Dingwall and Cromarty were also burghs by the Scottish Wars of Independence.

The date of the initial establishment of burghs in Scotland is obscure. The historian Ian D. Whyte points to the Leges Burgorum (Laws of the Burghs) as the best known compilation of medieval burgh laws, saying that most of the laws therein "were modelled on the mid-twelfth century customs of Newcastle upon Tyne"