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

1G8
COMMENTS ON KEIR PERFORMANCE,
Fully to
refute any
Keir claim
to a Cadder
descent,
inquiry
next
mooted
into the
ti-ue A'ci/'
origin and
ilesoent.
Quite
uncertain.
in behalf of a favoured party— it may still be asked, is there any other way or
means, even by hook or crook, to connect the Keir family with the Stirlings
of Cadder ? Properly to answer this, it may necessarily be incumbent to
go into the question of the Keir pedigree or descent, and fully to broach
and sift it ; Avhich accordingly we will now endeavour to do, subsequently
drawing from the investigation requisite and relevant results and conclusions.
In this way especially, to use the words partly iu the decreet of the original
nullity of Janet of Gadder's maniage in 1541, we may be able to see how
it " a lirincipio tenuisse" et " viribus snhsistere posse de jure."
No small uncertainty prevails as to the origin of the Keir family, which is
involved in obscurity, nor have any fair or authorised attempts been yet made
to fix it to an individual Strivilin stem. The Keir Performance has been
shown to be completely unsuccessful in the endeavour to make them remote
cadets of the admitted chief and principal Cadder stock ; and even Father
Hay, who figured before and after 1700, an eminent antiquary in his day,
and a great collector of family gleanings, writs, and muniments, is here at
fault, and, iu absence of aught else, is driven to infer that the Stirhngs of
Keir are descended from " Henry, third son of the Earl of Huntingdon,"— a
notion apparently untenable.* And the difficulty is rendered manifest by
the deep unavaihng researches which were instituted by the Keirs in the hope
* The former, too, was the -well-knowii au-
thor of an essay on the origin of the royal
family of Stuart, and of a Vindication of
Elizabeth Mure from the Imputation of being
a Concubine, published respectively in 1722 and
1723 ; and in a volume of MS. and genealogical
collections by the said Mr Eichard Aug. Hay,
Canon Regular of Saint Genovefs of Paris,
Prior of the Pieremont, which was his full
style and description, we have as follows, under
date 1700 (in the matter in question), that —
" Stirling beareth, argent, on a bend ingrailed,
three buckles or" (indisputably, as was seen, the
Keir arms). " In some heralds' books the bend
is CTiiles" (this is an instance moreover of the
beudbeingofasANGLiiNAET tint, the family being
here truly of the cameleon kind). Then he adds :
" The first that had this name is said to have
been Henry, sone to David, Earle of Hunting-
done, brother to King William, because he was
borne in the toune of Strivelyne, as another of
the same Earle's sones was named Brechin, be-
fereuce to
Sir James,
see Keir
Perfonn-
anee, p. 4.
cause borne there." Then he explicitly gives his
authorities for the latter facts, and adds, that
of "this Henry, third sone to the Earle of
Huntingdone, descend the Stirlings of Glenesk,
who failed in ane heir female " (dii-ectly cer-
tainly), "married upon the Lindsay and the
Sterlings of Keir." There is nothing further J,^S^ej;^r^^2i,
worth noticing in the accounts or traditions of for this re
the Keir origin. The Keir editor is here so
far pressed as to be obliged (in his usual pre-
dilection forperchances and empty possibilities)'
to have recourse to a mere ^' pe7'ha2>s" of Sir
James Dalrymple, who figured as late as last
century, that a Walter de Striveling in the
reign of David I. "was the predecessor of Stir-
lim/ of Keir," which unsupported idea, as it
truly is, even if well founded, would not con-
nect the latter with Cadder. As to Nisbet's
concurrent notion, the former also quotes," pro- 2 See iWd
bably derived from Sir James, as above, it is
but of a little moment, and he was more of a
herald than genealogist.