Selected quad for the lemma: majesty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
majesty_n	earl_n	lord_n	precedent_n	3,907	5	10.2488	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50574	The laws and customes of Scotland, in matters criminal wherein is to be seen how the civil law, and the laws and customs of other nations do agree with, and supply ours / by Sir George Mackenzie ...	Mackenzie, George, Sir, 1636-1691.	1678 (1678)	Wing M166; ESTC R16497	369,303	598

EDINBURGH The seventh of April 1677. IT is ordered by the Lords of His Majesties most Honourable Privy Council that none shall Re-print or Import into this Kingdom this Book Entituled The Laws and Customs of Scotland in Matters Criminal By Sir George Mackenzie of Rose-haugh for the space of Nineteen years after the Date hereof under the pain of Confiscation of the same to Thomas Brown George Swintoun and Iames Glen Printers hereof and further punishment as the Council shall think fit to inflict upon them Extracted be me Thomas Hay THE LAWS AND CUSTOMES OF SCOTLAND In Matters CRIMINAL Wherein is to be seen how the Civil Law and the Laws and Customs of other Nations do agree with and supply ours By Sir GEORGE MACKENZIE of Rose-haugh EDINBVRGH Printed by Iames Glen Anno Domini MDCLXXVIII TO HIS GRACE JOHN Duke of LAUDERDALE Marquess of March Earl of Lauderdail and Guildford Viscount Maitland Lord Thirlestane Musselburgh Boltoun and Petersham President of His MAJESTIE' 's most Honourable Privy Council of SCOTLAND Sole Secretary of State for the said Kingdom Gentleman of His MAJESTIE' 's Bed-Chamber and Knight of the most Noble Order of the Garter May it please Your Grace THough the number and wit of such as use to write Dedications may seem to have exhausted all that can be said upon such occasions yet I have a new way of address left me which is to write nothing of you but what is true by the confession of your enemies who admire more the greatness of your Parts than of either your Interest or Success And how you have made so great a turn in this Kingdom without either Blood or Forfeiture shewing neither revenge as to what is past nor fear as to what is to come continuing no longer your unkindness to any man than you think he continues his opposition to his Prince All have at sometime confest that you have been the Ornament as well as Defence of your Native Countrey to whom every Scottish-man is almost as dear as every man is to his own Relations And I am sure that your enemies will find it easier to put you from your Office then to fill it and none of them can wish you to be removed without being himself a loser by it Nor can I be so unjust even to such as oppos'd you as not to acknowledge that I have heard them talk of you so advantagiously when design and interest oblidged them to dissemble as almost convinced me that the most of them opposed you only in publick rather from the glory of having so great an Adversary than from the justice of the undertaking And your Countrey has in their late Confluences where they crouded in mighty numbers and with a remarkable joy to meet you when a privat man shew'd greater respect to your naked merit then to the highest Characters by which others were marked out for publict honour Having writ this Book to inform my Countrey-men and to illuminat our Law I could not present it more justly to any than to your Grace who has derived your Blood from a Noble Family which has been still eminent in our Courts of Justice since we had any and who are your self the greatest States-man in Europe who is a Schollar and the greatest Schollar who is a States-man For to hear you talk of Books one would think you had bestowed no time in studying men and yet to observe your wise conduct in affairs one might be induced to believe that you had no time to study Books You are the chief man who does nobly raise the study of the Civil Law to a happy usefulness in the greater and general Affairs of Europe and who spends the one half of the day in studying what is just and the other half in practising what is so All which may be easily believed from me who am as great an instance of your generosity as an admirer of it Especially since you have left me nothing to wish so that what I say needs not flow from flattery and so must be presumed to flow from conviction and gratitude in Your Graces most faithful and most humble Servant George Mackenzie THE DESIGN THe great concerns of men are their Lives Fortunes and Reputation and these three suffering at once in Crimes it is the great interest of mankind to know how to evite such accusations and how to defend themselves when accused And yet none of our