[1584/5/14]¹

²An act for punishment of the authors of the slanderous and untrue calumnies spoken against the king's majesty, his council and proceedings, or to the dishonour and prejudice of his highness, his parents, progenitors, crown and estate

Forasmuch as it is understood by our sovereign lord and his three estates assembled in this present parliament what great harm and inconvenience has fallen in this realm, chiefly since the beginning of the civil troubles occurring in the time of his highness's minority, through the wicked and licentious public and private speeches and untrue calumnies of diverse his subjects, to the disdain, contempt and reproach of his majesty, his council and proceedings, and to the dishonour and prejudice of his highness, his parents, progenitors and estate, stirring up his highness's subjects thereby to misliking, sedition, unquietness and to cast off their due obedience to his majesty, to their evident peril, loss and destruction, his highness, continuing always in love and clemency towards all his good subjects and most willing to seek the safety and preservation of them all, which wilfully, needlessly and upon plain malice, after his highness's mercy and pardon often before granted, have not procured to themselves by their treasonable deeds to be cut off as corrupt members of this commonwealth; therefore it is statute and ordained by our sovereign lord and three estates of this present parliament that none of his subjects (of whatsoever function, degree or quality in time coming) shall presume or take upon hand, privately or publicly, in sermons, declamations or familiar conferences, to utter any false, untrue or slanderous speeches to the disdain, reproach and contempt of his majesty, his council and proceedings, or to the dishonour, hurt or prejudice of his highness, his parents and progenitors, or to meddle in the affairs of his highness and his estate, present, past and in time coming, under the pains contained in the acts of parliament against makers and tellers of lies, certifying those that shall be tried contraveners thereof, or that hears such slanderous speeches and does not report the same with diligence, the said pain shall be executed against them with all diligence,³ in example of others. Moreover, because it is understood by his highness and his three estates that the books of the Chronicle and De Jure Regni apud Scotos, made by the late Master George Buchanan and printed since, contain sundry offensive matters worthy to be deleted, it is therefore statute and ordained that those that possess the said two volumes in their hands bring in and deliver the same to my lord secretary or his deputes within forty days after the publication hereof, to the effect that the said two volumes may be perused and purged of the offensive and extraordinary matters specified therein, not suitable to remain as accords of truth to posterity, under the pain of £200 of every person failing herein; and where any are not responsible to pay the said sum, to be punished in their persons at our sovereign lord's will. And to the effect that this ordinance may come to the knowledge of all our sovereign lord's lieges, publication is ordained to be made hereof at the market crosses of the head burghs of the shires and other places needful, that none pretend ignorance thereof, and the penalty contained therein to be executed with all rigour against those that possess the said books, the said space of forty days being past after the publication and proclamation of the said act in every shire as said is.