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 DRUMPELLIERS EXPOSITION, &c. 91
a fortiori must the direct evidence of Dr Stirling, an actual descendant,
through his family Bible, tell, in the present one, of a Cadder origin or repre-
sentation, not either of such antiquity as the former, being within the compass
of two centuries, instead of what obtained there.
John Stirling of Lettjr, whose important Cadder descent is thereby proved,
having lived to 1585, while the other links of the pedigree specified in the
family Bible are aliunde proved correct, this creates a presumption in
favour of that likewise from Cadder being so, upon the legal principle rectum
in uno rectum in omnibus ; so that, upon the whole, everything being thus
uniform and corroborative, and flowing but in one current, the last piece of
evidence, by established law, must be a strong auxiliary in the case.
The exponent has again stated the foregoing argument, though hke- conclusive
GVlclsDCG of
wise adduced in the Abstract of Evidence in 1818, because he may be thus the identity
in question
enabled more stronoly to illustrate and corroborate it. And, for the same f™m the
° •' _ pupillarity
reason, he will next explain fully and articulately the important one from °{*j^''|j'^®
the exact state of minority, respectively, of the bairns of umquhile Robert }|n''\^n''"
Stirling of Lettyr, dead in 1537, and umquhile Robert Stirling, deceased ■^^*^"
in 1541, that was not so pointedly or expressly explained in the said
Abstract. Not only now can it be proved that they were then certainly
minors, but further still — which is new — in 1541, in the actual stage oi pupil-
larity ; which striking fact may per se fix and decide the question of the
identity of their parents, — namely, the two preceding Roberts.
I. — First here in respect to the " bairns of umquhile Robert Stirling,"
Janet of Gadder's heirs, in 1541, and that they were then ex hoc
voce pupil-oflPspring.
The epithet " bairns," even at present, as is notorious, denotes children ;
and, by Scotch language in the sixteenth century, technically defined pupil-
oflfspring.
. In support of which, it is only incumbent to quote as follows from the Law i see his
Glossary in the same century of the learned Sir John Skene, the Selden of prefixed to
Scotland, as he may be called, and Lord Clerk Register to James VL before scotch Acts
° of Pai'lia-
the union of the crowns.^ m™t.
Under the head of the ' Custody of Children,' he inculcates that " The keip-
ing of the bairnes pertenis to the mother " — " after the decease of the father,
U7itil the BAiRNE be of the age of seven yeres compleit, conform to the com-