Heritable Jurisdictions (Scotland) Act 1746

And that all suits, decrees, sentences, interloquitors, judgements, executions, and proceedings of or in any court hereby abrogated, taken away, and dissolved, which were depending, pronounced, awarded, or had before the said twenty-fifth day of March, shall be and remain of the same force, effect, and validity, and in the same state and condition, as the same would respectively have been in case this Act had not been made; and that all records, rolls, books, and entries of any such suits, decrees, sentences, interloquitors, judgements, executions, or proceedings relating to any civil or criminal cause in any such court shall, on or before the twenty-fourth day of June in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and forty-eight, be transmitted by the possessor of any such justiciary, stewartry, sheriffship, deputy sheriffship, regality, constabulary, or baillierie to the courts of the respective sheriffs or stewarts of counties, and there lodged and kept amongst the records of such courts, which shall proceed thereupon as if the said civil or criminal causes had been commenced originally in such courts; and that the register books of hornings, inhibitions, and interdictions heretofore kept in any bailleries of royalty or regality or stewartries hereby abrogated shall, on or before the said twenty-forth day of June, be transmitted to his Majesty’s general register house at Edinburgh.

And no letters patent, charter, or grant, to be made or granted by his Majesty, his heirs or successors, or by the barons of the Court of Exchequer in Scotland, at any time after the sixth day of June in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and forty-seven, for the uniting or erecting any lands or tenements within Scotland into a barony, lordship, or earldom, or under any other denomination whatsoever, or for annexing any lands or tenements in Scotland to any barony, lordship, or earldom, or other district of the like nature, under any denomination whatsoever, heretofore granted or erected, shall be sufficient or available in law to pass, grant, or convey to the grantee or grantees therein named, or any other person or persons whatsoever, any greater or other jurisdiction than for recovering and uplifting from the vassals, tenant, or possessor of the lands and heretages of the proprietor of such barony, lordship, or earldom, the mails and duties or rents and profits thereof, or for recovery of the multures or services payable or prestable to their mills; and all letters patent, charters, gifts, and grants of any of the premisses, to be made contrary to the true intent and meaning of this Act, shall be and they are thereby enacted and declared to be null and void.