ll burghs, and examined the state of the "common good," the accounts
of which in 1535 were appointed to be laid before the auditors in
exchequer. The chamberlain latterly presided in the Curia Quatuor
Burgorum (Edinburgh, Berwick, Stirling, Roxburgh), which not only made
regulations in trade, but decided questions of private right (e.g.
succession), according to the varying customs of burghs. This court
frequently met at Haddington; in 1454 it was fixed at Edinburgh. The
more modern convention of royal burghs (which appeared as a judicial
_persona_ in the Court of Session so late as 1839) probably dates from
the act of James III. (1487, c. 111), which appointed the commissioners
of burghs, both north and south, to meet yearly at Inverkeithing "to
treat of the welfare of merchandise, the good rule and statutes for the
common profit of burghs, and to provide for remeid upon the skaith and
injuries sustained within the burghs." Among the more important
functions of this body (on whose decrees at one time summary diligence
proceeded) were the prohibition of undue exactions within burghs, the
revisal of the "set" or mode of municipal election, and the _pro rata_
division among the burghs of the parliamentary subsidy required from the
third estate. The reform of the municipalities, and the complete
representation of the mercantile interests in the united parliament,
deprived this body of any importance.

Burghs of regality and of barony held in vassalage of some great
lordship, lay or ecclesiastical, but were always in theory or in
practice created by crown grant. They received jurisdiction in civil and
criminal matters, generally cumulative with that of the baron or the
lord of regality, who in some cases obtained the right of nominating
magistrates. Powers to hold markets and to levy customs were likewise
given to these burghs.

The Scottish burghs emerged slowly into political importance. In 1295
the procurators of six burghs ratified the agreement for the marriage of
Edward Baliol; and in 1326 they were recognized as a third estate,
granting a tenth penny on all rents for the king's life, if he should
apply it for the public good. The commissioners of burghs received from
the exchequer their costages or expenses of attending parliament. The
burghs were represented in the judicial committee, and in the committee
on articles appointed during the reign of James V. After the
Reformation, in spite of the annexation of kirk la