Chalmers, in his _Caledonia_, vol. ii, p. 217, speaking of Berwick, says, "this place, lying at the mouth of the Tweed, on a dubious frontier, has an origin obscure, undignified, and recent." That its origin, like the origin of most other towns in Great Britain, is obscure, may be admitted; but the term "recent" can scarcely be applied with propriety to a town which was of such consequence in the reign of David I. as to be appointed one of the "_Four Boroughs_,"[10] which, by their Commissioners, met annually at Haddington, where, under the presidency of the King's Chamberlain, they formed a Court of Appeal from the jurisdiction of other boroughs, and exercised an authority in commercial affairs. As nothing is positively known respecting the origin of Berwick, it is impossible that an uninspired antiquary should be able to decide whether it was "undignified" or not. Its first "kirk and mill"--the primary conditions of a town--were more likely to be founded by a noble than by a serf. In 1174, Berwick, with the castles of Jedburgh, Roxburgh, Stirling, and Edinburgh, was delivered up to Henry II. as security for payment of the ransom of William the Lion, King of Scotland, who had been taken prisoner when besieging Alnwick; and it remained in the possession of England until 1189, when Richard I. restored it with the other castles to William for the sum of 10,000 marks. In 1216, Berwick was plundered and burnt by King John, but in a short time was rebuilt by the Scots, in whose uninterrupted possession it continued until 1296, when it was taken by Edward I. at the commencement of the Scottish war of independence, which was first waged by Wallace, and afterwards by Bruce, against Edward and his successor; who, laying claim to the sovereignty of Scotland, endeavoured to reduce that country to a state of vassalage, and to compel her kings to do homage to England for their crown. From this war may be dated that jealous and hostile feeling with which the two countries continued to regard each other for nearly three centuries afterwards, and was only modified in the reign of Elizabeth--when there was a prospect of a Scottish king succeeding to the English throne, and when open warfare was succeeded by political intrigue--but which was not wholly extinct at the Union of the two kingdoms in 1707.