Lawyers have been so kind to their Countrey as to write one Sheet upon this pleasant and advantagious Subject which made it a task both necessary and difficult to me In prosecuting this design I was forced to revise and abreviat those many and great Volums which make up our Criminal Registers and having added to them these Observations I have my self made during my twenty years attendance upon that Court either as Iudge or Advocat I collationed all with our Statutory Law the Civil Law and the Customs of other Countreys and the opinions of the Doctors And as I may without vanity say that few valuable Authors treat of Crimes whom I have not read So there is nothing here which is not warranted by Law or Decisions or in which when I doubted I did not confer seriously with the learned'st Lawyers of this Age and yet I doubt not but in some things others may differ from me as the best Writers do amongst themselves And having only designed to establish solidly the Principles of the Criminal Law I wanted room for treating learnedly each particular case or even for hinting at all such cases as may be necessary And without wearying my Readers with Citations which was very easie I have furnished the Book with as much reason as is ordinarly to be found in Legal Treatises The reason why I have so oft cited the Basilicks Theophil and the Greek Scholiasts was not only because none before me have used them in Criminal Treatises but because I conclude them the best Interpreters of Justinians Text For these Books having been Writ in the same Age and place and some of them by those who compiled the Latine Text they must understand it best of all others of which I have given many instances in this Book and shall here adde one there forgot which is that the Latine Interpreters doubt much what is meant by remittendum in the constitution Si quis Imperatori male dixerit some interpreting it pardoned some to be sent back to the Emperour But the Basilicks render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies only ignoscendum I cannot but admire much the wisdom of God who gives not only inclination but pleasure to such as toyl for the good of others for I am sure few men would have from any weaker impulse bestowed so much time and so many thoughts upon an imployment which without bringing gain will certainly bring envy and censure For I find it is the genius of this Age to admire such as make the publick good bend to their designs and to

by the Lords of Secret Council to have the sole criminal Jurisdiction and did repledge servant to Sir Thomas N●colson the Kings Advocat arraigned before the Magistrats of Edinburgh for a Slaughter and Assoilzied him upon production of a Remission And upon the 5. of September 1672. Gilbert Earle of Errol did repledge Iames Iohnstoun Violer arraigned before the Magistrats of Edinburgh as Sheriffs within themselves for stabbing of his Wife the day before Easter the Magistrats had taken his judicial confession and summonded the Assize there was no formal repledgiation because the Magistrats passed from him upon the Constables application and upon the 6. of that Moneth of September the Constables Deputs sentenced him to be hang'd and to have his right hand which gave the stroak cut off and affixed upon Lieth wind Port and ordained the Magistrats of Edinburgh to cause put the sentence to execution upon the 9. of that Moneth Likeas the Coach-man of a Noble-man having about the same time wounded a Child the Constable commanded the Towns Guards to apprehend the Delinquent which they accordingly did till he was freed by a Remission II. Out of this high Magistracy of Constable sayes Lambert an English Lawyer were drawn those inferiour Constables of hundreds which Office we borrowed from them and they are with us subservient to the Justices of Peace and are to be chosen by them two out of every Paroch and as many in Towns as may be proportional to the greatnesse thereof and they have power to apprehend all suspicious idle or guilty persons and may require the neighbours to assist them and if the guilty persons flee they may require the master of the house to make open doors all which with many other particulars are entrusted to them by the 38. Act. 1. Par. Ch. the 2. III. His Majesties Predecessors used of old to build Castles in the considerable Towns of the Kingdom and for preserving the Peace both in that Town and in the adjacent Countrey and the Governours of those Castles were called Constables though they were more properly Castellains or Chastellains as the English Lawyers observe these had the power of riding the Fairs and having had the Keys of the Tolbooth delivered