The right to appoint a door-keeper in the Paliament House.
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The debate between the Faculty of Advocates and the Macers, viz. who of them had the right of keeping the lawyers bar, was heard. On Banantyne's death, the advocates elected James Dalrymple. The macers, by a bill, reclaimed, and the possession not being clear, who had first put in Adam Scott in 1660 to be door-keeper; and it appearing that John Bannantyne had served a year before the Faculty settled a pension of 200 merks on him in 1676; therefore the question arose, who should officiate medio tempore till the right and possession were cleared; and it carried that the advocates nomination should take place in the mean time. Some moved that neither of them had right; and that the house being the King's, and the Lords being his delegates, they had the sole right and power of placing all door-keepers within the Parliament house; and that any possession, which either the Faculty of Advocates or Macers had, by their gift or act of Parliament 1537, as officiarii, clavigeri, or serjeants armorum, was by the Lords tolerance and permission. But this would have been as partial as that decision of the Romans, where two neighbouring republics having a difference anent a piece of ground, and referring it to the Senate of Rome, they determined the debatable land to belong to neither, but only to themselves.
