[1594/4/13]¹

Declaration

Declaration regarding the annexation of Kelso and Coldingham

Our sovereign lord and his three estates of parliament have ratified and approved and by the tenor hereof ratifies and approves the annexation of the temporality of the abbacies of Kelso and Coldingham to the crown in the parliament held at Edinburgh, the [...] day of [...] the year of God 158[...] after the form and tenor of the general annexation of the ecclesiastical lands which were annexed to the crown in the parliament held at Edinburgh upon 29 July the year of God 1587, as our said sovereign lord and his said three estates of new annexes the said temporality of the foresaid abbacies of Coldingham and Kelso to the crown with the limitations, provisions and conditions contained in the said general annexation which are conceived in favour of the vassals, free tenants and feu farmers of the lands pertaining to the said abbeys, which provisions, conditions and limitations and every one of them are repeated in this present act. And our sovereign lord and his said three estates have decreed and declared and by the tenor hereof decrees and declares that the heritable tenants, vassals and feuars of the temporal lands of the said abbeys of Coldingham and Kelso have been in all time bypast, since the annexation of the temporality thereof, are now presently and shall be in all time coming immediate tenants and vassals to our said sovereign lord and his successors and held and shall be held of them and of no others. And further, our said sovereign lord and his said three estates have declared and declares by this act that the foresaid annexation of the temporal lands of the said two abbacies of Kelso and Coldingham depends not from the processes of forfeiture led against Francis [Stewart], sometime earl of Bothwell and commendator of the said abbacies of Coldingham and Kelso, nor yet upon the act and ordinance of parliament by which his bairns and posterity were declared to be unable to possess any lands or benefice within this realm, but that the said annexation proceeds only from our said sovereign lord's authority, with the advice of the said three estates of this realm, and upon the same foundation of the first general annexation of the ecclesiastical lands to the crown.²