The result of the Australian referendum, the answer to the question of whether the Australian people prefer a republic to a constitutional monarchy, will be analysed very carefully by the British Prime Minister's advisers. The principle of prescription is well established in Scots law. If a piece of land is unoccupied for sufficient time, and if someone moves onto it and behaves for sufficient time as if the land is his, and if no one challenges his presence and his claim during that time, then his ownership will eventually be recognised in law. It is easy to find the roots for this in allodial ownership, which, in a few words, may be said to be the custom that land belongs to he who first boils water from a stream or spring on the property over a fire burning wood from the property. It should be unnecessary to explain that prescription has to be exercised within Scots jurisdiction.
Prescription is recognised in feudal law in respect of baronial titles.
Initially this arose naturally from the practice in respect of land, for a feudal barony is based on the possession of land ennobled by elevation to the status of a barony. Again, it should be unnecessary to explain that prescription has to be exercised within Scots jurisdiction. Moreover, he claims also to be Chief of the Name of Alexander, to be a baronet, and to be a feudal baron, and he is as discourteous in his letters as he imagines an uneducated mediaeval earl might be. Readers who enjoy stories of false titles may find this one of interest. A string of aristocratic or quasi-aristocratic parts has cast her into the upper classes, where English Roses come with the territory, and this makes her father's ancestry of some interest.