The eight ‘Dumfries burghs’ were spread across two shires and a stewartry in the far south west of Scotland: Wigtown and Whithorn were in Wigtownshire; Kirkcudbright and New Galloway on the River Dee in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright; Dumfries on the estuary and Sanquhar much further upstream on the River Nith, and Annan and Lochmaben on the River Annan, were all in Dumfriesshire. Atlas Scot. Hist. 228. For some reason, Stranraer, which had been a royal burgh since 1617, was left off the list. Young, Parliaments of Scot. ii. 787. By far the largest of the eight burghs was Dumfries, which had a population of around 6,850 in 1639; the next largest was Kirkcudbright, with 2,150; and then Wigtown, with no more than 250. The other five burghs were the size of villages. Lochmaben, for example, had had 32 householders in 1642, but by the later 1640s this had fallen to 16; in 1652 most of the houses there were uninhabited, and the population did not return to its pre-war level until 1669. J.B. Wilson, ‘Life in Lochmaben 1612-1721’, Dumfries and Galloway Nat.Hist. and Antiq. Soc. ser. 3, lvii. 123. This discrepancy in size was matched by differences in economic strength. In 1654 the region was described as ‘fuller of moors and mosses than good towns and people’, and the only ports of any consequence were Dumfries and Kirkcudbright, the latter carrying most of the seaborne trade, as the River Nith was prone to silting. These two burghs were important staging-posts on the west coast routes crossing the border, with cloth and salt coming from England, and cattle, sheep and hides from Scotland. There was also a fair degree of traffic between Scotland and Ireland passing through Wigtown as well as Dumfries and Kirkcudbright. A. Murray, ‘The Customs Accounts of Dumfries and Kirkcudbright, 1560-1660’, Dumfries and Galloway Nat. Hist. and Antiq. Soc. ser. 3, xlii. 117, 119, 124. Again, a smaller burgh such as Lochmaben provides a very different picture: by the mid-1640s it had become a purely agricultural community, and neither weekly nor yearly markets were held there. J.B. Wilson, ‘Royal Burgh of Lochmaben Ct. and Council Bk. 1612-1721’, Dumfries and Galloway Nat. Hist. and Antiq. Soc. ser. 3, lxv. 89. Assessment rates varied accordingly. In the general assessment of June 1657, Dumfries had to pay £16 13s, Kirkcudbright £8 4d and Wigtown £6 19s 11d. The other five burghs paid £2 or less, and New Galloway, considered the poorest, was rated at only 10s. A. and O. ii. 1240-2.
The varying size and prosperity of the burghs influenced the degree of political autonomy that they enjoyed. Dumfries and Kirkcudbright had been royal burghs since the twelfth century, and Wigtown joined them in 1292. By contrast, the smaller five burghs were relative newcomers: Lochmaben had been given its charter in 1440, Whithorn in 1511, Annan in 1532, Sanquhar in 1598 and New Galloway in 1630. Young, Parliaments of Scot. ii. 768, 772, 781-3, 786, 788. All the burghs were governed by the usual arrangement of provost, bailies and councillors, but the larger, older burghs were fiercely independent of local landowners, whereas the newer ones were susceptible to noble and gentry influence. A. and O. ii. 1148, 1155-6, 1388, 1395.. At least three of the newer burghs owed their existence to landowning families, who continued to control them. Lochmaben, which had grown up around a royal castle, was entirely dependent on the Johnstons, who monopolised the burgh government. James Johnstone*, earl of Hartfell (and later earl of Annandale), succeeded his father as provost of Lochmaben, and then held onto the position from 1655 until 1674. Wilson, ‘Lochmaben Ct. and Council Bk.’, 85. As well as the Johnstons at Lochmaben, Sanquhar was dominated by Drumlanrig Castle, home of the Douglas earls of Queensberry, and New Galloway was dependent on the Stewarts of Garlies, earls of Galloway. M. Coventry, The Castles of Scotland (Musselburgh, 2001), 224, 372. The differences between the larger and smaller burghs no doubt influenced their religious and political activity during the 1640s and early 1650s. The south west of Scotland was the heartland of the radical