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. 33
of this contract also, -which, unfortunately, is not upon record — who have
here raised no objection, and, as will be seen in the sequel, confess they
hare none to make.
It may also be material to observe that, if an heir-male could take, or had
a claim to his estates, on the death of Andrew Stirling of Cadder in 1522,
it must have been as heir-male of the body of William Stirling of Cadder,
under his Cadder entail in 1414, the last and regulating one, it is conceived ;
which was thus accordingly limited, in the first instance ; and if so, any
compensation for the surrender of his rights — any quid pro quo in a landed
shape — quadrating, as behoved, with the limitation, could only have been to
him and such heirs of the entailer. And it so happens — remarkably and
coincidentally again — that the actual portion of the Cadder estate, finally
settled upon the family of Robert Stirling in 1553 (he having predeceased),
in compensation, as may be inferred, for their Cadder claim and status, and
based upon the solemn contract of 1527, was precisely so destined, exclu-
sively to the heirs-male of tlie body. As any Cadder claim to descent behoved
to be by an heir, so, in accordance, must be the compensation ; and being
hence so far in perfect conformity with the entail in 1414, it cannot but be
admitted to have been, in part, in implement thereof, and for behoof of, and
a requital to, the heirs thereby claiming — viz., Robert's children, who are
thus evinced to be the Cadder heirs-male, indeed the only ones, as no other
heirs-male or competitors, after every investigation, have been discovered.
Tliis necessarily exhausted the entail in their default, in the first instance,
and accounts for the corresponding restrictive destination in the compensa-
tion in 1553 to heirs-male of the body.
The preceding Robert Stirling, " in Cadder," or " of Lettyr," as he was The same
occasionally designed, is the undoubted direct Drumpellier male ancestor, Stirling,
the un-
thi'ough John of Lettyr, his eldest son and heir, who concluded the final doubted
° -' ' ' JJrumpel-
Cadder settlement in that year with James Stirling of Keir. !'<='■ ances-
•' ^ tor, and
Even supposing we went no further, the question at issue, identified with ^^^^'^gd
the Cadder representation, might be held in favour of Drumpellier ; but cwder"^
eventually proofs of their having been the nearest Cadder heirs after Janet laterally,"
and her issue in 1541, and, singularly again, entitled, as such, to portions p^/t '^'
of the Cadder estate, will be adduced in the sequel, and in (perhaps) a besides '
heir-male.
better place ; while, indeed, more will transpire in the sequel of Robert
being the male Cadder representative.