344 Royalty of the Burgh of Dumfries. 



Moatbrae to Crindau and the Annan Road, its northern boun- 

 dary being- a line drawn roughly from St. Cuthbert's to March- 

 hill, and thence along- the march with Parkfoot to the Poind- 

 field Burn. 



The reason for the departure from the strict feudal rule 

 in the case of this substantial part of the royalty can only be 

 a matter of conjecture. But there is historical g-round for 

 saying that the Maxwells of Nithsdale were territorial mag- 

 nates in the immediate vicinity of Dumfries, who exercised 

 from the outset a predominating influence in burghal politics, 

 and it may possibly have been from this cause that the 

 Magistrates were induced, with the approval of the Crown, 

 as signified by a subsequent Charter of Confirmation,* to 

 alienate to this friendly neighbour the stronghold of the Moat 

 with a slice of the territory adjacent to it, on the footing of his 

 being bound, not to watch and ward the royalty as if he were 

 an ordinary burgess, but to do more and by himself and his 

 retainers to make excursions further afield to circumvent the 

 enemy before he approached the Burgh bounds. Be this as it 

 may, the fact remains that the ^^5 Land of Moat, within the 

 territory of the Burgh of Dumfries, has for many centuries 

 been in the possession of a subject superior under the Crown 



* Confirmation Charter. 28 July, 1534, to Robert, Lord Max- 

 well, " considerando cartas ab antiquo confectas per progenitores 

 sues predecessoribus . . . superioritatein 5 libratarum terrarum 

 antiqiii extentus infra territorium burgi de Drumfres." (lieg. Mag. 

 Sig.) There are two references to the original grant of the £5 lands 

 of Moat, and these agree as to date. In an " ancient genealogy . . 

 compiled at an early date in a monastery in Flanders," and now 

 " in the muniments of the Kirkconnel family " (Vumfries and Gallo- 

 way Standard, 25th December, 1889), is the following: " xi. Lord 

 Harbert Maxwell of Carlaverock and Mairnes is recorded to have 

 been at the mariage of King John 1299. He was att the castell of 

 Stirling with Earle Thomas Randell. He did suit and gott the mort 

 [ ? printer's error] of Dumfreis . . and finally was slain at Banok- 

 burn feild the 7 year of King Robert Bruce 28 Febry in anno 1314." 

 This manuscript could not have been compiled prior to 1593. The 

 Rev. William Burnside, in his MS. History of Dumfries (1791), 

 writes: "So far back as 1299 (as the late Commissary Goldie's 

 papers bear) the Moat of Dumfries . . had been granted by the 

 Crown to Lord Herbert Maxwell of Carlavroc." 



