Preface

PREFACE

The first volume of Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Glasgow, issued in 1876, contained selections from those records, so far as known at the time to exist, extending from 19th January, 1573-4, till 10th September, 1642. But the records for the period from 27th April, 1586, till 22nd October, 1588; from 31st July, 1590, till 5th October, 1594; from 27th October, 1601, till 13th June, 1605; from 29th August, 1613, till 30th September, 1623; and from 11th December, 1630, till 28th May, 1636, were awanting; and it was in consequence impossible to maintain the continuity fo the selections. Immediately before the volume was sent out, however, the last volume of the series of Council Records, above referred to as amissing, was discovered and restored to the City, and it was promised that selections from it would be given in the second volume of Extracts. In fulfillment of that promise the present volume contains selections for the period from 18th December, 1630, till 21st May, 1636, (fn. 1) and carries down the collection, in chronological series, from 4th October, 1642, till 20th December, 1662.

In this, as in the previous volume of selections, it has been the object of the Editor to collect all that the records of the City contain illustrative of civic life during the period over which the volumes extend. Recent publications, and notably Mr. Macgeorge's admirable volume on "Old Glasgow", have done much to draw attention to the early history of the City. For such work this and the preceding volume provide authentic materials to which otherwise it would be practically impossible to make adequate reference.

The Index which accompanies this volume does not apply to the Extracts from the Accounts of the Burgh, for the period from 1630 till 1661-2 - extending from page 501 to page 552. The entries in these Accounts are stated in a form so condensed as greatly to facilitate reference and supersede the necessity for including them in the index, which would otherwise have been unduly extended.

Circumstances of a purely personal nature have prevented the issue of the volume of Charters and Documents relating to Glasgow. The whole of the body of the book has been completed for some time, and contains the Charters of the Burgh and other illustrative documents from the institution of the Burgh till 1648. The Editor hopes to be able to complete the Preface to that collection without much further delay.

In the preparation of this and of the preceding volume the Editor has again to express his obligations to Mr. Renwick, without whom neither volume could have been completed.

J. D. MARWICK.
Killermont, GLASGOW, October, 1882.