[1592/4/79]¹

Prescription of the act of repossessing

²Forasmuch as in the pacification concluded in the parliament held in the great hall of the palace of Linlithgow, 10 December 1585, ratified and approved in the parliament held at Edinburgh in the month of July 1591, for union of all his highness's subjects to his obedience, there was a general pacification made and concluded containing diverse heads and articles: specially that all and sundry persons being alive and the heirs of them who were dead and were dispossessed of their lands and possessions through and by the occasion of the common civil trouble occurring of before, should be effectually repossessed from the crop and profit of the year of God 1585, including the Martinmas [11 November] term thereof; since the which time it may appear that all the persons who were dispossessed have sought the remedy of the said pacification by the repossession against whatsoever possessor, albeit the possessor against whom the repossession was sought was not wholly the same person who dispossessed them; and by the rigour of the same act, the persons seeking the said repossession have obtained the utmost past profits continually since the said feast of Martinmas inclusive the year of God 1585, albeit the said repossession was not sought from them a long space thereafter, and some persons in the meantime esteemed themselves to have possessed in good faith; therefore our sovereign lord and estates of this present parliament statute and ordain that all actions competent to whatsoever person or persons by virtue of the foresaid act of repossession be intended and pursued before the judge ordinary within a year and a day next after the publication hereof at the market cross of Edinburgh, with certification that time and space being expired never to be heard thereafter to intend or pursue action upon the said benefit of repossession; and further that by reason of the tumults occurring in the said common troubles, it happened that some persons were forfeited, denounced rebels and put to the horn or troubled for the common cause, and for the same cause were dispossessed by such persons as were shortly thereafter forfeited, put to the horn or troubled by reason of certain variances arising in the said common troubles by changing of factions and parties as they thought occasion required; therefore it was statute and ordained by the said pacification that he who was first dispossessed by reason of the first trouble should be effectually repossessed against all others, by the which it was plainly meant that the person who dispossessed the other, being therefore dispossessed himself, should never be heard to acclaim any repossession of that which he acquired by the said troubles, seeing it manifestly appears by the former act that the acclaiming of the repossession by him who was dispossessed in the second place cannot stand with the effectual repossession of him who was first dispossessed; therefore his highness, with advice of the said estates, decrees and declares that the person who obtained his possession through the forfeiture, horning, rebellion or trouble of another person for the common cause shall never be heard to claim repossession neither against the said person who was first dispossessed, nor against any other person whatsoever, but that the person who was first dispossessed, his heirs, assignees and successors shall effectually possess his said possession without any trouble to be moved to them by virtue of the said pacification and repossession therein contained, and shall never be quarrelled by the person dispossessed in the second place, without prejudice of any parties' rights to be decided by the judge ordinary as is appointed by the said act.