guilty of wilful burning and fire-raising and ravishing of women should be compelled to give security as for slaughter, and if no security was given, be denounced rebels. 7 James V. c. 118, enacts that burners of corn in barns or stacks were to be justified, i.e. sentenced to death, or be banished for ever, and no remission of the offence was to be granted.

187. Beggars and idle men.-For the first time we come into contact with statutory provisions as to beggars and idlers. Those to be here noticed were made in 1424 and 1503. The former statute declares that no thiggers between fourteen and seventy shall be allowed to beg, unless they have "tokens" from the sheriffs or the council of burghs. Those who went about begging in contravention of this act were to be charged to betake themselves to crafts under the pain of burning on the cheek and banishment from the country. The latter statute declares that the act of 1424 shall be enforced, and then goes on to state that the sheriff, provost, and bailies were not to allow any to beg, except cruiked folk, sick folk, impotent folk, and weak folk, under pain of one merk for every beggar found within their respective jurisdictions. This enumeration of excepted persons gives a list of those who were afterwards entitled to parochial relief.

188. Game.-On the vexed question of game I find a statute in 1424 by which those who slew deer were to be fined 40s. and their maintainers £10; and inquisition was to be made by the justice clerk for such offenders.

189. Summary.-Let me now sum up the results of this lecture. First, The nobles have been seen to be exceedingly factious and ungovernable, and the state of the country wretched and deplorable. Second, A period has been reached when the country attained its present limits, and in which one body of law was applicable to all the king's subjects. Third, The means by which the government was conducted has been further developed, the modifications made in the legislature indicated, and the functions of the king and the college of justice explained. Lastly, I have referred to a few of the laws which were made in the period under review, and have noticed one or two illustrative decisions.

Looking at the whole, there are two observations which cannot escape the attentive observer of these times: first, the great body of the people-the nation as a whole as opposed to the nobles-have become a great power in the state; and second, a great and terrible religious crisis is at hand.

190. Meagre outline given.-To give a history of Scotland does not lie within my province nor the scope of my design; for the subject which I have in view is to shew what were the laws and legal institutions of our country at different periods, and I therefore assume an acquaintance with the common facts of Scottish history. I shall therefore not trouble you with more than the merest outline of the chief events of this period.

191. Reign of Mary.-All are familiar with the rejoicings on the return of Mary from France to Scotland; her attachment to the Roman Catholic faith; Darnley's murder near Edinburgh; the queen's disgraceful marriage with Bothwell; her abdication, escape from Lochleven, defeat at Langside, flight to England, long imprisonment of eighteen years, and death on the scaffold in 1586.

192. Reign of James VI.-James VI. may be said to have been king from 1567 to 1625, but he was quite an infant when his mother fled to England. During his minority Murray, Lennox, Mar, and Morton were regents. He took the reins of government into his own hands on Morton's death, and a long period of discord amongst the nobles was followed by one of comparative peacefulness. The Gowrie conspiracy, however, is evidence of the calamitous weakness of the monarchy, and of the power, audacity, and recklessness of the aristocracy; and the perpetual feuds and disturbances among the Highland chiefs reveal great anarchy and confusion in the northern regions of the kingdom.

The Reformation of the Scottish Church gave rise to many fierce quarrels, and the king was soon taught that the clergy of the new doctrines contended for privileges and immunities as great and as subversive of civil government as those claimed by the priests of Rome. Some of the phases of the Reformation I pass over till a later stage of this lecture. With regard to the lands and great revenues of the old church I may mention that, although they were annexed to the crown, they were speedily and greedily swallowed up by the king's favourites.

On Elizabeth's death in 1603, James removed to England; and the union of the crowns of Scotland and England under one sovereign was at last accomplished. The king did much and laboured hard to bring about an entire incorporating union of the two countries; but, in consequence of the national antipathies which had long existed, he did not succeed. As a necessary con

sequence of the king's accession to the English throne, it was decided by the English courts, in the celebrated case of the "Postnati," that persons born in Scotland after the accession of James VI. were entitled to succeed to land situated in England.

193. Reign of Charles I.-Charles I. succeeded his father in 1625. He visited Scotland in 1633; and in 1637, by royal proclamation, the liturgy, drawn up under the eye of archbishop Laud for the use of the Church of Scotland, was ordered to be adopted. The attempt to enforce the king's command as to this matter caused serious riots in Edinburgh; and then, in rapid succession, came the solemn League and Covenant, signed in Scotland in 1638 for the maintenance of the Presbyterian form of worship, and in opposition to Episcopacy, which had been re-established by James in 1606; the beginning of the Civil War in 1642; the king's defeat at Naseby in 1645; and his execution in 1649. These events were followed by the Commonwealth of England; the protectorate of Cromwell in 1654; the restoration of the Stuart family in 1660; and the defeat of the Scottish Covenanters at the Pentland Hills in 1666 and at Bothwell Bridge in 1679.

194. Reign of James VII.-The brief reign of James VII. began in 1685. Shortly after his accession he issued his declaration of toleration, and assertion of absolute sovereign power; but the estates of the Scottish parliament held he had no such power, declared his forfeiture of the throne, and conferred the crown upon the Prince and Princess of Orange, and their issue; whom failing, the Princess Anne and her issue; and