Initially regalities were a part of the system of government, delegated jurisdiction, but from the 14th century, the lords of regality frequently sought to usurp royal authority and establish semi-independent domains. In the 15th century, regalities again became a means of governing by delegated authority. Regalities and regality jurisdictions were abolished by the Heritable Jurisdictions (Scotland) Act 1746.
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The Act of Proscription was followed by the Heritable Jurisdictions (Scotland) Act 1746 which removed the feudal authority the Clan Chieftains had enjoyed. Scottish heritable sheriffdoms reverted to the Crown, and other heritable jurisdictions, including regalities, came under the power of the courts.
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Kilmarnock : R. Crawford & Son. Page 40 The term pit and gallows described the jurisdiction of a baron in criminal cases; in full 'pit and gallows, sake and soke, toll, team, and infangthief'.Baronies & Regalities. Accessed: 2009/12/02 Some historians claimedMackenzie, W. Mackay (1927).
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The binomial expression pit and gallows or – reversing the terms – furca and fossa refers to the high justice rights of a feudal baron, etc., including the capital penalty. The right is described in full as pit and gallows, sake and soke, toll, team, and infangthief.Baronies & Regalities.
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In the following centuries Ruch egzekucyjny (lit. execution movement) and subsequently elected Kings were gradually weakened because szlachta achieved more and more privileges – the "Golden" Liberty. Eventually the nobility controlled most of the Crown lands. People without a formal title of nobility inherited or granted were not allowed to be infeudated with regalities.
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An Ayrshire story tells of how an Ayrshire baron once strung up an innocent man, just because his visitor had never seen a man hanged before. Hopefully this was an isolated example, however the system suffered from many faults due to bias, lack of legal training, etc., etc. As stated, a right of appeal to Regalities and sheriffdoms courts did exist.
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The hereditary right of high justice survived until 1747 when it was removed from the barons and from the holders of Regalities and sheriffdoms, by the Heritable Jurisdictions (Scotland) Act 1746, however the use of the death penalty by barons had largely fallen into abeyance well before it was abolished. Its last use in Scotland may have been in 1685, the year of the drowning of the Wigton martyrs.
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The eldest legitimate son of Archibald Douglas, 3rd Earl of Douglas and Joanna de Moravia of Bothwell, he was born either at Threave Castle or at Bothwell Castle c. 1372 and was known as the Master of Douglas until his accession. By 1390 he had married the Princess Margaret of Carrick, a daughter of King Robert III of Scotland. Around this time, his father bestowed upon him the regalities of the Ettrick Forest, Lauderdale and Romannobridge, Peeblesshire.
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For this, Otto nominated him to the bishopric of Cambrai in December 1200. He went to Cologne to seek investiture of the regalities from Otto, who granted them in September 1201.In Otto's ensuing conflicts with the Hohenstaufens, he was a loyal supporter. In 1208 he was a potential candidate to become Archbishop of Cologne, one of the three most important sees in Germany, but objections were raised because he spoke no German (which suggests that he spoke only French, Latin and maybe Flemish).
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James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde took the losing Jacobite side in the 1715 rising and was attainted by a 1715 Act of the Irish Parliament. The act's long title begins "An Act for extinguishing the Regalities and Liberties of the County of Tipperary, and Cross Tipperary, commonly called the County Palatine of Tipperary". Section 2 stated: :And it is hereby enacted and declared, That whatsoever has been denominated or called Tipperary, or Cross Tipperary, shall henceforth be and remain one county for ever, under the name of the county of Tipperary.
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Page initially concentrated his historical interest on Northumberland. His first article, published in 1888, was about the Northumbrian palatinates and regalities. He followed this with editions of three early assize rolls of Northumberland (1891), the cartulary of Brinkburn Priory (1893), a table of the pontifical years of the bishops of Durham (1896), and an edition of the Edwardine inventories of church goods for County Durham, Northumberland and Yorkshire (1897). Page started to work on aspects of the history of Hertfordshire, where his brother-in-law and sister lived.
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FitzGerald had good reason for his caution. The Ormonde faction in the council, violently opposed to Grey and St Leger, were assiduously striving to effect his ruin. In July 1539, John Allen related to Cromwell how the "pretended Earl of Desmond" had confederated with O'Donnell and O'Neill "to make insurrection against the king's majesty and his subjects, not only for the utter exile and destruction of them, but also for the bringing in, setting up, and restoring young Gerald (the sole surviving scion of the house of Kildare) to all the possessions and pre-eminences which his father had; and so finally among them to exclude the king from all his regalities within this land."State Papers, Hen.
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The furca was a device of punishment in ancient Rome and refers to the gallows for hanging men; the fossa was a pit for the drowning of women. As previously stated, the hereditary right of high justice survived until 1747, when it was removed from the barons and from the holders of regalities and sheriffdoms, by the Heritable Jurisdictions (Scotland) Act 1746. It is not clear that the moot hill was also the actual site of executions; folklore, tradition and the association of separate 'gallow' places names with moot hills on balance suggests that the usual place of execution was a separate 'gallows hill'. At Gardyne Law (Gardyne Castle's moot hill), however, an eyewitness recalled that judgement and execution took place on the same law.
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As Henry's predecessor, Edward III, had recognised Mann as an independent kingdom, Henry IV did not directly claim the Manx throne, but instead proclaimed that he had acquired the island by right of conquest, which in international legal theory at that time erased any existing constitutional arrangements. He then on 19 October 1399 granted the Island, as a fiefdom under the English Crown, to Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland together with wide-ranging powers of government and associated regalities, together with the style of 'Lord of Man', in a position of feudality and thus without sovereignty.pp215/219 - Manx Soc vol 7 'Monumenta de Insula Manniae - Vol 2' - Concession of the Isle of Man by Service of the Lancaster Sword, 1399 Despite this, Percy styled himself as 'King of Mann'. Following Percy's treasonous rebellion, Henry IV granted the suzerainty of the Isle of Man, on similar terms but only for the term of his life, to Sir John Stanley in 1405.
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Relations between the bishops and the inhabitants of the town of Cambrai had often been tense, and in 1212 the townspeople obtained a charter from Otto's rival, Frederick, King of Sicily, granting them rights and privileges which curtailed the power of the bishop and the church. The defeat of Otto and his allies at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214 meant that from then on the major power in the region was France, under the victorious King Philip II, while much of Germany recognised Frederick. Immediately after the battle, in which Philip had captured Ferdinand, Count of Flanders, Jean was one of three bishops asked by his wife Joan, Countess of Flanders, to negotiate the prisoner's ransom and release, but without success. Jean was obliged to waive his loyalty to Otto and to accept the authority of Frederick, swearing him fidelity and obtaining a re-grant of the regalities from his hands.
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