The other three royal burghs associated with Edinburgh were Stirling, Roxburgh and Berwick; and their enactments form the earliest existing collected body of Scots law. The determination of Edinburgh as the national capital, and as the most frequent scene of parliamentary assemblies, dates from the death of James I. in 1436. Of the thirteen parliaments summoned by that sovereign, only one, the last, was held at Edinburgh, but his assassination in the Blackfriars' monastery at Perth led to the abrupt transfer of the court and capital from the Tay to the Forth. The coronation of James II. was celebrated in Holyrood Abbey instead of at Scone, and the widowed queen took up her residence, with the young king, in the castle. Of fourteen parliaments summoned during this reign, only one was held at Perth, five met at Stirling and the rest at Edinburgh; and, notwithstanding the favour shown for Stirling as a royal residence in the following reign, every one of the parliaments of James III. was held at Edinburgh. James II. conferred on the city various privileges relating to the holding of fairs and markets, and the levying of customs; and by a royal charter of 1452 he gave it pre-eminence over the other burghs. Further immunities and privileges were granted by James III.; and by a precept of 1482, known as the Golden Charter, he bestowed on the provost and magistrates the hereditary office of sheriff, with power to hold courts, to levy fines, and to impose duties on all merchandise landed at the port of Leith. Those privileges were renewed and extended by various sovereigns, and especially by a general charter granted by James VI. in 1603. James III. was a great builder, and, in the prosperous era which followed his son's accession to the throne, the town reached the open valley to the south, with the Cowgate as its chief thoroughfare. But the death of James IV. in 1513, along with other disastrous results of the battle of Flodden, brought this era of prosperity to an abrupt close. The citizens hastened to construct a second line of wall, enclosing the Cowgate and the heights beyond, since occupied by Greyfriars churches and Heriot's hospital, but still excluding the Canongate, as pertaining to the abbey of Holyrood. In the 16th century the movements connected with John Knox and Mary, queen of Scots, made Edinburgh a castle of much activity. With the departure, however, of the sixth James to fill the English throne in 1603, the town lost for a long period its influence and prestige. Matters were not bettered by the Act of Union signed in a cellar in High Street in 1707, amidst the execrations of the people, and it was not till the hopes of the Jacobites were blasted at Culloden (1746) that the townsfolk began to accept the inevitable. This epoch, when grass grew even in High Street, long lingered in the popular memory as the "dark age."