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SKETCHES FROM THE PARLIAMENT HOUSE. INTRODUCTION. By A. Wood Renton. THE rise and progress of the substantive and adjective law of Scotland is one of the most curious episodes in ancient or modern times. Under the Norman and early Angevin Kings, the laws of Scotland and England were practically identical. The proof of this assertion would weary the minds of our legal brethren in America without in forming them; but the testimony of Lord Karnes is conclusive as to the fact. "When one dives," writes that great lawyer (Essays, I.), " into the antiquities of this island, it will appear that we borrowed all our laws and customs from the English. No sooner is a statute enacted in England, but upon the first opportunity it is introduced into Scot land, and accordingly our oldest statutes are mere copies of theirs. Let the Magna Cliarta be put into the /lands of any Scotchman, igno rant of its history, and he will have no doubt that he is reading a collection of Scots statutes and regulations." By the end of the thirteenth century, however, the policy of the English kings, animated as it was by an overmas tering desire to conquer both Scotland and France, had loosened the early bond of sympathy between Northern and Southern Britain, and had driven France and Scotland into each other's arms. The alliance thus formed is known in history as the Ancient League {la liguc aucieunc). It lasted, with occasional and trivial interruptions, for several centuries, and affected the life and thought of Scotland profoundly. M. Francisque-Michel, in his remarkable dictionary of the Scottish language, has traced French influence in every chapter of the public and private history of the Scottish nation. The terminology of Scottish architecture, com merce, science, politics, and religion is saturated with words of French origin. But
this is not all. The style in which old Scottish houses were built, the methods and the weapons of Scottish warfare, the secrets of Scottish culinary skill, the very manner in which a Scotchman opens his oyster,1 were all imported or inherited from France. Let us trace this strange phenom enon in this department of law. The fol lowing Scots legal terms are of French origin : a bankrupt is dyvour (Fr. devoir); both in Scotland and in France the bank rupt was compelled to wear the bonnet vert; a barrister is advocate (Fr: avocai); a soli citor is procurator (Fr. procureur); to ex onerate a defendant is to assoilzie him (Fr. absoillc); to attach for debt is to compryse (Fr. comprendre); a man's property or means is his valiant (Fr. vail/ant); to bribe is to creish (graisser la palme). But the affini ties in question go much deeper than these. We have seen that the early Scots and Eng lish laws were practically identical. Now at the end of the fourteenth century, when the Ancient League was in full operation, France had quietly adopted, while England was slowly rejecting, the jus civile as the basis of her substantive law. Erelong the law of Scotland too ivas assimilated to that of Rome. A curious instance of this change — for which Franee and not Holland 2 must have been responsible — will be found in 1 This point was brought under the notice of the writer some years ago by the late Professor Lorimer of Edin burgh University. The whole subject is discussed in the 30th volume of the Journal of Jurisprudence." - Holland and France were the only two European countries that had adopted the Roman law with which Scotland was at this time intimately connected. But the effects of Dutch influence on Scots law arc ktunuft; viz., the naturalization of a few technical terms, the introduc tion of the jus gentium, and the suggestion to Stair of some of the maxims of the jus emit. — Mackay's Life of Stair, pp. 34, 35.
