merely showed points, and supporting over her dexter shoulder a sceptre tipped at the upper end with a fleur-de-lis, the sinister hand resting on her waist. The niche is placed between two antique candlesticks, with candles inflamed, and around the device is an edged belt or scroll, having thereon these words: S MARGARETA REGINA SCOTORVM; in reference, there can be no doubt, to Saint Margaret, Queen of Scotland, and wife of King Malcolm III. (Canmore). We have this Queen's arms, namely, the lion of Scotland, flowered and counter-flowered with fleur-de-lis, impaled with those of her paternal family, and placed within a lozenge (in Sir David Lyndsay's Heraldic MS. p. 21), and which has a compartment underneath, with the words, 'Sanct Margaret Queyne off Scotland; vide your Historical Account, p. 71, where they are shown upon two shields."

Shortly before, and especially since the recovery of the ancient double seal of Dunfermline, much has been said and written regarding the claim of Dunfermline to be named, as it is there, as also on the single seal, a City (civitas). As what is essential to this claim is not very definitely understood nor generally agreed on, it would not become me, in a work mainly historical, and not controversial, to enter largely into the subject, or to advance a positive opinion. I shall satisfy myself, therefore, with stating some facts, and giving some quotations from the printed and written views of others, justly entitled to consideration on such a subject.

The prevailing opinion of learned antiquaries is, that the title is of Roman ecclesiastical origin, and that the true and only legitimate claim of a place to be called a city is, that it had once been, or still is, a bishop's see. This opinion is very fully stated and argued by Dufresne, alias Du Cange, in his elaborate Latin Glossary, a new edition of which has been lately published by the brothers Didot of Paris, and has been supported by some of the commentators of British law, as Coke and Blackstone. Du Cange gives the respective meanings of civitas, urbs, castrum, and municipium, with examples of their application, which the learned and curious can consult for themselves. He admits, however, that while there was a distinction in their meanings, there was at the same time not an exact uniformity

in their application, mentioning, as corroborative of this, that Valesius, in the preface to his Notitia Galliarum, says that the old historians call only the capitals of nations urbes or oppida, also civitates, and sometimes even municipia, and that the terms civitates or urbes were applied to those of the greatest size, and that in the old Notitia of the Gauls, by the name of civitas was meant not only urbs, the capital of the nation, or one of the capitals, but also the whole adjoining land, district, or diocese. And he expresses a doubt whether a place could be called a city after it had lost its episcopal dignity.

Brady, in his Historical Treatise on Cities and Burghs, published at London in MDCCCIV., gives a vast deal of information regarding those of this country, as well as some on the Continent, respecting their original constitution, what they were, and whence they derived their great liberties and privileges. He says that, in ordinary writers, he found little else but prescription and pretended usage and possession, time out of mind, vouched for the great independent rights which they claimed.

He takes the Domesday Books for his chief authorities as to cities and burghs in the Saxon times, and at the date of the Conqueror's Survey. These books are known to have been so named, as containing a record of a survey of most of the lands in England, made by command of William the Conqueror, and so called, it is thought, either from Domus dei, the house in which they were deposited, or more probably from "dom," or doom, judgment, as presenting the means by this survey of settling all disputes respecting landed property and the tenure by which it was held, preparatory to the King's introducing the feudal system. For, on the survey being completed, it is related that the King summoned all his nobility to meet him at Sarum, where the chief landowners submitted their properties to military tenure, became his Majesty's vassals, and did homage and fealty to his

person.

He observes, although Sir Edward Coke says all bishops' sees are cities, yet from the cases of Gloucester and Leicester, noticed in the Survey, that "there was not then (the time of King Edward) much difference between a city and burgh, both appellations being given to one and the same town; that Leicester never had bishops, and at this time Gloucester had none; the

great distinction grew after cities were made counties by charter." Still Leicester at that period was called a city, "Civitas de Ledecester.'

"

He specifies new Sarum (Salisbury) as having been made a city in the eleventh year of Henry the Third, by the King's letters patent, and given to the then bishop, his successors and canons there, and their successors, as their proper demesne (tanquam proprium Dominicum); and farther, that this king granted to the same bishop and his successors, that, for the necessity of himself or his church, he might take a reasonable tallage or aid of his citizens, when the king or his heirs made a reasonable tallage in his demesnes.-P. 47.

d;

He gives various authorities for considering a burgh to denote generally a number of houses joined together, not enclosed with walls; but upon increasing in size, being defended by a tower or castle, becoming a place of safety, and having privilege in trade-in short, a ton or tun, now town. A free burgh (liber burgus) was one that had special liberties granted by royal charter, such as to buy and sell everywhere without disturbance within its own liberties, and by a law of King David, even in his whole kingdom, as well by water as by land as also a freedom from paying toll, pontage, passage-money, &c.+ He states that "the king's demesne cities, and burghs, were not much unlike one another, having their name from the same thing, that is, from holding of the King by fee-ferm," which he explains to have arisen thus: Those towns and lands which are found in Domesday Books, under the title of Terræ Regis, were then and afterwards kept in his hands, and managed by præpositi or bailiffs (as were most of the towns and lands of bishops, abbots, priors, earls, barons, and other great men), and called his and their demesnes; which, in process of time, were let to farm to tenants for a considerable part of their true value, a half-part, third, or fourth at least, and this rent was called a fee-ferm rent, the tenants esteeming what these estates were above the rent, or, in respect of the tenure, to be to them ut or tanquam de feodo, as if they were holden in fee, paying their rent and tallage.

Of the same condition were cities and burghs: at first they

* Pref.

p.

3.

P. 19, and App. p. 6.

were kept in the king's hands, and the customs and profits that arose from trade gathered by his bailiffs and officers, which afterward were let out in fee-ferm to the communities of cities and burghs, which commonly were made such by the same charters by which the customs in kind, or the true value of them, as then collected, were changed into fee-ferm rents, and the king's officers, or others in lieu of them, were made officers as well to the cities and burghs as to himself."*

He states that cities and burghs were called demesne cities and burghs, by reason of the fee-ferm which they paid as such, or from tolls and customs arising from trade, and that "the burgesses were called the king's farmers or tenants ;" and further, that the citizens, burgesses, and tenants of the king's demesnes, were first summoned to Parliament on occasion of a threatened French invasion of the kingdom at Dover, in the twenty-third year of the reign of Edward I., and a suspicion of the intention of the King of France to destroy the English nation and language. ‡

Cities were called free cities, or more frequently free burghs, and the members thereof free citizens and free burgesses (almost in all charters), from their liberties and free trading only, notwithstanding they were liable to reasonable tallage imposed by the King when his necessity required it; and from their paying a fee-ferm rent, and being obnoxious to the king's tallage, either expressed or implied in the charters, by the profit received, most of the cities or burghs in England were called civitates et burgi dominici regis, as his demesne lands were called terræ regis dominicæ, and the tenants of them tenentes regis dominici. §

Community." A community or commonalty corporate consisted of a mayor and two bailiffs and burgesses of the same town, having perpetual succession." In regard to New Windsor, Brady adds: "Twenty-eight, or not above thirty, of the best and most worthy inhabitants of the burgh are appointed to be the number of the fraternity of the Guildhall of the burgh, and to be the common council of the burgh, and assistant to the mayor and bailiffs of the same burgh, in all matters and things touching the same. Of these twenty-eight or thirty brethren, thirteen were to be called Fellows or Benchers of the Guildhall; # Pp. 39-40. + Pp. 25, 34-35.

+ P. 41.

§ Pp. 49-50.