Old penalties are valued and amplified

Our sovereign lord and estates foresaid, considering the great contempt done by the most part of the lieges of this realm [who are] charged [to pass]† upon assizes or to do any other thing upon small pecuniary pains of penalty, which pains be so small that they respect not the same but disobeys our sovereign lord's authority, therefore it is statute and ordained by our sovereign lord and three estates that whensoever any person contravenes any laws, statute or act of parliament made of before containing a special pecuniary pain and penalty, that he shall pay for each 12d of penalty of old, 10s of present current money of this realm, and for each 20s of old, £10 of present money, and so forth proportionally; and this ordinance to apply to pecuniary pains and penalties contained in the laws of this realm made and constituted before 1 March in the year of God 1542 [1543].

  1. NAS, PA2/15, f.70r. Back
  2. APS interpolations, taken from the contemporary printed collection of acts, Sir John Skene, Lawes and Actes of Parliament, maid be King James the First and his successors Kings of Scotland - The XV Parliament of King James the Sext, halden at Edinburgh, the nineteenth day of December, the yeir of God, ane thousand, five hundreth, ninetie seven yeirs (Edinburgh, 1597), p.171. Back