Burghs of Annandale. 73 



this juncture important evidence is brought to bear on the 

 problem. It consists of the Earl of Moray's " cocket of 

 Lochmaben," concerning which the uninitiated may well ask 

 what is meant by the cocket of Lochmaben. 



A cocket was a certificate under seal that the great 

 custom or duty on exported merchandise had been duly paid. 

 One of the first requisites of a burgh was a cocket seal. Thus 

 in the case of Tarbert, on Loch Fyne, a castle was erected 

 by King Robert during 1325 and 1326 ;54 in 1328 the village 

 has become a royal burgh, and gets a cocket seal made for 

 it ;55 and — perhaps more interesting still — Tarbert doubtless 

 was the originating centre of the sheriffdom of Tarbert,^ an 

 extensive territory embracing Kintyre and many of the Isles, ^"^ 

 and having a hereditary sheriff. 58 The castle, and the burgh 

 with its cocket seal, were probably conditions favouring the 

 creation of the county. 



At Lochmaben the case is different. The cockets are 

 expressly recorded to have been " the Earl of Moray's 

 cockets of Louchmaban,"59 so that, with whatever reluctance, 

 we are compelled to read the reference in a sense derogatory 

 to royal tenure of burgh. There is no gainsaying it : King 

 Robert's grant of Annandale, though it did not expressly 

 bear to be " with burghs and the liberties of burghs " (as 

 did the charter of Galloway-on-this-side-Cree by David II. in 

 favour of Archibald the Grim), yet evidently was as effective 

 bv its general terms as more intimate specification would have 

 made it. The burghal liberty, therefore, appears vested in 

 the earl ; the cocket is his — the cocket of a burgh which is 

 or has become baronial. 



The fluctuating fortunes of the place after King Robert 

 the Bruce's death until near the end of the century, when 

 after being in English hands for about fifty years it at last 



54 E:rch. ItoUs. i.. 52. 



55 Exch. Bolls, i., 118. 



56 lii'fj. Mag. Sig., ii., 1464. 



57 lietours Argyll. 7. 8, 15, 16. 



58 Reg. Mag. Sig.. 1609-1620. No. 265. 



59 Exch. Bolls, i., 99, 174, 175. 



