[1592/4/72]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
†Because the nobility, earls, lords and barons, ancient heritors of lands, livings and possessions, understood the institution of the college of justice and lords of session to have been from the beginning for decision of all civil actions, to the which decision their whole heritages, lands, livings and possessions are subject, and that his highness's progenitors instituted the said college of cunning and wise men, which his majesty, willing to continue according to his forbearers' good intention and to foresee the corruption increasing in the said college in this later and declining age, declares his highness's mind by act of parliament that in all times thereafter when any place should fall vacant in the session that his majesty should present and nominate thereto a man fearing God, of good literature, practice, judgement and understanding of the laws, of good fame, having sufficient living of his own, and who could make good expedition and dispatch in matters touching the lieges of the realm; and yet that it is required that his highness's good intention be more specially expressed toward the complaint of the choosing of young men without gravity, knowledge and experience upon the said session, not having sufficient living of their own, therefore our said sovereign lord, with advice of the estates of this present parliament, declares that none shall be received to a place of a senator in the college of justice, except he be sufficiently tried and known by his highness and whole lords of the session, that the said person to be presented and received have in yearly rent properly pertaining to himself the sum of 1,000 merks usual money of this realm, or else 20 chalders of victual, and that his experience, quality and conversation may be the better tried that he be of the age of 25 years at the least complete in all time coming, otherwise his presentation and admission to be null, annulling all presentations given and granted by his majesty since his highness's coronation to whatsoever person or persons not being of the age foresaid, ratifying nevertheless and approving always all acts made by his majesty's predecessors and his highness's self of before upon the institution of the said college and reformation of the abuses thereof.
[1592/4/73]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
†Our sovereign lord, with advice of his estates, has statute and ordained that no signature shall pass the registers of his ordinary officers of state underwritten unless the date thereof be filled up with the hands of the treasurer, collector, comptroller, treasurer of augmentations and secretary, or their principal clerk's own hands; and that the registration of the signature or letter bear not only upon the back of it (registered) but the day and date of the registration with the number of the leaves of the book wherein it is registered, which book shall be marked by the hand of the clerk register or his depute constituted to that effect; and also that the keeper of the signet shall write on the back of the signature the special day that he affixed the signet, and the writer, keeper of the privy seal, shall write likewise upon the back of the letter the day that he writes and passes the same the privy seal, which warrants so marked shall be made forthcoming to any party interested for trial of the antedate by the keepers of the signet and privy seal; and that the trial of the said antedates shall not be received without very great adminicles and certain circumstances of falsehood, and that the sum consigned for improbation be made very great; the form of the improbation shall only be received by the writers of the signatures, the principal officers, their deputes or clerks, keepers of the registers, keepers of the signet, privy seal and their servants, writers of the precept and writers to the great seal and keepers of the same and no others, and the punishment of such falsehood if any be found and tried shall be punished with the pain of falsehood and lese-majesty, and three parts of the lands and goods of the offender to be adjudged to the king and the fourth part to the party grieved.
[1592/4/74]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
†Our sovereign lord and the estates of parliament, understanding that the fabricating, forging and devising of false evidents and writs within this realm produced and furnished innumerable and infinite actions and law-suits amongst his lieges to the hurt and prejudice of his highness's faithful and true subjects, for remedy and eschewing whereof our said sovereign lord, with advice and consent of his said estates and whole body of this present parliament, finds, decrees and declares that it shall not be permissible to any person or persons within this realm, their heirs and successors or other persons whatsoever having right proceeding from them to pursue for reduction or otherwise to call in question any decreet of redemption of lands, teinds, coals, coal pits, woods, mills, fishings, castles, towers, fortalices or any part thereof obtained at the instance of whatsoever person or persons, against whatsoever person or persons at any time before the date hereof, by virtue or under pretext of whatsoever discharges of reversion or reversions, posterior infeftments, or other contracts whatsoever which may evacuate and take away the said decreets of redemption or any of them and this act only to have place in decreets of redemption proceeding upon lawful premonition made by the parties' lawful contradictors, which were also duly summoned to the giving of the said decreets; and for obedience thereof has lawfully renounced the lands and others specified in the same decreets of redemption and who have been at sundry times summoned and convened before the lords of session at the instance of his highness's advocates and parties for their interest for production and improbation of all discharges of reversion or reversions, posterior infeftments, other rights and securities whatsoever which might prejudice or make derogation to the reversion or reversions whereupon the said decreets of redemption, or any of them, have followed, and produced no discharges, posterior infeftments nor any other writs which might take away or reduce the said decreets of redemption or prejudice or make derogation to the reversion or reversions whereupon the said decreets of redemption or any of them proceeded, so that the said persons lawfully warned and summoned in manner foresaid might pretend no ignorance of the said decreets of redemption.
