Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE BURGHAL HISTORY OF GLASGOW From Village to County: Early vassalage: Created Bishop’s Burgh: Oppressed by Royal Burghs: Made free trading burgh: Efforts to shake off ecclesiastical domination: Lennox Family made hereditary bailies: Charters of 1611 and 1636: Made a Royal Burgh: Further concessions in 1641: Full emancipation in 1690: Craftsmen versus Merchants: Letter of Guildry: Election of Council in 16th century: Modified in 1606: Procedure and constitution from 1636 to 1833: Burgh Reform Act: Enlargements of Council: Extensions of Royalty: Parliamentary representation. It has been the fortune of Glasgow in its progress to pass through every variety of burghal life and experience which is open to a Scottish community. Early in the twelfth century, while doubtless a mere hamlet, it became entitled to be called a City by being made the seat of a Bishopric, although it thereby gained no rights beyond the barren title. Under ecclesiastical domination it was constituted a Bishop’s Burgh; trading privileges made it a Free Burgh; later, it became a Regality, and, notwithstanding that it developed into the most energetic Protestant and Presbyterian town of Scotland, the heavy hand of the bishops and their successors was not entirely lifted off the municipality till, in 1690, an Act of William and Mary gave the City and its Council full and final power to elect their own magistrates. And lastly, in 1893, Glasgow was erected into a separate County, with the Lord Provost as Her Majesty’s representative and Lord-Lieutenant. There can be no doubt that the site upon which Glasgow grew up was originally included within the bounds over which an exclusive right of trading belonged in David First’s time to the Burgh of Rutherglen. Hence it comes that the early…
