[A Short History of Scotland by Andrew Lang]@TWC D-Link book
A Short History of Scotland

CHAPTER V
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These became _burghs_, royal, seignorial, or ecclesiastical.

In origin the towns may have been settlements that grew up under the shelter of a military castle.

Their fairs, markets, rights of trading, internal organisation, and primitive police, were now, mainly under William the Lion, David's successor, regulated by charters; the burghers obtained the right to elect their own magistrates, and held their own burgh-courts; all was done after the English model.

As the State had its "good men" (_probi homines_), who formed its recognised "community," so had the borough.

Not by any means all dwellers in a burgh were free burghers; these free burghers had to do service in guarding the royal castle--later this was commuted for a payment in money.


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