at any
time formerly held or possessed in our reign or that of our royal
ancestors in Scotland; and that as freely, equally, fully, wholly, and
favourably, in peace and comfort, as any burgh within our realm of
Scotland is held or possessed from us freely and peaceably in all its old
and righteous boundaries and adhesions. Upon condition that the said
Provost, Bailies, Burgesses, and Community at present, and their
successors for ever, shall pay into our exchequer twenty pounds current
coin of our realm yearly, in equal shares, at Whitsunday and Martinmas.
“In
testimony whereof, we have caused our seal to be affixed to this charter
before these witnesses: - The Venerable Father in Christ, Walter, Bishop
of St. Andrews; Mathew, Bishop of Glasgow; Robert, Earl of Fife and
Menteith; our most beloved brother, Archibald, Earl of Douglas, Lord of
Galloway; James de Douglas, Lord Dalkeith, Thomas de Erskyn, our trusty
cousins and knights; and Alexander de Cockburn, of Langtown, Keeper of our
Great Seal. At Glasgow, the twenty-eighth day of April, year of grace one
thousand three hundred and ninety-five years, and the sixth year of our
reign.”
A grant
more comprehensive than is here conveyed can scarcely be imagined. In the
first instance, the Burghal authorities get a present of the Burgh itself.
It once belonged to the King – was as much his own property as any other
portion of the royal dominions – but now he surrenders it to its
magistrates and the community whom they represent, giving along with it
the revenue derivable from its land and trade, its multures and fishings;
the only condition attached to the munificent grant by the royal donor
being that its recipients shall pay him a small nominal sum per annum.
Not only
so: “all other privileges without and within the Burgh,” previously
conferred upon it, are ratified by this charter. These words have an
extensive meaning, including, among other things, the fundamental right of
the Royal Burgh, as such, to monopolize all trade, foreign and domestic,
within its jurisdiction. And as the charter does not specify in detail all
the exclusive privileges given to the community, neither does it enumerate
all the valuable equivalents exacted by the King. It says nothing of the
liability of the burgesses to be called upon to serve in the royal host
like other military tenants of the Crown – of their being obliged to
maintain an effective police – of their being subject to direct taxation
on special occasions – and of their having always to pay into the State
exchequer the “great custom,” an impost levied by means of his Majesty’s
own customarii on all
staple commodities of foreign trade. Yet we know, from other documents,
that such conditions were imposed on the towns that were royally
chartered: so that the privileges conferred by Robert III. on Dumfries
were paid for at a much higher rate that £20 a year. It is right to
remark, however, that the Burgh could not be taxed for Government purposes
till after it came to be represented in Parliament, which would be many
years prior to 1395 – the claim of all the King’s Burghs, to form a
distinct estate in the senate of the nation, having been recognized in the
days of Bruce.
While the
Great Chamberlain received the customs on foreign trade, for behoof of the
Crown, he left what were called the “petty customs” unmeddled with: these,
imposed upon articles of domestic consumption, were collected by the Burgh
Chamberlain, and, with ground-rents, fishing-rents, market dues, and court
fines (“exitus curiæ”), made up the municipal income, as specified in the
charter.
At an
earlier period, as we have seen, the rulers of Royal Burghs were elected
by the inhabitants at large: but, long before the days of Robert III., the
suffrage was restricted to owners of property; and doubtless the Provost
and Bailies spoken of in the charter granted by him to Dumfries, were
chosen by the wealthier class of burgesses – acting, however, in the name
of the general community. Within the course of another century, even this
qualified form of popular election was taken away, by a statute of James
III [Acts of the Scottish Parliament, 1469, vol. ii., p. 95.], which, on
the plea of silencing the clamour of common simple persons at the yearly
choosing of new officers, provided “that the aulde Counsail of the toune
sall cheise the new Counsail, in sic nowmyr as accordis to the toune; and
the new Counsail, and the auld of the yeir before, sall cheise all
officiaris pertenying to the toune. . . . And that ilka craft sall cheise
a persone of the samyn craft, that sall have voce in the said electioune
of the officiaris for that tyme; in like wise yeir be yeir.”
