[50] ‘By the sale of land made by Robert de Mythyngby to Mr. Reginald de Irewyne, a.d. 1268, it is evident that the town was then governed by provosts, aldermen, or wardens, and baillies, who seem to have been independent of the bishop, and were possessed of a common seal, distinct from the one made use of by the bishop and chapter.’ Gibson's History of Glasgow, p. 72.
[51] ‘A Mr. William Elphinston is made mention of as the first promoter of trade in Glasgow, so early as the year 1420; the trade which he promoted was, in all probability, the curing and exporting of salmon.’ Gibson's History of Glasgow, p. 203. See also M'Ure's History of Glasgow, p. 93.
[52] Gibson (History of Glasgow, p. 74), with every desire to take a sanguine view of the early state of his own city, says, that, in 1450, the inhabitants ‘might perhaps amount to fifteen hundred;’ and that ‘their wealth consisted in a few burrow-roods very ill-cultivated, and in some small cattle, which fed on their commons.’
[53] ‘Dunfermline continued to be a favourite royal residence as long as the Scottish dynasty existed. Charles I. was born here; as also his sister Elizabeth, afterwards Queen of Bohemia, from whom her present Majesty is descended; and Charles II. paid a visit to this ancient seat of royalty in 1650. The Scottish parliament was often held in it.’ M'Culloch's Geographical Dictionary, London, 1849, vol. i. p. 723. Compare Mercer's History of Dunfermline, 1828, pp. 56, 58, and Chalmers' History of Dunfermline, 1844, p. 264.
[54] In 1385, it was ‘only a sorry wooden village, belonging to the monastery.’ Mercer's History of Dunfermline, p. 62.
[55] See ‘Ms. Annals,’ in Chalmers' History of Dunfermline, p. 327. In 1624, we learn from Balfour's Annales, edit. 1825, vol. ii. p. 99, that ‘the quholl bodey of the towne, which did consist of 120 tenements, and 287 families was brunt and consumed.’
[56] ‘Greenock, which is now one of the largest shipping towns in Scotland, was, in the end of the sixteenth century, a mean fishing village, consisting of a single row of thatched cottages, which was inhabited by poor fishermen.’ Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. iii. p. 806, 4to, 1824.
[57] In May 1668, Kilmarnock was burnt; and ‘the event is chiefly worthy of notice as marking the smallness of Kilmarnock in those days, when as yet, there was no such thing as manufacturing industry in the country. A hundred and twenty families speaks to a population of between five and six hundred.‘ Chambers' Annals, Edinburgh, 1858, vol. ii. p. 320. In 1658, their houses are described by an eye-witness as ‘little better than huts.‘ Franck's Northern Memoirs, reprinted Edinburgh, 1821, p. 101.
[58] ‘Betwixt two and three thousand souls,‘ Denholm's History of Glasgow, p. 542, edit. Glasgow, 1804.
[59] In 1572, the registers of Aberdeen show that seventy-two deaths occurred in the year. An annual mortality of 1 in 40 would be a very favourable estimate; indeed, rather too favourable, considering the habits of the people at that time. However, supposing it to be 1 in 40, the population would be 2880; and if, as I make no doubt, the mortality was more than 1 in 40, the population must of course have been less. Kennedy, in his valuable, but very uncritical, work, conjectures that ‘one fiftieth part of the inhabitants had died annually;’ though it is certain that there was no town in Europe any thing like so healthy as that. On this hypothesis, which is contradicted by every sort of statistical evidence that has come down to us, the number would be 72 × 50 = 3600. See Kennedy's Annals of Aberdeen, vol. i. p. 103, London, 1818, 4to.