Found some interesting information. This is from a discussion on the 1669 Act for annexation of Orkney and Shetland to the Crown from wikkipidia "MacRusgail - the 1669 Act had the effect of removing the islands from the jurisdiction of parliament and placed them under the personal care of the king as "Crown Dependencies" similar to the constitutional status of the Isle of Man and Channel Islands. This is the Stuart Hill of www.forvik.com position and it is, with respect, a misunderstanding of the 1669 Act. All the Act did was "annex" the islands to the Crown which in this context means that the Crown could not alienate its interests in Orkney & Shetland without the consent of parliament. The relevant wording of the 1669 Act is "[the islands] shall not nor may be given away [by the Crown] in fie and heretage, nor in frank tenement, lyverent, pension or tack, except for the full duetie which may be gotten from and payed by the tennents, nor by any other maner of alienation, right or disposition whatsomever to any person or persons of whatsoever estate, degree or qualitie they be, without advice, decreit and deliberation of the whole parliament; and for great, weighty and reasonable causes concerning the good weillfare and publict interest of the whole kingdom, first to be proposed and to be advised and maturely pondered and considered by the estates re integra," I don't know what happened in 1742 but in 1707 the Crown Estates in O&S were granted to Morton perfectly legally in terms of an Act of Parliament passed within the procedure envisaged by the 1669 Act (the 1707 Act specifically refers to the 1669 Act)." I also read the act myself and from my interpretation of it it seem the act was actually annexing Shetland and Orkney as part of Scotland.