Series 2 > Miscellany of the Scottish History Society

208 THE FORBES BARON COURT BOOK
also the right to incarcerate an offender, if he had a prison
available : the laird of Urie had a prison,1 but Lord Forbes
apparently had not; at least there is no mention in this
record of any prison, unless we reckon as such the stocks,
in which an offender might be sentenced to sit four days
if he disobeyed the ground officer and could not afford to
pay the prescribed fine.2
It is possible that the restriction of the powers of the
Baron Courts had had the effect of causing a number of
them to be discontinued. But it is also possible that Crom¬
well and his English advisers, when in 1654 they issued
their Ordinance for the Establishment of Baron Courts in
Scotland,3 had a different object. The Courts they had in
view were to be on the English model; held every three
weeks, held not by the lord of the barony but by the suitors,
that is the tenants, jurisdiction restricted to petty civil
causes, the agenda determined by juries who were to make
presentments to the Courts like the English grand juries.
These provisions were calculated to assist in the accomplish¬
ment of two objects which Cromwell certainly had in view,
viz. the diminishing of the power of the Scots landed
aristocracy, and the assimilation of the Scots law to the
English. But none of these modifications seem to have
been adopted by the authorities in Scotland who were
expected to carry them out. The Baron Court of Stitchill
bears to have been established with an eye to the Ordinance
of 1654, if not by authority of that ordinance ; yet its
sittings were not held at regular intervals but from time
to time as required ; it was held not in name of the suitors
1 Court Book of the Barony of Urie (Scot. Hist. Soc.), p. 164. Is this
prison to be identified with ‘ the theefs hole at Stonhyve ’ ? (ibid., p. 109).
* P. 232.
3 Reprinted for reference, below, Appendix B.