page_title: Convention of Royal Burghs
section_title: 16th Century
hierarchical_section_title: Convention of Royal Burghs / 16th Century
context_page_description: The Convention of Royal Burghs, more fully termed the Convention of the Royal Burghs of Scotland, was a representative assembly which protected the privileges and pursued the interests of Scotland’s principal trading towns, the royal burghs, from the middle of the 16th century to the second half of the 20th century. It evolved as a forum in which burgh delegates, termed "commissioners", could "consult together and take common action in matters concerning their common welfare" before and during the sittings of parliament. An exclusively merchant body, it was essentially a parliament which "declared the law of the burghs" just as the Scottish Parliament "declared the law of the land". The Convention expanded over time by admitting lesser burghs to its membership; and by the 16th century had grown in influence to the extent that "it was listened to rather than directed by the government". Though still known as the "convention of royal burghs", it referred to itself from the late 17th century onwards as simply the "convention of burghs", as by then membership was no longer restricted exclusively to royal burghs and commissioners from all types of burgh were represented in parliament.
context_section_description: By the time more or less continuous records begin in the middle of the 16th century (1552), the Convention met regularly as a separate assembly to decide on a common policy for adoption by Parliament. The editor of its Records, Sir James Marwick, relates that the Convention was summoned by royal letters in 1529, 1530–31, 1539 and 1556. Records from the regency of Mary of Guise suggest that the burghs themselves fixed the date and place of their conventions, a practice later confirmed by statute in 1581. In 1563 they gained the right to be consulted on "peace and war" and, from 1567, on "weighty affairs" of the realm. In 1578 James VI authorised them to meet "foure tymes in the yeare for sic materis as concerns thair Estait, and in quhatever Burche it sal be thocht expedient. Annual records of the Convention begin in that year.
  Marwick summarised the Convention’s functions thus,
  Scarcely anything affecting Burghs of Scotland, in their internal administration, or in their commercial relations at home and abroad, escaped the cognizance of the Convention. It defined the rights, privileges and duties of Burghs; it regulated the merchandise, manufactures and shipping of the country, it exercised control over the Scottish merchants in France, Flanders and other countries in Europe, with which from time to time commercial relations existed; it sent commissioners to foreign powers, and to great commercial communities, entered into treaties with them, and established the staple trade of Scotland wherever this could be most advantageously done: it claimed the right, independently of the Crown, to nominate the Conservator [official charged with safeguarding the privileges of the Scottish staple in Flanders]. And it certainly did regulate his emoluments, and control his conduct; it sometimes defrayed, and sometimes contributed towards, the expenses of ambassadors from the Scottish Court to that of France and other foreign powers in matters affecting the Burghs and the common weal; it allocated among the whole Burghs of the Kingdom their proportion of all extents and taxes granted by the three Estates of the realm; it adjudicated on the claims of Burghs to be admitted to the privileges of free Burghs, and to be added to its roll; it took cognizance of weights and measures."
  (The agreed weights and measures were based on the "stane wecht" [stone weight] of Lanark, the "pint stoupe" [liquid measure] of Stirling, the "firlatt" [quarter-boll—a dry measure of meal] of Linlithgow and the "elland" [length, e.g. of cloth] of Edinburgh)
caption: Blaeu map of Veere, Scotland's staple port in Flanders from 1541 to 1799
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