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. 211
and quitted his shop and toga for armour, — much, doubtless, to the hon-
our and exaltation of his chii^alrous counterpart ! Such a raffacciamento
in genealogy ! It seems an anomalous and unintelligible jumble of the oddest
kind ! * Neither is the English knight proved to have been originally settled
in Northumberland. The contrary must be inferred from what will be
stated;^ adventitious circumstances alone connected with his interests and page.
professions, it must be concluded, had fixed him in that quarter. The only
way we can, and in part merely, rescue the Keir editor from the absurdity
(letting the other fallacies alone) to which hd, as above, may be amenable,
is by holding that he had the English knight exclusively in view in the
passage quoted, beginning with the words, "this Sir John de Strivehng ;" but
in order to make such excuse available, we are forced, rather awkwardly, to
travel backwards beyond an intervening detached paragraph to the very title
of the article, announcing " Notices of Sir John de Striveling, who was sum-
moned to the Parhament of England," &c., which is at variance with the
rules of correct writing, and that perspicuity and precision indispensable to
an historian, within which category, doubtless, the Keir editor would like to
be included.
It is obvious from what Fordun, in 1335, and others, state about the Sir Edit. Good-
ali, vol, ii.
John de Strivelyn in question, that he was a renegado Scotsman, who had r- sis.
adopted the English party and interests. In that year, he informs us that
there came to the siege of Lochleven " dominus Johannes de Strivelyn, m iles '
Regis Anglice, cum magna multitudine tam Angiicorum quam Scoto-Angli-
corum, inter quos erant Michael de Arnot," &c., " cum aliis pluribus ad
pacem Regis Anglice conversis." Sir John, in the above capacity, lieading
them, as, from his admitted military talents, he did upon other occasions.
That he was forfeited in Scotland must have followed in consequence ; and
precisely in the reign of David II., which was from 1329 to 1370, thus
including 1335, there is in the index of missing charters, by that monarch,
* That justice be done to the Keir editor, burgesses of Berwick who swore fealty to Ed-
the passages discussed, forming the outset of ward I., in 1291, were Adam de Striveliii and
the article, shall be here fully and collectively Johannes de Strivelin.
given, without any inten-uption, as iu the text. "This Sir John de Striveling (hence the
"The earliest notice of the Stirlings is in latter!) was connected with the county of
the reign of David I., as proprietors of lands Northumberland. He rose to great importance
on the Borders; and it is pi'obable that branches by adhering to the English side during the dis-
of these early Stirlings had crossed the Border, turbed reign of David II. In 1.335 he directed the - Keii- Pev-
aud settled on the English side. Among the siege of Lochleven, in the service of Balio]."'-&c. p, 190 '