I cannot find one capital ‘p’ in the two sasines I have, which I know were written by the same person (they run consecutively in the register and were written an hour after each other). Even ‘important’ words like ‘notary public’ (neither word have a capital letter), or ‘precept of sasine’ (no capitals)
Capital letters are not necessarily used even for people’s names or place names.
He does, however, use a lot of capital ‘d’s, and not only for ‘important’ words.
In fact I think every word that starts with a ‘d’ is written with a capital.
As to grammar, surely if the verb ‘presume’ were to be used, in this case it would be the present tense ‘presume’ and not the past tense ‘presumed’?
Although the spelling is a little random in places, his grammar seems fairly sound to me.
The piece reads – I’ve put in where the capital letters are – and aren’t.
‘and in Regard the sd michael Cochrane his Children a former marriage it is yrby provided and Declared that in Case these Children ? ? to his half of the sd lands of meadowfoot and the heir of this present marriage be yrby excluded yrof that then and in Case the said margaret Hamilton marrying again to a second husband she yrby forfaults looses and tines the Benefit of the whole Liferent provided to her in manner aforesd ‘
You would think ‘provided and declared’ would warrant the same treatment here – whether both capitals, or both lower case, but the ‘p’ of ‘provided’ is lower case, and the ‘d’ of ‘declared’ a capital.
Thanks Philip