covenanters, later known as the ‘Protesters’, who were unwilling to trust the Stuarts (whether in 1647-8 or 1650-1) and were almost as wary of the Cromwellian government instituted in 1652. Protester influence in the burghs seems to have been most prominent in Dumfries and Kirkcudbright. Dumfries apparently refused to send a deputy to discuss union terms with the invaders, and the Kirkcudbright records show that the provost, bailies and council ‘all with one voice, consent and mind, resolve that it was altogether unlawful to give obedience … and so refuse to send their commissioner to the said meeting at Dalkeith’. Cromwellian Union ed. Terry, 36, 55, 153; Kirkcudbright Town Council Recs. 1606-58 ed. marquis of Bute (2 vols. Edinburgh, 1958), ii. 915-6. Wigtown was the only burgh that readily accepted the tender of union offered by the English in February 1652, and it is doubtful that the smaller burghs were even asked. Dow, Cromwellian Scot. 41-2.
The refusal of the local Protesters to cooperate caused some anxiety to the Cromwellian government, which had thought them the most likely to work with the new regime. The situation was especially awkward as the south west was prone to lawlessness, and the royalist rebels under the earl of Glencairn used the region as their southern base in 1653-4. In December 1653 Robert Lilburne* told Oliver Cromwell* of his efforts to root out the ‘parties’ of rebels which lurked near Dumfries, and further military action was necessary in March and April 1654. Scot. and Commonwealth ed. Firth, 285; Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 65, 98. George Monck* established a garrison of two troops of horse at Dumfries in May 1654, and there was a permanent garrison there, under Captain John Grimsditch, by the summer of 1655. Scot. and the Protectorate ed. Firth, 103; J.B. Wilson, ‘The Economy of Lochmaben’, Dumfriesshire and Galloway Nat. Hist. and Antiq. Soc. ser. 3, lxxiv. 116. There was also a garrison in Wigtown, and troops were quartered in Kirkcudbright on various occasions in 1654 and 1656. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvii, unfol.: 9 July 1655; Kirkcudbright Town Council Recs. ii. 970, 1034. There was a great deal of cross-border military co-ordination, as the large garrison at Carlisle could respond much more quickly to local disturbances than the troops across the mountains at Ayr. The deputy-governor of Carlisle, Major Jeremiah Tolhurst*, was active in policing Dumfriesshire as early as December 1653, and in October 1654 the complaints of the burgh of Kirkcudbright against the local assessment collector were referred to him. Scot. and Commonwealth ed. Firth, 285; Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvi, unfol.: 9 Oct. 1654. The internal working of the burghs was also coordinated by the officers stationed within Scotland, with the western area initially coming under the purview of the governor of Ayr, Colonel Matthew Alured*, who was active in settling Wigtown’s disputes with Stranraer over assessment rates in the summer of 1653. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlv, unfol.: 13 Aug., 16 and 21 Sept. 1653 Alured’s successor, Colonel Thomas Cooper II*, also played a key role in addressing burgh problems, especially those surrounding the re-establishment of the provincial synod at Dumfries in 1655. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvi, unfol.: 4, 5 and 7 Apr. 1655 In his dealings with the local Kirk, Cooper worked closely with the governor of Dumfries, Captain Grimsditch, who was charged with ensuring that the synod could meet in the summer of 1655 without disturbance ‘by disorderly people’. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvii, unfol.: 20 June, 12 July 1655. Grimsditch’s authority extended over the other burghs in Dumfriesshire, and he adjudicated a dispute between Lochmaben and the earl of Queenberry in August 1655. Wilson, ‘The Economy of Lochmaben’, 116. In the same month, Grimsditch and Tolhurst were thanked by Monck for their joint-effort in ‘determining the difference’ between the shire and burgh of Dumfries. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvii, unfol.: 1 Aug. 1655.
