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

16
COMMENTS ON KEIR PERFORMANCE,
pellier, though uot obliged, accepts and answers by the present Exposition, — '■
to which exception may be made. The Keii- ambition must not be stinted to
such narrow limits ; it seems all-gi'asping, and must include the arms and her-
aldic insignia of other families, who yet, it should be remembered, have their
own descendants, and may not be inclined to favour the encroachment. It
reaches and compromises the Stellulatos Strivelienses, the great distinct
baronial house of the Strivelins of Moray and Glenesk,* whose ancient arms
and device of the stars are likewise assumed by the former. They are actu-
ally placed, together with tlie StirHng buckles, respectively, in two parallel
rows, — the stars nearer even, and immediately above the Keir arms, — as con-
joined heirlooms of one and the same stock, on the preceding Keir arch,
evincing, in the plain language of heraldry, Keir's representation both of Keir
and Glenesk, and further to redound to the fame and gloiy of his family.
It will not be pretended that strangers could, of their own accord, take,
as in this instance, the arms or device of a great family ; and what may render
this assumption of the stars the more exceptionable, is the fact of their having
been already forestalled, and quite justly sculptured (seme^, as styled in
heraldry), with the exactly inferred purpose of the Keu- advisers, on the walls
of the ancient castle of the noble and distinguished descendants of the same
Stirhngs of Moray or Glenesk.
Lord Lindsay, in the Lives of the Lindsays, states that " Sir Alexander
Lindsay married Catherine, daughter of Sir .John de Striveling or Stirling,
token of your prowess into Scotland, and set it
on hi(jhm my castle of Alguest (JJalkeith), that
it may be seen far off,' obviously as a taunt to
a challenge for its recovery." — Baronage, article
" Percy, Earl of Northumberland," vol. i. p.
279.
* The two chief baronial houses of the Strive-
lins were the puissant Vicecomites of Strivelin
or Stirling, and that of the Strivelins of Moray
and Glenesk, as yet separate and distinct. The
fonner bore three Inickles as their arms, the
latter stars 3, 2, and 1, that have, from their
number, been represented smaller than usually.
On this account the writer will take the
liberty of styling the first, the fihulati Stri-
vilienses (from their armorial buckles), and
the last the stellulati Strivelienses (from their
armorial stars), as a simple mode of particu-
larising each. Curiously, these two eminent
families were at one time also distinct in poli-
tics, ih-C fihulati siding with Baliol on the com-
petition for the Scotch crown, as direct repre-
sentative of the royal line, as cannot now be
disputed ; the stellulati with Bruce no doubt
from principle and independent motives, i
The surname of Strivelin was numerous
before, and still more after that epoch, and we
must not suppose that every Stirling then was
of the same stock or origin, or that certain
south-country Stirlings actually were the an-
cestors of the far superior Vicecomites de Strive-
lin, as futilely and preposterously pretended
in the Keir performance, though this is wholly
jus tertii to Keir, he not being able (as will
afterwards be shown), in the least, to connect
himself, as his advisers would strangely incul-
cate, with such secondary Stirlings, whose
arms, too, are yet unknown to us.
Rymer's
Foedei-a.