[1584/5/27]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
Forasmuch as in the parliament held at Edinburgh on 20 October 1579 there was a statute made for punishment of rebels contemptuously remaining at the horn, in the which it was ordained that all hornings executed before the date of the said acts, within 15 days after the publication thereof, and all hornings to be executed thereafter within 15 days after the denunciation, should be duly registered in the sheriff clerks' books of the sheriffdom where the said denunciation is made, marked and signed by the said sheriff clerk and delivered again to the party, with express provision contained in the said acts that hornings not registered after the form and tenor thereof should make no faith nor be of any force nor effect, as the said act at more length purports; by the generality whereof, sundry doubts arising, it was proposed to our sovereign lord and desired to be declared by his three estates in parliament if the provision of nullity of horning therein contained for non-registration thereof, according to the form prescribed in the said first act, should have place in hornings executed at the instance of a person deceased long before the making of the said act, where the person denounced was also departed this life before the making of the same act, the purchasers of the letters of horning being donator to the escheat and the gift of the said escheat having taken full effect in the donator's person long before, and through that the donator and purchaser of the letters being satisfied of his debt and the rebel punished and departed this life before the said statute, which could in no way be extended to the persons which were deceased before the making thereof and which were punished for their said rebellion; the king's majesty, with advice of his said three estates of parliament, being ripely advised therewith, has declared and declares that the said act of parliament is not and shall not be hereafter extended to such hornings as were executed at the instance of any person departed this life before the date thereof against the rebel who deceased before the date of the said act, and especially where the escheat falling by the said horning was conveyed and the donator had intromitted with the goods, tacks and possessions contained within the gift; but that the said horning in the cause aforesaid, albeit the same be not registered, has been and shall be in all time coming of full force and effect. Likewise also our said sovereign lord and said three estates aforesaid declare that all letters of horning duly executed and endorsed for non-compearance to underlie the law, or for not finding of surety for†that effect reported to the justice clerk and his deputes as said† is, has been and shall be as sufficient as if the same were registered in the sheriffs' books where the said rebels were denounced, and that it shall be sufficient that the hornings within stewartries and regalities be registered within the books thereof, and that the hornings executed upon persons for their non-compearance to bear witness shall need no registration.