[1584/5/20]¹

²An act concerning slaughter and troubling made by parties in pursuit and defence of their actions

Our sovereign lord, with advice and consent of the three estates of this present parliament, has ratified and approved and, by the tenor hereof, ratifies and approves the act and statute underwritten, and decrees the same to have strength, force and effect of an act of parliament, of which the tenor follows:

At Edinburgh, 29 May 1583, the which day, in presence of the king's majesty sitting in judgement and lords of his highness's council and session, compeared Master David MacGill of Nisbet [and Cranstoun-Riddel], advocate to his majesty, and in name of his highness's most faithful, humble and obedient subjects, stated and declared how in the parliament held at Edinburgh on 20 June 1555, by his majesty's late dearest grandmother, Mary [of Guise], queen dowager and regent of this realm for the time, an ordinance and act of parliament was made concerning the slaughter of parties in pursuit and defence of their actions, which act, albeit in itself most profitable and necessary to have been a perpetual law in all time coming, for repressing of proud and undaunted braggers, boasters and oppressors of their parties, yet was the same only temporal for the space of three years after the making thereof, which act the said advocate, in name and for the causes aforesaid, desired to be renewed and established in a perpetual law in all time coming, with the augmentations following; upon which desire our sovereign lord, willing to follow the good example and intention of his predecessors for the reverence and increase of justice and assurance of parties in pursuit and defence of their actions and executions of the same, has, with advice of the said lords of his council and session, ordained, decreed and declared that from this day forth, in all times coming, if it shall happen either the defender or pursuer to slay or wound to the effusion of blood, or otherwise to invade one of them another in any sort, whereupon they may be criminally accused after the raising of summons or precepts and lawful execution thereof, or in any time before the complete execution of the decreet to be given thereupon, the committer of the slaughter, blood or invasion aforesaid, or being art, part, adviser or counsel thereof, if it be the defender, shall be condemned at the instance of the pursuer, or, in case of his decease, of the nearest of the kin of him that is slain, wounded to the effusion of his blood or invaded, having right thereto, without any probation of the libel pursued, excepting summary cognition to be taken of the slaughter, bloodshed or invasion before the justice or other criminal judge competent thereto, by conviction or being fugitive and put to the horn; and if the decreet be given, the same is to be unreducible for ever; and if the pursuer slay, wound to the effusion of blood or invade the defender as it is above-written, or by art, part, advice or counsel thereof, cognition being taken as said is, in that case the defender, or in case of his decease the nearest of his kin able to succeed in that right, shall have absolution from the libel of the pursuer simply, against which the pursuer nor any other by his right shall ever be heard by way of reduction or restitution entirely in any time thereafter, regardless of the age, condition or quality that the slayer, drawer of the blood or invader aforesaid be of, the process of transferring in the causes above-written respectively to be on fifteen days' warning, without diet, table or continuation of other summons; and if the slayer, shedder of blood or invader as said is has lands and liferents and be denounced rebel and put to the horn for not finding of surety or non-compearance to underlie the law for the said slaughter, bloodshed or invasion, in that case the slayer, shedder of blood or invader immediately after the denunciation shall lose the liferent of his lands, benefice, office and other rents and commodities whatsoever for his lifetime, without any further delay of a year and a day as in other causes of loss of liferents through being a year and a day at the horn. Moreover, our sovereign lord, by the faith and duty of a Christian prince, promises to give no respite nor remission to the offenders in such causes; and if his majesty or his successors do in the contrary (as is not believed), the using of the said respite or remission by any of the said parties, pursuer or defender, shall be the like cause and of the same effect as their conviction for the cause above-specified; and this act and ordinance to endure for the space of seven years immediately thereafter, and to be confirmed in his highness's next parliament, to have the strength and effect of an act thereof and to be observed as a perpetual law in time coming.