[1592/4/75]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
†Forasmuch as the exorbitant and immoderate interest and profit taken by diverse lieges of this realm for lent money, often exceeding six bolls of victual of yearly interest for 100 merks, has been, and is, the cause of the ruin and decay of many ancient livings within this country, which has proceeded partly upon the great excess of the said unlawful profit and partly upon the minority of the persons due in the said interest, who not being able to pay the said interest in respect of the liferent of the freehold are secluded from their livings by the warding thereof during their minority, or otherwise negligently governed by the improvident cure of their tutors and curators, have suffered the same to run so long unpaid that the same has comprised the whole old livings, which being the most ungodly and unlawful conquest in itself, it is not only condemned by the express word of God, but also by the laws of all nations; likewise, his highness and estates of the last parliament held at Edinburgh, 29 July 1587, considering the manifold abuses following thereupon, have moderated and taxed the said yearly interest to £10, or five bolls of victual for every £100, and proportionally for greater and smaller sums, and so have repressed the said usury in time coming. And now his highness and estates, being moved with the hard estate not only of the said minors, but also with the great hurt and prejudice sustained by others of his highness's lieges by non-payment of the said interest through the occasions foresaid, and being careful to provide some ordinary remedy for their relief in payment of the said exorbitant interest, declare, statute and ordain that it shall be permissible to all persons whatsoever, as well minors as majors due in payment of the yearly interest which is redeemable, to redeem all manner of interest, either victual or silver, sold or alienated by their predecessors out of any part of their lands in time bygone, by payment or consignation of the principal sum contained in the reversion or reversions, together with the past interest thereof, which past interest his highness and estates liquidates and modifies to 10 merks for every 100 merks only, finding and declaring the redemption of the said interest to be lawful by payment or consignation of the said principal sums, together with 10 merks for every 100 merks thereof for the past profits of the same, according to the infeftments made thereupon, notwithstanding whatsoever contracts, bonds, obligations, infeftments, decreets or other securities whatsoever made to them of greater interest than 10 merks for the 100 merks, to the which, and every one of them, this present act makes derogation in so far as the same may be extended to the said yearly interest.
[1592/4/76]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
†Because it is clearly understood that the barons of this realm and other heritable possessors holding their lands of our sovereign lord or other superiors are highly prejudiced in their heritages and commonties appertaining thereto by new infeftments given to the persons bordered with them upon their own resignations, in the which new infeftments, by their bounds and marches specified therein, they may include the property of the lands next adjacent, which they never had of before, in great prejudice of the lands adjacent to them, as also they may include the lands pertaining in commonty to other baronies or lands next adjacent, and by their own resignation, with the bounded infeftment following, may move question upon the property of all lands contained in their bounded infeftment, which may breed a great strife to all our sovereign lord's lieges; for remedy whereof, it is statute, ordained and decreed by his highness and estates of his parliament that the bounded infeftment whatsoever either granted or to be granted by our said sovereign lord or any of his successors, or by any other superior to his own heritable tenant by the said heritable tenant's resignation, albeit the same contain a new gift with supplement of all faults, which only respects the superior granting the said infeftment and in no way should be extended to the prejudice of the third person, that the said infeftment passed upon the resignation of the tenant shall work no prejudice regarding the said bounds or marches, either in property or commonty, to any other person, but the questions arising upon the right and possession of the said property and commonty shall be determined and judged by the lords of council and other inferior judges and ministers of the laws in the same sort and manner as if there were no mention of bounds and marches contained in the infeftment passed upon the said resignation.
