What Subjects may be carried by the Positive Prescription.
Magistrates of Hamilton v. Duke of Hamilton
Date: 4 February 1726 Case No. No 74.
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The town of Hamilton was crected into a royal burgh, by a charter from Queen Mary, 1548, giving them power to chuse their own Magistrates, &c.— This charter, as it would seem, having been neglected, the town afterwards, in the year 1670, accepted of a charter from the family of Hamilton, erecting it into a burgh of regality, with a power to the Duke of Hamilton to create Magistrates, admit burgesses, &c. as in other such burghs. In consequence of this charter, the family of Hamilton continued to exercise the privileges and powers of Lords of Regality upwards of 40 years, till a declarator of their privileges, as a royal burgh, was raised, and insisted in by the town; and they pleaded, That the privileges of a royal burgh, as being juris publici, can neither be lost by the negative or positive prescription; the Lords sustained the prescription in favour of the Duck, as to the way and manner of the election of the Magistrates and Town Council of the burgh. See Appendix.
