[1587/7/62]¹

Concerning our sovereign lord's property

²Our sovereign lord, with advice of his three estates of this present parliament, statutes and ordains that no chamberlain nor receiver of the king's rent removable be received by the comptroller but such as find sureties to the comptroller in Edinburgh to make account in the ordinary time of the exchequer and to make payment within 20 days after each term. Also, it is statute and ordained that all heritable chamberlains and accountants be charged to find surety to the same effect.

³Item, that all warnings and executions in the king's causes to be made against islanders, highlanders or borderers in broken countries where it is not possible to have safe access be made at the market crosses of the head burghs of the next shires in the lowlands.

Item, it is statute and ordained that the comptroller in time coming charge him in his account with the whole rent of his highness's property and be answerable for the whole charges of the chamberlains and receivers removable because they are of the comptroller's own making, and for others that have their offices heritably, that the comptroller show his diligence against them before the making of his account, which shall always end before 1 September yearly; and declares that his majesty's property, even instant as it is presently, shall find and sustain his house according to the advice given by the exchequer in August 1586, and that whoever has the intromission and reset of the rents of his said property ought and must furnish the expenses of his house in ready money, that his furnishing may be as good value as any others. And this order to begin on 1 September 1587, or when his majesty thinks good.

Item, that no precepts or discharges of any part of the property to be allowed in time coming in exchequer, unless the same shall be subscribed and accepted by the comptroller; and always the party's acquittance to be produced upon account and nothing to be allowed at the accountant's danger.

Item, it is statute and ordained that all rentals set by any our sovereign lord's predecessors of good memory of any lands pertaining in property to his highness (except feu rentals set to men and their heirs) shall have no further strength nor effect than a naked liferent, and that after the decease of the renters, his majesty have power, with advice of his comptroller, to set, use and convey thereupon at his pleasure of new in feu, either for augmentation of the former rental or for new entry silver, and that all be set in augmentation of the king's rental.