[1578/7/33]¹

An act concerning recognition of lands within burgh, remitted to the lords appointed for examining the laws

Forasmuch as the process of recognition of lands and tenants within burgh for non-payment of annualrents has been used in all time past in our sovereign lord's burghs, after the form and tenor of the law of the majesty and act of parliament made in the days of King James IV, and especially by having recourse to the lands and tenements indebted in the said annualrents by process of earth and stone in four head courts, as is prescribed by the form of law, without any special summons or warning to whatsoever person of whatsoever age or quality, being outwith or within the realm; which form of process was never heretofore impugned in judgement or otherwise until now lately that the lords of session, at the instance of John Gilbert, goldsmith, burgess of Edinburgh, have found a relevant cause of reduction of a process of recognition of a tenement lying within the said burgh of Edinburgh, led at the instance of James Fenton, for non-payment of an annualrent of 30s, which process was led above the space of 50 years since; and that because the said John Gilbert, being an alleged minor and out of the realm, was not specially warned thereto, personally or at his dwelling place, the same being in no way requisite of the law and form of process observed in such cases, and the same standing in such difference may bring with it a great alteration of the heritable right of the most part of all the tenements within the burghs which have been recognised by the same manner of process and also since changed through many hands. In respect of the which, it was desired that the estates of this present parliament should consider the said law of the majesty and act of parliament and to declare whether in the said process of recognition and doom of property there ought to be any party specially summoned, and thereupon to give their declaration in parliament in the appropriate form, as at more length is contained in the said article. The king's grace and three estates of this present parliament have remitted and remit this matter to the lords appointed for revising of the laws, and in the meantime discharge the said lords of council and session of all further proceeding therein, and that because it is understood by the said estates that this matter may result in great inconvenience to the burghs upon their infeftment proceeding upon recognition and doom led thereupon according to the old laws by the space of 100 years past.