[1592/4/77]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
†Forasmuch as there being diverse pensions allegedly conveyed out of the benefices and prelacies of this realm, to the great hurt and prejudice thereof, and the successors, albeit no possession is followed nor comprehended thereupon in the prelate's lifetime, alleged conveyers thereof, through which the same falls of the law and manifestly appears to be but forged and counterfeit titles; and by reason of the corruption of this loss and the great hurt and prejudice of our sovereign lord and the successors sustained thereby, it is statute and ordained by the late act of parliament made regarding annexation of kirk lands to our sovereign lord, that whatsoever pensions conveyed out of the prelacies and neither authorised with decreets nor possession before the said act should fall and be null [and of]† no value, force nor effect; which act his highness, with advice of the whole estates, ratifies, approves, confirms, and declares and ordains that all and whatsoever pensions alleged to be conveyed out of prelacies and neither authorised by decreet nor possession, whether the same be of the temporality or spirituality, whereupon neither decreet nor possession has followed in the prelate's lifetime and before the said act of annexation shall be null and of no value, force nor effect in all times bygone and to come.
[1592/4/78]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
†As it is not permissible to use and commit usury, so it is not permissible to any private man by his own invention and authority to astrict or burden any of our sovereign lord's lieges with unlawful and impossible conditions against all law, equity, reason and good form, albeit their necessity for the time constrain them to yield thereto, as where some persons give out their money upon profit, upon contracts or obligations they provide that the receivers thereof, wheresoever they dwell in the furthest parts of the realm, shall be charged to make payment only by open proclamation at the market cross of Edinburgh upon so short and sudden warning as probably and possibly it cannot come to the knowledge of the persons so charged, and that the denunciation of the horning shall be at the same market cross and the horning registered in the sheriffs' books of Edinburgh, making the same as lawful as if the persons were charged personally or at his dwelling place, and the execution of horning used at the market cross of the head burgh of the shire where the parties dwell, and the hornings registered in the sheriffs' books thereof, to the great hurt and prejudice not only of the parties so denounced, but of our sovereign lord and his lieges to whose knowledge probably the said denunciations of hornings cannot come; therefore his highness, with advice of his estates in parliament, statutes, ordains and declares that no such unlawful and impossible conditions be made in contracts or obligations amongst any of his highness's subjects in time coming; and in case any denunciations of hornings shall happen to be made at the said market cross of Edinburgh only upon charges used thereat proceeding upon the unlawful and impossible conditions above-specified, the same charges and denunciation of horning shall not be reputed lawful, but the users thereof shall be charged to cause charge and denounce of new according to the form used and observed by the common law and customs of the realm.
