[1597/11/52]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
Forasmuch as in the parliament held at Edinburgh in the month of August the year of God 1584, all successors of† provisions to abbacies, commendatories, priories and nunneries within this realm made by the titulars thereof for the time in favour of their successors nominated by them and gifts granted to them thereupon by our sovereign lord containing reservation of the resigners' liferent of the same, in respect of the manifest abuse and corruption thereof, are retreated, rescinded and declared to be null in the self; which act of parliament is declared by another act of parliament made in the month of July the year of God 1593 to be extended to such provisions only as should happen to be purchased after the making of the said first act, and not [to]† such provisions as were duly and lawfully passed before the making of the said first act, whereupon diverse persons have taken occasion to purchase and obtain gifts and provisions of the said benefices as successors nominated thereto by their predecessors and upon their demission, with reservation of their liferents, and have antedated the signatures thereof as if the same had been passed before the making of the said first act of parliament and yet have not passed the same through the great seal until long after the making of the said last act of parliament, which declares plainly the manifest fraud and falsity of the said provisions; which provisions are not [only]† most wrongfully and surreptitiously purchased as said is, but also are most prejudicial to his highness in his rent and commodity of the temporal lands thereof which pertains to our sovereign lord by the act of annexation as a part of the patrimony of his crown. And therefore our said sovereign lord and estates foresaid, considering the manifest fraud and falsity committed in the purchasing of the said pretended provisions and for obviating of the same, retreat, rescind, make void and annul all such provisions of abbacies, priories and nunneries and other benefices made or to be made by whatsoever person or persons passed upon the demission of their predecessors and containing the reservation of their liferents as said is which were not duly and lawfully passed as said is and issued with all solemnities, and specially which were not passed and issued through his highness's great seal before the making of the said first act of parliament made relating thereto, which was in the month of August the year of God 1584, and before the act of annexation by the which the temporal lands were annexed to his majesty's crown, and declares the same to have been from the beginning and to be in all times coming of no value, force nor effect with all that has followed or may follow thereupon.