[1581/10/26]¹

The explanation of the act touching the notorious and manifest committers of adultery

²Concerning the supplication made to the king's majesty and his three estates of this present parliament, craving an explanation of the act of parliament made in the reign of [Mary], the queen, his highness's dearest mother, concerning adultery, that is what shall be esteemed and judged in law to be notorious and manifest adultery, worthy of the pain of death mentioned in the said act; it is therefore declared by his highness, with advice of his three estates in this present parliament, that it shall be judged in law notorious and manifest adultery, worthy of the said pain of death, where there are bairns, one or more, procreated between the persons, adulterers, or when they keep company and bed together well known, or when they are suspected of adultery and thereby give slander to the kirk, whereupon, being duly admonished, to abstain and satisfy the kirk by repentance or purgation, and yet contemptuously refusing, are excommunicated for their obstinacy; all these three degrees of adulterers, and every one of them, being lawfully called and convicted before the justice and his deputes, shall incur and suffer the said pain of death.