The
Dumfries charter of 1395 recognizes the existence of privileges conferred
on the Burgh by preceding sovereigns. Some of these would probably include
nearly all the rights and immunities specified in that document. Indeed,
the charter of erection, by which William I. raised it from humble
villagedom to be one of the King’s own burghs, must necessarily have
conferred upon it rights so extensive as to render future charters rather
confirmative of old grants than donative of new privileges. No reference
is made in King Robert’s charter to any distinction between merchants and
craftsmen, because as yet the artizans had not acquired a political
position in the realm. In some places they were beginning to form guilds,
which incipient organizations provoked the jealous opposition of the
merchants, who did not relish the idea of having their exclusive rule in
the burghs endangered by a rival class. The smiths, the tailors, the
tanners, and the cordwainers of Dumfries would probably be longing, like
their brethren elsewhere, to obtain a share of royal favour and of
municipal privilege: but as yet they were few in number, disunited,
without a head, without a seat at the Council Board; and the “blue
blanket” – grand banner of the incorporated trades – had not even been
seen in vision by the artizans of the Burgh. But when, in course of years,
the tradesmen came to be numbered by hundreds instead of tens, and each
craft was systematically organized under its own deacon, no power in the
realm could long keep them unrepresented in the local parliament.
Conscious of their own strength, they then determined that their officers,
besides looking after the apprentices, and seeing that all fabrics
operated upon were of good stuff, should try their hand at burgh-craft,
and not allow the venders of their wares, and the holders of the soil, to
do everything according to their own will and pleasure. The deacons
occupied their position in virtue of an Act passed in 1424, which
authorized them to “assay and govern all werkis made to the wurkmen, sud
that the Kingis lieges be nocht defrauded and scathyt in tyme to cum, as
thai have bene in tyme bygane, through untrue men of craftis.” [Acts of
Scottish Parliament, vol. ii., p. 8.] They wished to get justice done to
their own body, not less than to the general community; and, for somewhat
rudely seeking to bring about that result, they were looked upon as unsafe
demagogues by the Crown. An Act of Parliament set them up; but a second
Act, passed two years afterwards, to put them down, failed of its object.
[Ibid, vol. ii., p. 14.] The Trades were too powerful for the mercantile
interest – could even sometimes overawe the King: their deacons,
therefore, continued in office, waxing stronger and bolder, till
eventually, in Dumfries, as in the other Royal Burghs, they took their
place at the Council Board, along with the merchants, as rulers of the
town. At first only the principal trades acquired a right of
incorporation, including self-government. This privilege was conferred
upon them by the Town Council granting what were termed “Sigillum ad
Causas,” letters under the Burgh Seal, which protected the recipients from
all rivalry, prescribed the mode of admitting members, of electing
office-bearers, and of enacting bye-laws. [Royal Commissioners’ Report on
Municipal Corporations, p. 79.] At one time there were at least eleven
different crafts incorporated in Dumfries, namely: the smiths, the
wrights, the masons, the websters, the tailors, the shoemakers or
cordwainers, the skinners, and gauntlers or glovers, the fleshers, the
lorimers or armourers, the pewterers or tinsmiths, the bonnetmakers, and
the litsters or dyers; the latter four of which became defunct, or were
absorbed by some of the other trades. These acquired monopoly within the
Burgh, not in virtue of any charter, but solely, as we have said, by the
Burgh’s own Seals of Cause. Probably, however, when the Trades, while
still maintaining their individuality, joined in one aggregate
corporation, which they did before the end of the sixteenth century, they
obtained the requisite authority from the Crown – no longer jealous of its
loyal, though independent, craftsmen. [As illustrative of the text, we
quote the following curious extract from the Records of the Convention of
Royal Burghs (p. 31), Stirling, 20th October, 1574: - “John
Douglas, alledgit Provost of Haddingtoun, being ane cordinar [shoemaker]
of his occupatioun, presented ane comissioun; . . . but the saidis
comissionaris all in one voice fyndis and delyveris that na craftisman has
ever had, nolder aucht or suld haif, voit or comissioun amangis thame;”
and they ordered the said John Douglas to withdraw, and admitted “John
Seyttoun bailie thereof” in his stead.]
In
accordance with a practice that sprang up at an early period of the
middles ages, Dumfries was placed under the guardianship of a spiritual
patron. No saint of the Romish calendar was fixed upon for this purpose:
soaring ambitiously above all canonized mortals, the rulers of the Burgh
selected as their special protector the chief of the heavenly hierarchy.
