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

WITH DRUMPELLIER'S EXPOSITION, &c. 17
and heiress of Glenesk and Edzell in Angus, and of other lands in Inverness- \ see Lord
shire, by whom he had issue Sir David of Glenesk, the first Earl of Crauford" lives of ^
(so created in 1398^) — "the cognisance of the Stirlings of Glenesk being three says, vol. i.
stars, in common with the house of de Moravia and other northern famihes ^ a n,id,
(the Stirlings being even sometimes designed territorially de Moravia). Sir
Alexander differenced his paternal coat by placing a star in the dexter chief
point, or upper corner of the shield. His son, Earl David, dropped it on
becoming chief of the family, but the star was readopted by the Lindsays of
Edzell, and semee on the bordure borne by those of Balcarres." It need
hardly be added, that, in the latter noble stems, including the Lindsays of
Edzell and the Earls of Balcarres — of whom, too, the present Earl of Crauford
and Balcarres, father of the preceding noble and distinguished Lindsay his-
torian, is the direct male representative — the right to the star, the armorial
ensign of the Stirlings of Moray, vests, quite to the exclusion of Keir, to whom
it is entirely jus tertii, and ought never, by correct heraldry, to have been
^ISiCeOi pari passu, or conjoined, as above, with the Keir buckles.
Fiu'ther still, it is stated in the case of James, Earl of Balcarres, claim-
ing the Earldom of Crauford,'"' that "David Lindsay of Edzell," in 1 5 71, carried 175-6. '''''
the star of Stirling of Glenesk " in the centre, by way of a family difference, in
right of" his "descent fi-om Catherine de Striveline, mother of David, first Earl
of Crauford, the daughter and heiress of Sir John Striveline of Glenesk, head
of an ancient and powerful family, whose arms consisted solely of stars. The
stars, as a cherished gerttilitial badg? or emblem, are still visibly scidptured
(together with the Crauford arms proper) upon prominent parts of the old
Castle of Edzell, which lay within the barony of Glenesk." This last in-
timation fully bears us out in a previous important particular, while all besides
is, ut sup)ra, corroborative ; and the Keir advisers, it may be added, should
have first obtained permission before they so uuauthorisedly and prejudicially
conferred the steUidar arms — so much cherished by their true possessors — in
any way upon their principal or client.
Independently, too, over the gate or portal engraved on the first page of
the Keir Performance, there are displayed five distinct shields — one of the
* Aud that was accordingly adjudged to the quoted for another purpose in the Keir Per-
noble peer in 1848. The case was drawn up formanoe (see p. 188). The facts in that passage,
by the present writer, who may be relieved it may be safely added, are fully borne out by
from some degree of delicacy in thus referring evidence,
to it, from the subsequent passage being already .