[1600/11/40]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
Our sovereign lord, with advice and consent of the estates of this present parliament, ratifies, approves and confirms the act made in the secret council at Perth, 1 April 1600, regarding the Jesuits, seminary priests, excommunicate and tried trafficking papists, whereof the tenor follows: Forasmuch as by diverse acts and proclamations made and published heretofore all Jesuits, seminary priests, excommunicate and tried trafficking papists, common enemies to all Christian government, are specially commanded to depart and pass out of this realm under certain pains mentioned in the same acts, the non-execution whereof has produced such a contempt and disregard of the said acts that the reset and trafficking of the said Jesuits and seminary priests is very frequent in sundry parts of this realm, through which great numbers of ignorant and simple people are seduced by them to decline from the true and Christian religion to the offence and displeasure of God; for remedy whereof, it is statute and ordained by his majesty and lords of his secret council that whatsoever Jesuits, seminary priests, excommunicate and tried trafficking papists presently being within this realm, or that shall happen to be within the same, shall immediately after their report to his majesty be taken and apprehended by the ordinary magistrates of the bounds where they resort and committed to ward until they be converted to the religion, removed and put from the country or else punished according to the tenor of the said acts, so that always the benefit of the act of parliament granting to other papists the space of 40 days to satisfy the kirk or remove from the country shall be in no way extended to them. And because the reset which they have found in diverse parts of the country has given them the boldness so avowedly to condemn his majesty and his laws, that therefore such persons as shall be given up by the presbyteries or session of the kirk to be the resetters and hoarders of them shall be charged under such pecuniary pains as shall be modified by his majesty and lords of secret council not to reset them hereafter, with this addition: that his majesty and estates of parliament declare that every earl that shall happen to reset any shall pay £1,000; every lord, 1,000 merks; every baron, £500; every freeholder, 300 merks; every yeoman, £40; and every burgess according to the modification of the king's majesty and lords of secret council, the pain always not exceeding the sum of £100; which pains the said estates have ordained our sovereign lord's treasurer to exact with all extremity against the contraveners hereof and to intromit therewith to his highness's use.