During 1650s relations between the larger burghs and the Cromwellian officers seem to have gradually improved, as civilian sheriffs and commissaries and collectors, aided by the burgh magistrates, started to take over the administration of the region. The shift in policy can be seen in Monck’s order to Grimsditch of October 1655 not to intervene in a local adultery case as such matters would soon come under the jurisdiction of the local justices of the peace. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvii, unfol.: 22 Oct. 1655. The relaxation of military rule encouraged the burghs to cooperate more fully with the English government. Monck’s decision to allow the synod of Dumfries to meet in the burgh was influenced by his interview, in April 1655, with ‘some of the chief of them, engaging that no civil matters shall be meddled with’, and it seems to have won him some local goodwill. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvii, unfol.: 7 Apr. 1655. Even militant Kirkcudbright was prepared to make concessions, in July 1656 admitting the regional commissary, William Ross* of Drumgarland, as freeman, and in September 1657 making one of the commissioners for the administration of justice, James Dalrymple of Stair, a burgess. Kirkcudbright Town Council Recs. ii. 1024, 1057. Trusting local worthies did not always produce the desired result, as the case of Thomas McBurnie, former provost of Dumfries, demonstrates. McBurnie was acting as collector for Dumfriesshire by the summer of 1653, and as a result was targeted by Glencairn’s men, who burned down his house in 1654. Young, Parliaments of Scot. ii. 444; Scot. and Commonwealth ed. Firth, 178; Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 94-5. Despite his apparent loyalty, McBurnie’s career came to a sudden end in October of that year, when he was sacked for not paying over all the money he had been collecting; and by the summer of 1655 he was languishing in the Edinburgh tolbooth, awaiting trial for embezzlement. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvi, unfol.: 14 Oct. 1654; xlvii, unfol.: 19 July, 8 Nov. 1655 McBurnie was not the only local official taking advantage of the situation: in August 1655 Grimsditch was ordered to arrest the former provost of Wigtown, John Ewart, who was also suspected of stealing tax money. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvii, unfol.: 3, 13 Aug., 7 Nov. 1655.
The choice of Dumfries as the venue for parliamentary elections presumably gave the garrison there a role in overseeing them, and in 1654 it was no surprise that the deputy-governor of Carlisle, Jeremiah Tolhurst, was returned. A. and O. ii. 931. Although there is no surviving indenture to provide details of the election in August 1656, it seems to have followed a similar pattern to other burgh constituencies, as even lowly Lochmaben chose a commissioner to attend the meeting, to elect ‘whom he thinks fittest’. The Lochmaben Ct. and Council Bk. 1612-1721 ed. J.B. Wilson (Edinburgh, 2001), 71. The commissioners’ decision to elect a senior army officer, Colonel Edward Salmon, was predictable. Clarke xxviii, f. 65v. Salmon was related by marriage to the governor of Dumfries, John Grimsditch, and had political connections with General John Lambert*. Wilson, ‘The Economy of Lochmaben’, 116; Herald and Genealogist, vii. 61-2. Salmon subsequently chose to sit instead for Scarborough, and a by-election was held at Dumfries in December. CJ vii. 432a. Again, this appears to have been a free contest, as the Lochmaben council chose a ‘commissioner to repair to Dumfries’ to meet representatives of the other seven burghs. Lochmaben Ct. and Council Bk. ed. Wilson, 73. The MP elected this time was another of Lambert’s allies, the governor of Dumbarton, Colonel Thomas Talbott II*. The 1659 election saw the return of the politically moderate Tolhurst again securing the seat, perhaps in recognition of his activity on behalf of the burghs in the Parliament of 1654-5, and his relatively benign oversight of their affairs in the years that followed. CJ vii. 414a; NRS, B56/16/16.