Till this day, the figure of St. Michael remains the heraldic symbol of
the Burgh, and is to be seen on its official seal, and carved in low
relief on the Provost’s chair; also, in a bolder form, on the south front
of the Mid Steeple, with wings outspread, armed with a pastoral staff,
treading on a writhing serpent, yet calmly surveying his tutelary charge,
as if the overthrow of the foul fiend below his feet were but an ordinary
affair. [Though the patron of Dumfries is not exclusively a Romish saint,
he has always been held in the highest reverence by the Church of Rome. He
is described as follows, in a document of our own day, by the Cardinal
Vicar of the Pope: - “The Invincible St. Michael, Archangel, the Captain
of the Celestial Phalanxes, the first Support of Divine Justice, the
glorious Conqueror of the earliest revolt – that of the rebel angels – the
Defender of the Church of God under the Old and the New Testament
dispensations, the Patron of privileged souls at the tribunal of the
inexorable Judge of the living and the dead – he, moreover, who is
destined to confound and enchain Lucifer, in the consummation of the ages,
for the eternal triumph of Jesus Christ, of his immaculate mother Mary,
and his immortal Church.”] The proper arms of the town were a chevron and
three fleurs de lis on a
shield argent, which device was visible eighty years ago above the gate of
the old prison, that stood nearly opposite the Mid Steeple; and the stone
bearing it was said to have been taken from a preceding jail, that was
built as far back as the beginning of the fifteenth century. [Burnside’s
MS. History.] This escutcheon has been long out of use, Michael the
archangel doing duty in its stead. At a very early date, as we have seen
the name of the patron saint was given to the Parish Church. The armorial
shield above noticed bore the word “Aloreburn;” and the motto is engraved
on the ivory head of an ebon staff put into the Provost’s hand at the time
of his election. A memorable term it is, full of high significance,
suggestive of forays and broils, of invasions and sieges. Often, from the
reign of Robert III. till the Rebellion of 1715 – a period of three
hundred years – did this ominous word, shouted from street to street,
shake the echoes of the town, calling all its male lieges, between the
ages of sixteen and sixty, to arms; their familiar place of meeting being
the margin of a sluggish little stream west of St. Christopher’s Chapel,
anciently named the Lordburn – a term which, when slightly altered,
furnished a slogan to the Burgh. [We have repeatedly met with the word
Lordburn, as applied to the little brook in question, in old records. Mr.
Bennet, in his History (Dumfries
Magazine, vol. iii., p. 11.), takes a different view of the origin
of the term. “The place of rendezvous was appointed,” he says, “near a
low, swampy piece of ground to the eastward, where, in rainy weather, a
considerable quantity of water is collected, which discharges itself into
the Nith by two small rivulets, or rather ditches, the one running
northward, the other towards the south. These two rivulets, which,
connected as they are by their common source, from to appearance only one,
are known by the name of the Lowerburn, or rather, according to the
popular elision which they have undergone, Lorburn.”] Much of the ground
which lay between this rivulet and the Castle was as swampy as if it had
been a continuation of Lochar Moss. This marsh, especially in rainy
weather, would be felt as an unpleasant neighbour by the inhabitants; but,
unhealthy as it was it helped to guard the Castle, especially at a time
when the Burgh had no mural defences. Early in the fourteenth century,
however, a wall was built around it, which afforded more security than the
swamps, mosses, and trenches which had been previously relied upon. Stone
was chiefly employed in its erection, the height being generally eight
feet. As, however, that was a scarce material in mediæval times, it was,
when the nature of the ground allowed, dispensed with, and a deep ditch,
having an earthen bank on its townward side, formed an excellent link in
the defences; while, at other intervals, both wall and ditch gave place to
horizontal piles of wood, formed in breastwork fashion, between the
natural loopholes of which the townspeople could securely reconnoiter the
enemy, and salute him with their feathered shafts, their cross-bow bolts,
or the culverin balls of a later period. The wall, starting from the Moat
overlooking the Nith near the Castle, stretched almost in a straight line
to St. Christopher’s Chapel, forming an acute angle on the townward side
of that building; it then took an oval sweep, coming round the north side
of the Parish Church, and terminating at the river, a little to the south
of what is now called Swan’s Vennel. Three huge gates strengthened the
wall, and allowed communication with the country lying north and east:
one, called the North Port, stood near the Moat; the second, called the
East Port, adjoined the Chapel; and the third, called the South Port, rose
near the Church. The bridge was also fortified by means of a port; and in
course of time a series of inner ports – the Vennel Port, the Lochmaben
Gate, and the Southern Gate – were added to the defences of the town.