[1592/4/79]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
†Forasmuch as in the pacification concluded in the parliament held in the great hall of the palace of Linlithgow, 10 December 1585, ratified and approved in the parliament held at Edinburgh in the month of July 1591, for union of all his highness's subjects to his obedience, there was a general pacification made and concluded containing diverse heads and articles: specially that all and sundry persons being alive and the heirs of them who were dead and were dispossessed of their lands and possessions through and by the occasion of the common civil trouble occurring of before, should be effectually repossessed from the crop and profit of the year of God 1585, including the Martinmas [11 November] term thereof; since the which time it may appear that all the persons who were dispossessed have sought the remedy of the said pacification by the repossession against whatsoever possessor, albeit the possessor against whom the repossession was sought was not wholly the same person who dispossessed them; and by the rigour of the same act, the persons seeking the said repossession have obtained the utmost past profits continually since the said feast of Martinmas inclusive the year of God 1585, albeit the said repossession was not sought from them a long space thereafter, and some persons in the meantime esteemed themselves to have possessed in good faith; therefore our sovereign lord and estates of this present parliament statute and ordain that all actions competent to whatsoever person or persons by virtue of the foresaid act of repossession be intended and pursued before the judge ordinary within a year and a day next after the publication hereof at the market cross of Edinburgh, with certification that time and space being expired never to be heard thereafter to intend or pursue action upon the said benefit of repossession; and further that by reason of the tumults occurring in the said common troubles, it happened that some persons were forfeited, denounced rebels and put to the horn or troubled for the common cause, and for the same cause were dispossessed by such persons as were shortly thereafter forfeited, put to the horn or troubled by reason of certain variances arising in the said common troubles by changing of factions and parties as they thought occasion required; therefore it was statute and ordained by the said pacification that he who was first dispossessed by reason of the first trouble should be effectually repossessed against all others, by the which it was plainly meant that the person who dispossessed the other, being therefore dispossessed himself, should never be heard to acclaim any repossession of that which he acquired by the said troubles, seeing it manifestly appears by the former act that the acclaiming of the repossession by him who was dispossessed in the second place cannot stand with the effectual repossession of him who was first dispossessed; therefore his highness, with advice of the said estates, decrees and declares that the person who obtained his possession through the forfeiture, horning, rebellion or trouble of another person for the common cause shall never be heard to claim repossession neither against the said person who was first dispossessed, nor against any other person whatsoever, but that the person who was first dispossessed, his heirs, assignees and successors shall effectually possess his said possession without any trouble to be moved to them by virtue of the said pacification and repossession therein contained, and shall never be quarrelled by the person dispossessed in the second place, without prejudice of any parties' rights to be decided by the judge ordinary as is appointed by the said act.
[1592/4/80]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
†Our sovereign lord and estates of this present parliament declare that, understanding sundry of his highness's true and faithful subjects during the time of the late troubles within this realm have been moved during the time that they were detained and kept in captivity to renounce their heritages, tacks, possessions, and to convey and assign their rights of wards, non-entries, reliefs and marriages to sundry persons to their great hurt and prejudice, and also remembering of the great injuries done to sundry of them in the year of God 1584, by warding of their persons either within his highness's proper castles and strengths upon the desire and suit of their parties or within the proper castles and houses of such persons who, taking occasion of the troubles then being within this realm, sought by all means to cause such persons committed to ward to renounce their heritages, lands and possessions in their favour expressly against all law and good conscience; for remedy whereof our said sovereign lord, being of mind to redress the said enormities and to relieve his subjects, their heirs, successors, executors and cautioners of all contracts, obligations, renunciations or ratifications thereof made by any of his faithful lieges in the said year of God 1584 during the time of their remaining in ward, or at any time thereafter in the said year of God 1584, until his highness's parliament held upon 29 July 1587 at his perfect age of 21 years, in favour of the persons by whose means they were committed to ward, or in favour of the persons in whose proper cause they are warded, kept and detained by them, their servants and dependants in their names; therefore, our said sovereign lord, with advice and consent of the said estates and whole body of this present parliament, finds, decrees and declares all and whatsoever contracts, bonds, obligations, renunciations, ratifications or approbations thereof made by whatsoever person or persons within this realm, their bairns or cautioners upon the right of their lands, heritages and possessions to and in favour of whatsoever person or persons by whose means they were committed to ward, or in whose proper house they were warded, kept and detained therein or in any other house pertaining to their servants or dependants enduring the time of their being in ward or at any time thereafter in the said year of God 1584, and until the said parliament held in July 1587, to be null and of no value, force nor effect, and retreats, makes void and annuls the same to the effect that in all time coming the said persons yet alive and the heirs and successors of them that are deceased may peaceably possess their said heritages, lands, annualrents and possessions, in the same way and as freely as if the said contracts, bonds, renunciations and ratifications thereof had never been made. And also, his majesty and estates foresaid retreat, rescind, make void and annul all and whatsoever renunciations, dispositions, alienations, assignations and translations made by whatsoever person or persons to, and in favour of, whatsoever person or persons of lands, tacks, possessions, gifts of wards, marriages and reliefs or any of them during the time that the said makers and granters thereof were detained and kept in ward; and find, decree and declare the same renunciations, dispositions, alienations, assignations and translations to have been from the beginning, to be now and in all time coming null and of no value, force nor effect; providing always that no person or persons be heard to use the benefit of this act to the time that they refund such sums of silver to the persons from whom the same was received, which were truly, really and with effect paid and delivered for making of the said renunciations, dispositions, assignations and translations; and that this act be not extended to the bonds and sureties made by borderers or highland or isles men for their obedience and payment of his highness's rents.
