BACK IN THE DAY: From history of Govan to early Glasgow merchants and the death of James III
GLASGOW’S BEST STORIES
WITH a university now within its bounds, Glasgow was a town ‘on the make’ and in the 1450s and 1460s, Bishop Andrew de Durisdeer or Durisdere, also known as Andrew Muirhead, encouraged a new breed of person to flourish in the dear green place – merchants.
The university itself was not a vast institution, but merely possessing one made Glasgow a centre of both religion and education, and the fragile peace with England that lasted until 1480 allowed the city – we shall call it a city from now on as it had a bishop, a cathedral and a university – to increase its mercantile trade which would prove so important to the development of Glasgow.
The accidental death of Glasgowfavouring James II at the Siege of Roxburgh in 1460 brought his son to the throne and the nine-year-old James III – we don’t actually know his exact date of birth and he could have been only eight – was obviously unable to reign over his kingdom. His minority saw three factions rule Scotland, including that of James Kennedy, Bishop of St Andrews. It would be Kennedy’s successor, Patrick Graham, who would become the first Archbishop of Scotland’s principal see in 1472, an elevation which no doubt annoyed Bishop Andrew and his successor Bishop John Laing.
During his reign, James II had made Glasgow a ‘burgh of regality’ as opposed to a Royal Burgh. This happened around 1450 and it is the reason why several historians say Glasgow was a ‘royal burgh’ from then on. That’s not the case as a ‘burgh of regality’ was not the same as a royal burgh, though the name signifies that the monarch acknowledged that Glasgow was a place that was special to the crown.
Glasgow was thus included when James II brought in laws that improved the administration of burghs and, crucially, gave them advantageous trading rights.
The Privy Council of Scotland confirmed that these rights of the so-called ‘free burghs’ which meant that no merchants could trade outside Scotland unless they were freemen of those burghs which included Dumbarton, Ayr, Irvine, Wigtown, Kirkcudbright, Renfrew and Glasgow. Remarkably another competitor at that time was Govan where small ships could trade their wares.
I digress to mention the history of Govan which dates back to the early monastery founded by
Constantine around 565 AD.
As Peoplemakeglasgow.com noted: “It was not until around 1147 that the name of Govan was historically recorded when King David I gave to the Church of Glasgu, “Guven” with its ‘marches free and clear for ever’. It was during this period that the church in Govan was made a prebend of Glasgow Cathedral in or around 1153. “So Govan predates Glasgow but was eventually swallowed up by its bigger neighbour.
The new status in 1450 gave Glasgow special trading rights and privileges which James III confirmed when he eventually came to the throne in his own right in 1468.
At that time, Glasgow was growing faster than the longerestablished burghs around it, such as Rutherglen, Lanark and Dumbarton.
It was the latter burgh which gave Glasgow a hard time in 1469. Dumbarton held all the aces, as it was home to an impregnable royal castle and, crucially, even large ships could navigate up the River Clyde to its confluence with the River Leven just beside the castle.
Prior to the 1460s, Glasgow had conducted trade mainly through the port of Irvine, though it also had links to ports and burghs on the east side of Central Scotland such as Leith and Linlithgow. Merchants realised that they could do better trade with the likes of Flanders and France if ships could sail into the Firth of Clyde and transferred their cargoes to smaller vessels that could make it upriver to Glasgow.
Obviously annoyed that Glasgow was growing and stealing some of its trade, the previously friendly relations between Dumbarton and Glasgow were sundered when merchants from the city bought a quantity of wine from a French ship – Scotland was already smitten by claret wine – that was anchored in the Clyde.
It had been intended to transport the wine upriver by a shallow draught boat but the French ship had anchored in waters claimed by Dumbarton and the magistrates of the town, assisted by the Dumbartonian equivalent of ‘heavies’, forced the sale and importation of that wine to stop.
The Glasgow faction were not going to do without their favourite tipple, however, and Bishop Andrew himself summoned the Dumbartonians to the court known as the Lords Auditors of Causes and Complaints, a sort of devolved committee of the Scottish Parliament which arbitrated on such matters as trade disputes.
The Lords Auditors duly found in Glasgow’s favour decreeing that they had been “the first byars of the wyne” and Dumbarton was strongly warned not to interfere in such trade in future. In effect this meant that Glasgow’s merchants could simply bypass Dumbarton and any other burgh and trade freely in its own right – it can be argued that Glasgow’s history as a centre of international trade dates back to that 15th century case.
Who were these early Glasgow merchants? Their names have mostly been lost but there does appear to be a notable name quoted as one of the first international merchants in the city, that of Elphingstone or Elphinstone.
When the university was founded, William Elphinstone