Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 JURISDICTION.

Earl of Morton's Claim of Justiciary of Orkney

1748, Jan. 21.
Case No. No. 44.

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On advising memorials hinc inde we found him entitled to a Justiciary, but only sub-ordinate to the High Court of Justiciary, and therefore not entitled to any separate recompense.

*** There likewise appears in the manuscript the following note relative to Earl of Morton's claim of the regality of Aberdour, under date 16th January 1748.

This had formerly been part of Dalkeith, but having sold Dalkeith to the King, it was by the contract declared that it should not prejudge his regality as to his other lands, and Aberdour declared the head burgh. He claimed this jurisdiction over many lands lying in different counties, even as far I believe as Kirkcudbright, which were all in his charters, though he could not even say that the proprietors of these lands had ever owned him as their superior. He produced documents of possession by holding some few Courts at Aberdour, but showed no possession as to those lands lying in other jurisdictions. As to such of them as are now come to hold of the King, there could be no question that they were thereby dismembered from the regality. The only question was as to any of them that might be found yet to hold of him, and some of us thought, (particularly Dun,) that exercising this jurisdiction over a part of the regality preserved it as to the whole. But both Arniston and I thought it did not, and that these vassals had acquired an immunity by prescription, unless in their charters their lands were designed as lying in that regality. We therefore found him entitled to a regality, but before answer as to the extent ordained him to shew the vassal's rights in the records or otherwise, and what was the tenor of them.