[1587/7/16]¹

For punishment of the committers of disorders in the kirk in time of divine service or forcers of ministers in their office and function

Our sovereign lord, with advice of his three estates in this present parliament, statutes and ordains that whatsoever person or persons shall happen hereafter to perturb the order of the kirk in time of divine service, or to make any tumult, raise any fray, either in kirk or kirkyard, through which the people then convened shall happen to be disordered, troubled or dispersed, the same shall be a point of dittay, and the persons to be convicted thereof shall lose all their moveable goods, to be escheated to our sovereign lord for their offence, without prejudice of greater punishment if there happen any greater offence (as slaughter, blood, mutilation, shooting of hackbuts and pistolets) according to the laws of this realm; and forasmuch as diverse persons having committed sundry offences for the which they merit to be separated from the society of the kirk and yet seek no reconciliation thereto, but for necessity of baptism to their bairns or marriage of themselves or of their friends sometimes menace and threaten the said ministers and sometimes, for seeking of their livings or such other quarrels, spare not to put violent hands in them; for remedy whereof, it is statute and ordained by our said sovereign lord, with advice of the estates aforesaid, that whatsoever person or persons invades any minister or puts any violent hands in him for the causes above-expressed, or any other such forged quarrel, shall be punished for that with all rigour and incur the pain of loss of all their moveable goods for the said invasion and violence only, albeit no slaughter nor mutilation follow thereupon, the one half of the said moveable goods to be applied to our sovereign lord's use and the other to the party offended, without prejudice of greater punishment if any higher crime concur with the violence and invasion aforesaid. And for the better execution hereof, it is statute and ordained that all persons dilated of the said offences shall be called and pursued thereof criminally before the justice and his deputes, either in justice ayres or at particular diets, and that letters be directed to that effect in common form at the instance of the minister or the king's advocate or procurator for the kirk or any other that will pursue the said offences; and where any excommunicated person enters in the congregation the time of the administration of the sacraments or common prayers, the minister being certified thereof, shall immediately thereafter charge the excommunicated person in the name of God and our sovereign lord to depart, which being refused, he shall, after the administration of the sacraments or common prayers ended, require so many of the most wise, discreet and substantial of the parish as he pleases, that they, in our sovereign lord's name, shall take and apprehend the said excommunicated person and present him to the judge ordinary within the bounds of the shire where the parish lies, which judge ordinary shall be held to receive the same excommunicated person off their hands and keep and retain him in prison until he find caution under such sums as shall be modified by the minister and so many of the elders of that kirk as are present for the time or resort to the weekly assemblies, that the excommunicated person reconcile himself to the kirk and shall make amends for the said offence. And if the excommunicated person aforesaid forces any of them in the execution of the premises, he being convicted thereof, his moveable goods shall fall in escheat to our sovereign lord and his person shall be punished at his highness's will and pleasure.