Chapter XV: The Burgh
The new burgh was not viewed with much favour by the group of similar towns in the neighbourhood. Its older sisters regarded it with a jealous eye as an intruder on their privileges. Immediately after its erection, the King addressed a letter to the Burghs of Air, Irwine, Renfrew, Ruglen, Dumbarton, and Glasgow, charging them that none of their burgesses should take upon hand to vex, trouble, or inquiet the “venerable fader in the peaceable broiking and jousing of the said Burgh of Paslay, and the privileges of the same, as ye and ilk of you will answer to us thereupon” [13] One of these burghs, that of Renfrew, thought fit to disregard the royal admonition. Its burgesses could not view with equanimity another burgh in their neighbourhood, possessing equal privileges with their own. Its regular fairs and market cross were very offensive. Possibly the burgesses of Paisley, in their youthful zeal, prosecuted their trade in a way that seriously injured the resources of the sleepy old town by the Clyde. The Renfrew men stole up to Paisley by night and cast down with contumely the cross of which the Paisley people were so proud. [14] The Abbot was very indignant, and the King coming soon after to the Abbey, he made to him a complaint of how his burgesses were treated by their neighbours, and the King wrote letters to the Earl of Lennox, and his son, Matthew Stewart, charging them to make proclamation at the market cross of Renfrew of his Majesty's displeasure with the communite and burgess of Renfrew, for having, under silence of night, gone to Paisley and destroyed the hewn work of the new market cross of the said town, which had recently been erected by the King into a free Burgh of Barony, charging them to apprehend, if possible, and punish with rigour of law, the persons who had committed the said offence.” The letter is dated from the Abbey, two years after the erection of the Burgh. [15]
The letter of the King does not appear to have had much effect upon the irate burgesses of Renfrew, for a few years afterwards they made another raid upon Paisley, seizing, in the market place, upon certain things in payment of their customs,—“a quarter of beef for a penney of custome, a cabok of cheese for an halfpenney of custom, and a wynd of white claith for a penney of custom.” The Bailies of the Abbot, Alan Stewart and John of Quhiteforde, were equal to the occasion, and valiantly resisted the Renfrew invaders, recovering from them the beef, the cheese, and the white claith, and sending them back empty-handed. The Renfrew community raised an action before the Lord Auditors against the Abbot's baffles for interference with them in levying their customs. The Abbot himself defended his servants, and the case was decided by the judges in his favour, confining the aggressive citizens of Renfrew within their own bounds, beyond which their privileges did not extend. [16] Abbot Shaw, elated by this victory over his troublesome neighbours, raised an action against them in turn, [17] prosecuting them for illegally levying dues in Paisley for an hundred years to which they were not entitled, for demolishing the cross, interfering with the fishings and pasture of the Convent, casting down a house in the town of Arkylstone, and other misdeeds, for each of which he demanded a certain compensation. It is probable that this only meant a threat of what would happen if the Renfrew people did not behave themselves. Nothing more apparently came of it, and the Paisley people were allowed henceforth to enjoy their privileges in peace, with no fear of their beef, cheese, or white claith being taken from them. It was in recognition of all that the Convent had done in bestowing upon them burghal privileges and maintaining their rights, that several of the chief townsmen endowed altarages in the church of the Abbey. Though all connection of a formal kind between the Abbey and town has long since been severed, the people of Paisley are still proud of the venerable church which represents the source whence all their prosperity has come. It is to be hoped, they will always be ready to do everything in their power to maintain it in a condition worthy of its history and of their own.
[13] Reg. de Pas., p. 274.
[14] The cross was ordered by the Town Council in 1693 to be taken down, and the place where it stood to be “calsayed.” Its removal was probably due to Protestant zeal.
[15] The letter is in the Lennox Papers, and is dated 23rd December, 1490.
[16] Reg. de Pas., p. 403.
[17] Reg. de Pas., p. 404.