3. We have seen that down to the War of Independence there is no ground for believing that burgesses attended the great council of the kings. When the first Scottish "Parliament" met after the battle of Bannockburn, there was no indication that anything had happened in the interval to change its constitution. In 1314, and again in 1315, in 1318 and in 1320, we read of "full parliaments," the members of which are described in the old terms. At none of these meetings, so far as we know, was any momentary business transacted. But in 1326 King Robert summoned to meet him, at the Abbey of Cambuskenneth, associated with the victory of Wallace, and almost within sight of the field of Bannockburn, a parliament which was to settle the pecuniary relationships of king and people, and reimburse the king for the expenses of the war. To this parliament King Robert called not only noblemen, but "burgesses and all other free tenants of the kingdom." To the agreement then made, the seals of the burghs were appended. To what circumstances are we to attribute this development? It is, of course, natural that the royal burghs should come to be represented in a council of tenants-in-chief, as the "barons of London" and the imperial cities found their way into the Parliament of England and the Diet of the Empire. But the institutions of the Courts of the Four Burghs and of the Hanse Burghs offered an alternative line along which the development of burghal representation might have gone; and, in point of fact, the Convention of Royal Burghs did continue to possess and to exercise certain powers which appear to us proper to Parliament. The meeting at Cambuskenneth in 1326 is thus, to some extent, a critical point, and its importance is increased by the king's attempts to render burghs dependent on great nobles instead of upon the Crown.[30] These attempts were rendered illegal by Parliament in the reign of David II; but plainly, if they had not possessed, at this juncture, a voice in Parliament, the history of the burghs might have been widely different. We may hazard a guess why King Robert did not negotiate with the burghs in the accustomed way. In 1305, when the chances of the independence of Scotland seemed very small, Edward held a parliament in London, which was attended by Scots representatives--by whom elected or chosen, we do not know. Robert the Bruce was also present, as an English lord. Possibly he found his model in the burgesses who thronged the English Parliament. It must also be recollected that, since the end of the war, King Robert had entered into a new relation with a burgh. Hitherto the Scottish kings had spoken of the burgesses rather than of the burgh. But, in 1319, Robert I gave a charter to the city of Aberdeen, in which he recognized it as a corporation, and granted it certain possessions, on condition of an annual payment, assessed by the burgh itself.[31] Edinburgh received a similar charter in 1329.