In the Baronage of Scotland, a Lord of Regality is an ancient noble title. Lords of regality were said to hold a regality - a type of territorial jurisdiction under old Scots law. This jurisdiction was created by erecting lands in liberam regalitatem (in free regality), and the area over which this right extended became the regality.
Regality jurisdictions originated as a form of delegated authority from the Scottish monarch. Lords of regality historically had powers akin to an earl palatine in England,[2] and they held superior courts, known as regality courts, that exercised both civil and criminal legal powers over specified lands and baronies.
In terms of civil jurisdiction, regality courts possessed authority equivalent to that of the monarch's regional sheriff courts. They also held extensive criminal judicial powers, known as "pits and gallows", which were comparable to those of the High Court of Justiciary, Scotland's supreme criminal court, except in cases of treason. A regality court's jurisdiction superseded that of any lower baron courts encompassed within its boundaries, regardless of the baronies' ownership status.[3]
Regality courts were traditionally presided over by the lord of regality's bailie or their deputy. The courts also included suitors of court - individuals who held lands within the regality by obligation of suit of court, or attendance at the regality court.
Where appropriate for coastal properties, lords of regality could also hold rights of admiralty.[4] Article 19 of the Act of Union 1707 protected these admiralty and vice-admiralty rights in Scotland, treating them as heritable rights of property, while subject to regulations and changes by the Parliament regarding their exercise. Therefore, lords of regality with coastal lands would also have been lords admiral of the realm, as the office of Lord Admiral survived the Heritable Jurisdictions (Scotland) Act 1746 in the same way the title of hereditary sheriff,[5] as recognised by the Lord Lyon, and lord of regality survived. Senior Counsel asserts the Act should be interpreted based on its purpose, which was to remove jurisdictions, not titles.
While initially established to aid in governance through delegated authority, some regality lords in the 14th century attempted to usurp royal power and rule their jurisdictions independently.[citation needed] By the 15th century, regalities had returned to functioning as a means of local administration on behalf of the monarchy.
The 1746 Act formally abolished all regality jurisdictions and limited lords of regality's rights to those of a burgh of barony. However, the titles remain in descriptive use today, particularly regarding grants of arms by the Lord Lyon King of Arms, the heraldic authority in Scotland, who will accept ownership of a dignity of regality as sufficient to bring the holder within his jurisdiction for seeking an arms, as Lyon considers a regality to be a genus of barony.[6]
Noble status
In demonstrating that regalities hold a higher noble quality and rights within the baronage:
Baronies and Regalities are the next considerations. This leads to a distinction between Noble Fees and Ignoble Fees. Noble Fees were those that conferred nobility upon the individuals invested in them. These were baronies and regalities. Historically, all nobility in modern states derived from such fees. The title of baron encompassed the higher ranks of duke, marquis, and earl, as well as that of lord. All barons, as lords of parliament, had an equal right to sit and vote.
Some individuals of greater merit or influence with the sovereign were granted even higher privileges than regular barons through the elevation of their lands into regalities. Regality was the highest feudal dignity. The elevation of lands to a dukedom, marquisate, or earldom did not necessarily expand the jurisdiction and privileges beyond those of a regular barony, which is termed a Feudal Lordship, unless the lands were also erected into a regality.
Beyond the rights and privileges inherent to a barony, a regality also conveyed additional Regalia and valuable Franchises. The holders of regalities were styled as Lords of Regality. Regality, being the greater dignity, implied all the privileges encompassed by the lesser dignity of barony.
—Lord Bankton, An Institute of the Laws of Scotland
List of Lordships of Regality
Below is an incomplete list of Lordships of regality, you can help by filling in details below (with reference links).
Walker, David M. (1980). The Oxford Companion to Law.
↑ Ruling of the Court of the Lord Lyon (26 February 1943, Vol. IV, page 26): "With regard to the words 'untitled nobility' employed in certain recent birthbrieves in relation to the (Minor) Baronage of Scotland, Finds and Declares that the (Minor) Barons of Scotland are, and have been both in this nobiliary Court and in the Court of Session recognised as a 'titled nobility' and that the estait of the Baronage (i.e. Barones Minores) are of the ancient Feudal Nobility of Scotland".
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