Lochar
Moss, which is now felt to be a noxious blot on the face of the County,
was then of profitable service to Dumfries. Stretching from the shores of
the Solway to the base of Tinwald Hills, it formed a natural protection
which no force or artifice of an enemy could neutralize or overcome. Then
it was more marshy, as well as more extensive, than it is at the present
day; and woe to the rash marauders who, for the purpose of avoiding the
forts which defended the more accessible way to Dumfries, tried to cross
its treacherous expanse. It was rarely, indeed, that invaders from the
south made such a hazardous attempt; the road usually taken by them being
an indirect one round the western extremity of Tinwald Hills, which was
indifferently guarded by the Towers of Torthorwald and Amisfield, or a
more direct, but dangerous one, that lay between the Castles of
Carlaverock and Comlongan, and between the western fringe of the morass
and the Solway. By means of this vast wilderness of peat, intersected by
bogs and ditches innumerable, and fringed by an array of strongholds,
beginning at the shore seven miles south of Dumfries, and ending at
Dalswinton, five miles to the north-west, a regular line of defence
retarded, though it too often failed to repel, the English visitors to
Nithsdale, on foraying or fighting bent, and quite prepared to engage
both.
When an
invading force, though signalled by blazing bale-fires, challenged by
angry garrisons, and, it may be, confronted by opposing bands, succeeded
in reaching the gates of Dumfries, and evinced an unmistakable desire to
get inside, the wall would stand inconveniently in their way. When the
mural impediment was at length breached or scaled – a degradation to which
it was often doomed – and the assailants had fairly entered the town, its
defenders had other resources left, which they were in the habit of
exhausting before they yielded to the enemy. They could, and often did,
resist the advance of the intruders, by disputing with them every inch of
ground; but their common practice was to retire into certain strong peels,
or fortified town houses, belonging to the neighbouring gentry, where
their wives and children, goods and gear, had been previously placed, and
there remain, whilst the enemy, perhaps, was employed in appropriating
movables that lay unprotected elsewhere, or in setting the defenceless
parts of the Burgh in a blaze.
Besides
these peel-houses, small and great, some of which rose into existence at a
very early period, many of the more private houses were turned into places
of defence in times of need; and some of the closes connected with the
High Street were furnished with iron gates, and turrets overhead, capable
of giving a stout resistance to the foe. One side of a gate of this
description was visible at the head of Assembly Street so recently as
1826; and, only a few years before, a part of the superincumbent arch was
also standing. In prosecuting this domestic warfare, if it may be so
termed, the females of the period are said to have exhibited Amazonian
strength and courage, so that they not unfrequently rivalled the actions
of their parents, husband, or lovers [Their females caught the warlike
spirit of the country, and appear often to have mingled in battle.
Hollinshed records that, at the conflict fought near Naworth (1570)
between Leonard Dacres and Lord Nunsden, the former had in his company
many desperate women who there gave the adventure of their lives, and
fought right stoutly, - - Border Antiquities, p. 81.]; and, if we are to
place full reliance on what is said respecting their achievements, the
glowing picture given of the heroine of Saragossa will correctly represent
the warlike damsels of Dumfries when defending their household shrines: -
“Her lover sinks – she
sheds no ill-timed tear;
Her chief is slain –
she fills his fatal post;
Her fellows flee – she
checks their base career;
The foe retires – she
heads the sallying host.”
[Byron’s Childe Harold.]
To this
mode of defence the narrowness of the streets and the numerous high houses
gave peculiar facility. With brands of fire, boiling water, stones, and
other weapons of promiscuous warfare, showered from doors, windows, and
gate-surmounting turrets on the heads of the invaders, they were often
compelled to decamp altogether, or commence operations at some more
vulnerable portions of the Burgh.
A picture
is extant, which professes to represent Dumfries as it appeared a century
or so after the date to which the preceding remarks chiefly refer. The
town wall has the range already assigned to it; the Castle at the head of
the Burgh, St. Michael’s Church at the foot, and “Christy’s” Chapel at the
east, forming an angle with them, are the only objects that have a
prominent bulk – no tall spire having as yet risen large and massive –
quite a Titan, as compared with the wooden fortalice of Celtic times: a
series of battlemented turrets, extending to the verge of the river, is
crowned by a tall square tower looking down High Street – the whole built
in the Norman style, and suggestive of colossal strength. St. Michael’s
Church is seen occupying a site a little eastward of the present building,
the only imposing feature about it being a square turret above the main
entrance; the Chapel, with its painted buttresses, fine east window, two
side windows, and stepped gables, presenting a more ornate appearance. [We
have heard it vaguely reported, that the original painting was sold at
Drumlanrig Castle about fifty years ago. A sketch of it from memory, as
supplied by the late Mr. John M. ‘Cormick, Dumfries, an intelligent and
enthusiastic local antiquarian, has been lithographed.] |
