Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, reported by SIR JOHN LAUDER OF FOUNTAINHALL Subject_2 SUMMER SESSION.
Date: 8 January 1686
The Sheriff-Deputes of Edinburgh v. Hutchison
Click here to view a pdf copy of this documet : PDF Copy
The two Sheriff-deputes of Edinburgh put in a query to the Lords anent a retour of quinquennial possession of one Hutchison in Newbottle, a traitor, who had been at Bothwell-bridge, whether the calculation of the rebel's five years' possession must be of five years immediately preceding the doom of forfeiture, as the 2d Act 1584 seems to require, or if it must be five years before the Act of adjournal denouncing him fugitive, some years before the forfeiture; for they could not prove he was five years in possession before the forfeiture.
The Lords ordained them to take trial of his five years' possession preceding his being fugitive; because his tenant's possession was reputed to be his possession, and though his tenant had apprised it, yet he could not invert it.
But what if a rebel fly and desert the possession on his committing the crime? Then the quinquennial retour behoved to be from the perpetration of the fact backward.
