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 DKUMPELLIEE'S EXPOSITION, &c. 187
ADDENDA TO CHAPTER V.
No. I.
Full Copy in essentials of Grant by John de ERGADLi, Lord of Lorn, to ]\Iary, his
Father's Sister, or paternal Aunt, of Lands of Eathoeane, &c., in 1338.
(Eeferred to at Page 169.)
" Onmibus has Uteras visuris vel andituris Johannes de Ergadia, Doniinus de Lome, j.„^ fy,]
salutem in domino. Universitati vestre notum faccimus per presentes, nos dedisse, con- ^P-rtularv
cessesse, et hac presenti carte nostra confirmasse Marie amite nostre uxoRi Johannis de *« K^i""
■*■ ^ work, p.
Striwelijne, et heredibus suis, quinque deniaratas terre de Eathorane et unam denariatam 198, No. 2.
que vocatur Garwpennynge [and a few others of but small valuation, one only a haKpenny-
land, &c.], m.Lorne, constitutas, Tenendas et habendas predictas terras, a nobis et heredibus
nostris dicte JVL^rie et heredibus suis, per omnes suas rectas metas antiquas, libere et
plenarie, cum omnibus suis pertenentiis Ubertatibus et aysiamentis. Reddendo nobis
amiuatim unum par calcarium ad festum Pentecostes vel valorem ipsorun si reperiri
venalia non poterint pro omni servitio et demanda. Quas quidem terras nos et heredes
nostri sibi [elearhj Mart] et heredibus suis contra omnes viros et mulieres warantiz abimus
et defendeuius. Datum apud Perth ia nativitate Sancte Marie, anno Domini miUesimo
ccc" tricesimo octavo. In cujus rei, &o. His testibus Domino Malcolmo Kenedy Came-
rario Scocie, Domino Miohaele Scote Milite, Michaele Fisser, constabulario de Perth, et
multis aliis."
Independently of the husband being accounted dignior jpersona in law, owing to the
admission of females into fiefs (previously only descendible to male heirs) in the thirteenth
century and afterwards, it became incumbent, with the view of obviating the inconve-
niences and difficulties that might arise therefrom, and still preserve the feudal system
intact in the main, to vest those duties that a ■svife, when an heii'ess, could not discharge,
in the husband, who was quite adequate for the purpose. On this ground, too, as can be
fully proved, when she was a Countess in her own right, he sat in Parhament as an Earl,
just precisely as if he had been personally vested in the dignity, besides discharging on
her behalf feudal semces and duties.
All this could not but raise the husband to a greater position than before in 1338, the