After the trial in 1320 before alluded to, the records in Scotland are silent for over two centuries, and it is not until 1540 that the process is heard of again. In that year[39] the heirs of one Robert Leslie were summoned to the court of parliament to hear his name and memory "delete and extinct," for certain points and crimes of lesemajesty, and his lands and goods forfeited to the king. Legal authorities,[40] obviously forgetful of the fourteenth century instance, follow one another in the mistake of regarding Leslie's as the first of its kind. The legality of the procedure was called in question at the time. Indeed, so loud was the murmur that it can still be heard in the act passed to put it to silence. "It is murmurit," says the enactment, "that it is ane noveltie to rais summondis and move sic ane actioun aganis ane persoun that is deide, howbeit the commoun law directly providis the samin."[41] The three estates of parliament therefore on the motion of the lord advocate, declared unanimously "all in ane voce, but[42] variance or discrepance," that the cause was just and conform to common law. In another case of the following year[43] the charge and judgment were enrolled in the Acts of Parliament. The widow and the heir of the late James Colville were summoned "to see and hear that the said deceased James, whilst he lived had committed the crime of lesemajesty." The deliverance of parliament as tribunal was by its terms an actual sentence upon the dead--that the deceased James "hes incurrit the panis of crime of lesemajeste" for which causes the court decerned "the memoure of the said umquhile James to be deleit," and his possessions confiscated to the crown. Parliament which had unanimously voted the procedure well based in law, found that it was dangerous. It was necessary to restrict its scope. In 1542, it is on parliamentary record[44] that "the lordis thinkis the said act [_i.e._, of 1540], ower generale and prejudiciale to all the barions of this realme." This would never do:--an act prejudicial to the barons! So it became statute law in 1542, that it should apply only to cases of grave treason, public and notorious during the offender's life, and that prosecution for the future must be raised within five years after the traitor's death. It was a reasonable restraint, not always observed.