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

i8 COMMENTS ON KEIR PEREORMANCE,
Keiteratod Stii'liiigs of Moraj, Comprising again the stars ; and anotlier of the StirUngs
by Keir of of Carsc, the three buckles on a chief instead of a bend. This precisely
tlie Stir- . , 1 1 ,. , . .
ling of quadrates with, and may have been adopted from, the corresponding practice
arms in gf our families of old, thus heraldically to express on the gates or walls of
the Keir ^ x o
Perform- j;jjgjj. mausions their respective descents, alUances, and sometimes fiefs and
ance, ■*- ' '
oftho'se seignories. And in this manner, in separate shields also, and with the
andte-^' same view, those so well known of the ancient Earls of Dunbar and March
cadden (including even the Isle of Man), were scidptured, and descriable not long
ago, if not, too, partly stUl on the portal of then- old Castle of Dunbar.* But
as the Keir family are neither proved to be descended from, or to have had
any main tie or connection with, the Stirlings of Glenesk or Carse, they were
not entitled, on this occasion, after the above fashion, to sport or display
their arms, no more than those of the Stirlings of Gadder, that may be said
to occupy an additional shield on the preceding portal ; which, nevertheless,
as they stand, must denote, by correct heraldic doctrine, that the former are
represented by Keir ; — thus constituting, as may be maintained, another iindue
assumjDtion, independently of that of the Cadder crest (as shown), to the
prejudice and in disregard of DrumpelHer. That this too, is so, may be in-
ferred from the Keir motto, " Gang forivard," being inserted in extenso on
the gate or portal, immediately below the five shields, as ahke applicable to
the whole — thus evincing them to be within the same category, and hence
qf the same family, of which, again, as the arms of Keir occupy, in the same
frontispiece, the fullest and most exaltfed position, he must be the chief. But
what may be still further decisive is the fact of " The Stirlings of Keir,
and their Family Papers " — the title of the work — being also prominently
introduced in the large space below the portal. That must indicate them to
be exclusively in view, no others being mentioned, and of com"se, by the true
rules and doctrine of heraldry, which can alone apply, holders and possessors
of the five superincumbent shields, with aU their gentilitial honoiu-s and acces-
sories, for whose behoof, and in whose right only, they could be displayed.
Indeed, this even is sanctioned, in modern times, by similar frontispieces to
1 See Lives * Lord Lindsay, in his Lives,^ here well of quartering tliem ;" and in proof of this, in-
says,%ol"i." remarlcs, in corroboration of what is thus stances " four isolated shields of the fourteenth
p. SI, note, stated (independently of the precedent of century," that were taken from the ancient
the old castle of Dunbar), that " in those days castle, now in ruins, of Maxwell of Pollok, and
{aiu-iently) families exhibited the arms of their placed elsewhere — all having the arms of Max-
different alliances in separate shields, instead well of Pollok and their alliances.