to them they exercised a criminal jurisdiction during those Fairs but it was found that this jurisdiction did not extend to Fairs that were granted posterior to the Office of Constabulary nor to the customes thereof as was found the 18. of Iuly 1676. betwixt the Earl of Kinghorn and the Town of Forfar but these Offices depend absolutely upon prescription use or custome which either extinguisheth or limits them most variously but because those Constables use to extort customes at those Fairs it is therefore appointed by the 60. and 61. Acts 13. Parl. Ia. 2. that the Constable shall not exact any such customes except his Festment bear him thereto and that old use and custome shall not be sufficient Which Acts are ratified by the 33 Act 5. Parl. Ia. 3. But if the Infestment in the general bear cum feudis devoriis c. Possession by vertue of that general Right will be found sufficient though the particular Casualities be not exprest in the Infestment as was found in the former case betwixt the Earle of Kinghorn and the Town of Forfar This Officer was amongst the Athenians call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 TITLE V. The Jurisdiction competent to the High Chamberlain and Magistrats of Burghs Royal. THe Chamberlain was an office to whom belonged the judging of all Crimes committed within Burgh and he was in effect Justice-general over the Burrows and was to hold Chamberlain-Aus every year for that effect the form whereof is set down in Reg. Maj. in a Book intituled the Chamberlain-Air Iter Camerarii he was a Supream Judge nor could his Decreets be questioned by any Inferiour Judicatory Iter. Cam. cap. 35. and his sentences were to be put to execution by Bailiffs of Burghs ibid. cap. 37. he made the prices of all Victual within Burgh cap. 33. and of these who wrought in the Mint-house Statute Da. 2. cap. 38. He is called Camerarius à Camera id est testudine sive fornice quia custodit pecunias quae in Camer is praecipue reservantur This office belonged heretably to the Duke of Lennox but its priviledges are by his absence run in desuetude Magistrats of Burghs as such have no Jurisdiction but what is competent by their Charter of erection wherein ordinarily they have power of Pit and Gallows but sometimes they are Justices within themselves as Edinburgh who have right also to all escheats of their own Burgesses or other Criminals judged by them for crimes committed within their own Burgh Sometimes they are Sheriffs within themselves and ordinarily they are Justices of peace within their own Jurisdiction The King may erect a Burgh Royal within the bounds of another Jurisdiction as of a Regality but in that case though the Lord of Regality consent to the erection yet it will not prejudge the Bailie of Regality whose Right of Bailiery was constitute prior to the erection of the Casualities that were formerly due to him albeit it was alledged that the Lord of Regality might disolve and dismember that part from the Regality without the Bailies consent and so it not being in the Regality it could not be subject to the Bailiery the 27. of February 1666. Lord Colvil contra the Town of Culross TITLE VI. The Jurisdiction of His Majesties Privy Council in Criminals 1. In what consists the Iurisdiction of the Council their President and number 2. Their procedur in punishing Ryots 3. Whether a power to eject be a sufficient defence against a Ryot 4. The punishment of Riots 5. Precognitions fully considered 6. The Council name Assessors to the Iustices and sometimes review their Sentences 7. They grant Letters of Intercommuning and Commissions for Fire and Sword 8. They sometimes ordain Houses to be delivered under pain of Treason I. THe Affairs of this as of all other Nations are either such as concern the policy of the Kingdom in general or such as respect the distributing of Justice betwixt privat parties the policy or government of the Kingdom is regulated by His Majesties Privy Council in which the Chancelor is President if he be present but in his absence the President of the Council precedes This Office of Precedent of the Council is a distinct imployment and it gives him the precedency from all the Nobility The number of this Judicator is not definit depending upon His Majesties Commission but all the Officers of State are Members of it ratione officii it has its own Signet and its Letters past by a Bill subscribed by any one of the Council upon which warrand the Letters are in their several forms extended and subscribed by the Clerk of the Council and they bear also to be ex deliberatione Dominorum Secreti Consilii they must be execute at least upon six free dayes and a