CASE OF THE POST-NATI OF SCOTLAND. 159 



deserved punishment, but what hath these sheep 

 done ? And therefore to have punished them, and 

 deprived them of their lands and fortunes, had been 

 unjust. That of policy was, because if the law had 

 forthwith, upon the loss of the countries by an 

 accident of time, pronounced the people for aliens, it 

 had been a kind of accession of their right and a dis 

 claimer in them, and so a greater difficulty to recover 

 them. And therefore we see the statute which 

 altered the law in this point, was made in the time 

 of a weak king, that, as it seemed, despaired ever to 

 recover his right, and therefore thought better to 

 have a little present profit by escheats, than the 

 continuance of his claim, and the countenance of his 

 right, by the admitting of them to enjoy their inhe 

 ritance as they did before. 



The state therefore of this point being thus 

 opened, it resteth to prove our assertion ; that they 

 were naturalized ; for the clearing whereof I shall 

 need but to read the authorities, they be so direct 

 and pregnant. The first is the very text of the 

 statute of &quot; prasrogativa regis. Rex habebit escaetas 

 &quot; de terris Normannorum, cujuscunque feodi fuerint, 

 &quot; salvo servitio, quod pertinet ad capi tales dominos 

 &quot; feodi illius : et hoc similiter intelligendum est, si 

 &quot; aliqua hcereditas descendat alicui nato in partibus 

 &quot; transmarinis, et cujus antecessores fuerunt ad fidem 

 &quot; regis Francias, ut tempore regis Johannis, et non 

 &quot; ad fidem regis Angliae, sicut contigit de baronia 

 &quot; Monumetae&quot; &c. 



By which statute it appears plainly, that before 