[1592/4/81]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
†Item, it is statute and ordained that in all time coming all copies of summonses and letters which shall be delivered to any party be subscribed by the officer, executors thereof.
[1592/4/82]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
†Our sovereign lord, with advice of the estates of parliament, understanding that one of the great causes of the present confusion is the multitude of rebels at the horn for civil causes and that the occasion thereof is the direction of letters of horning in beneficial matters generally against all and sundry, whereby it occurs daily that the beneficed man, his tacksmen, one or more pensioners, his majesty's collectors, one or more sundry ministers, one or more donators to the monks' portions, first fruits and fifth penny, each one with their general letters, charge a tenant due in payment to the prelate for his duty, whereby diverse double poindings come in before the lords of session, and the said tenants are often forced to pass to the horn, not being able to pay over their duty so often to so many parties or to abide the expense of suing them all; for remedy whereof, has statute, and with advice foresaid, ordained in time coming no charges nor letters of horning shall be generally directed against all and sundry unless it be against a burgh, college or community, which represents a body at the least; it shall not be permissible to denounce any particular party to the horn upon such general letters, except if the said party be first lawfully and specially called to hear and see the said letters directed against him for a special and certain duty or fact; and for this effect that all gifts of pension, monks' portions, ministers' assignations of thirds etc., the special lands, names of the tenants and quantity of the duties assigned, assumed or conveyed be particularly contained and that a duty be not conveyed to two sundry parties, which is a deceitful crime of the law, providing it shall be permissible to any beneficed man to seek general letters according to his provision to corroborate the same and to serve for a publication and intimation thereof, but in no way to serve or be sufficient to denounce any man to the horn not being specially called, and his duty expressed therein as said is.
[1592/4/83]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
†Our sovereign lord and estates of parliament statutes and ordains that any debt de liquido ad liquidum instantly verified by writing or oath of the party before the giving of decreet be admitted by all judges within this realm by way of exception, but not after the giving thereof in the suspension or in reduction of the same decreet.
[1592/4/84]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
†Item, it is statute and ordained that damage, compensation and the [...] expense of legal proceedings made and sustained by the parties be altogether admitted and liquidated by the decreet before all judges within this realm, and specially when the libel, claim or petition are proven by writ, containing damage, compensation and expense, and upon registered bonds, obligations and contracts, summonses bearing for the costs and damages which will stay parties to be wilful and obstinate litigants; and this to be extended as well to the defenders obtaining absolvitor as to the parties' pursuers obtaining decreet condemnatory.
[1592/4/85]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
†Item, it is statute and ordained that all intromitters with any man's escheat by gift, assignation or otherwise takes possession of any part or portion of the denounced person's lands, goods or gear in any way, shall be held to pay the debt contained in the horning, whereupon the gift of escheat proceeded and fell; and that letters be directed summarily against the donators, assignees or intromitters with any part of the escheat at the party's instance upon six days' warning to hear the same determined, or else to allege a cause why etc.