Comments in refutation of pretensions advanced for the first time, and statements in a recent work "The Stirlings of Keir and their family papers"

xvi CONTENTS.
origin and descent, though immaterial to the Drampellier family, whose Cadder status
has been fixed and recognised, nevertheless next gone into — The same uncertain — No
clue thereto supplied by their first possessions, as in the Cadder and Drumpellier
instances — John de Striwelyne, so simply styled (and never of Eathoran) in 1338, their
jiresumed ancestor — Quite unappauaged, and solely indebted to his wife, aladyof family,
for an interest in any lands, rather strangely settled exclusively upon her and her heirs
— The settlement incidentally affords the only glimpse of John, of whose family, too,
nothing transpu-es — Acomplete blank intervenes from thence down to 1414 and 1423 —
Kefutation of en-oneous representations and bare assumptions to the contrary in the
Keir work — With impressions and inferences as to the Keir origin and descent in
hoe stcUu — Luke Stirling of Eatheme (a small property, how acquired uncertain)
an Armiger or Squu-e, and artifex sum fortune, properly the Keir founder, a man of
talent and resiaectability, from whom the Keir descent downwards is plain — the Keir
family first baronial in 1473 — Charge mooted against Sir William Stii-ling of Keir
of being participant in the murder of James V., with some new evidence — Upon the
whole, no proper proof yet of a Keu'-Cadder descent, far less representation, that ought
never to have been started — Keir origin still unascertained, and demanding investiga-
tion — New evidence meanwhile by the writer of the preceding Luke Stirling of Eath-
erne in 1414, and a property held by him, favourable to his rank and character, 162-186
A DDE N DA.
No. I.
Full Copy in essentials of Grant by John de Ergadia, Lord of Lorn, to Mary, his father's
sister, or his paternal aunt, of lands of Eathorane, &c., in 1338, with remarks upon
its peculiar and unprecedented import, exclusive and privitive to the lady and irrespec-
tive of the husband, as shown or tested by other relevant instances, . . 187-189
No. II.
Proof refuting the Statement in the Keir Performance that John, Lord of Lorn, in 1338,
nephew of Mary, wife of John de Strivelin, was " the last of the male line of the
ancient Lords of Lorn," ....... 189, 190
CHAPTER VI.
Futile attempts again of the Keir Performance, through their visionary ancestor, Sir Wil-
liam Stirling, before and after 1300 — Who, though a broken reed, is unsuccessfully
resorted to by the former in every emergency to connect the Keirs with the gi-eat
Vicecomites de Strivelin — True deduction of the oi-iginal ancestry and descent of
the latter, the founders of the jibulati Strivellenses — Their ancient patrimonies,
Uchiltrie and Cadder, so long in their line — Eefutation of the preposterous efforts
likewise of the Keir work to castrate or ignore as ancestors the earlie.st of the above
Vicecomites de Strivelin, and to plant in their room certain motley nondescript
Stirliugs ; and further stiU, to make the Keirs, still through their visionaiy ancestor.
Sir William Stii-ling, their descendants and representatives, by a fabulous pedigree,
eked back to 1130, the more to redound to the Keu- antiquity and glory — AU little
worthy of serious discussion — Church tenure — The fief of Cadder, so long the heir-
loom of the Jibulati Stnvelienses, siugidarly a barony held of a bishop and arch-
bishop, vested with the high powers of a Eegality or Palatinate, of which there are a
few parallel instances in England and Scotland — Sir John de Strivelin, the Scottish
renegado and English knight and baron, who figured before the middle of the
fourteenth century and afterwards — Crude and absurd notion, if intelligible, of his
origin in the Keir work — With general remarks and conclusion, , . 191-217