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 DRUMPELLIEE'S EXPOSITION, &c. 157
they established their male pedigree from Sir William Stewart of Jedworth,
who figured towards the end of the fourteenth century, and died in 1404
— their most remote ancestor (precisely like John de Strivelin in that of
Keir, 1338), beyond whom they could not go ; and though distinguished
and highly connected, they yet, in reference to Sir John of Bonkill — like
Keir, as is conceived, to Caddei* — must be deemed, if we may use the
4 •' Their ai-ms,
term, but abstract subordinates. They have, as appropriately, and like his too. ^i-e so
family again, and indicative of the same genealogical rank and status, g^^f^ p°*;
uniformly taken their corresponding bend, based upon Sir John's simple one ^°i\yon,
(the Stirling of Gadder, we may hold, in their instance), over their fess cheque [n'isiyy'"^
for Stewart, with the exact difference of its being ingrailed. No two cases referred^ to,
can be conceived more parallel, or better exemplifying the bend in its two alo.^rsi.
phases.
Applying, therefore, the above relevant tests and precedents to the arms. From the
liGftilclic
as proved, of the Stirlings of Gadder and StirUngs of Ken*, those of the doctrine
. . ... and pre-
former must designate m heraldry the chief and principal family of the cedents
name (indeed as concurrently represented in the Stirling pedigi-ee in the Keir plain bend
Performance), through their preferable and legally authorised plain and ^^'q^^^^
unmodified bend ; while that of the latter, being, on the other hand, modified th^m'thT''
or ingrailed, a subordinate one — not connected either with the other. famUyt and
And this finally receives direct confirmation from an old original illuminated thf stir-
book of blazons or arms of the nobility and barons of Scotland — formerly in '°°'*"
part alluded to — in the time of Queen Mary, preserved in the Advocates'
Library, Edinburgh. Under the category of the barons there (in the sense
commonly used by us), we find a coat-of-arms exhibiting a bend ingrailed
azure (instead, here, of vert), charged with three buckles or, on a field
argent ; and another with a plain bend sable, also charged with three buckles
or, on a field argent. The last, evidently, are the arms of Stirling of Gadder,
just as represented in that decisive authority. Sir David Lindsay's Register, in
the reign of James V., and hence alone evincing them — there being no other
parallel of the kind — to be theirs.
•
publicly agitated at the time, between John, Stirling of Letter with Eobert, Janet of Cad-
then Earl of Galloway, and the celebrated An- der's heir, in 1541. The above leading and
drew Stuart of Torrance and Caatelmilk, his decisive facts will be obvious enough on a close
opponent, who stood on other ground — a very perusal of the controversy,
diflferent case of identity from that of Eobert