Spottiswoode Society > History of the affairs of the Church and State of Scotland from the beginning of the reformation to the year 1568 > Volume 1

BIGHT REVEREND BISHOP KEITH. IxXV
Family, to be delivered up to him as an acknowledgment
of his descent." But admitting the purchase of the castle
and lands of Dunnottar by that gentleman, the alleged pre-
sents of the Family Papers and the old oak table prove
nothing, and could not confer on him a descent which it
was impossible for him to acquire. The whole of the de-
tails in Douglas" 1 Peerage and Baronage must, therefore,
on the most conclusive evidence, be completely rejected. It
may be here stated, that the heirs-male of the Earls Marischal
are now supposed to be extinct, and that the real and un-
doubted representatives of that ancient Noble Family are the
Earls of Kintore and the Lords Elphinstone by female descent,
the latter, however, much the nearer in point of propinquity.
The descent of both may be thus stated : — At the death
of William fourth Earl of Kintore in 1758, grandson of the
Hon. Sir John Keith, third son of William sixth Earl Maris-
chal, from whom descend the ancient Family of Forbes, Bart,
of Pitsligo and Fettercairn, by Lady Jane Keith, elder
daughter of the first Earl of Kintore, the estates devolved to
the Earl Marischal, and the honours became dormant, as the
Earl Marischal would not allow a clause, enablinghim to inherit
titles, to be inserted into the Act of Parliament which allowed
him to inherit estates. At the Earl Marischafs death in 1778
the titles and estates devolved on Lord Falconer, grandson
of Lady Catherine Margaret Keith, eldest daughter of the
second Earl of Kintore, who married David fifth Lord Fal-
coner of Halkerton. By this marriage were five sons and
four daughters. His eldest son succeeded as sixth Lord
Falconer, who, dying without issue, was succeeded by his
brother William in 1762. He was the father of Anthony
Adrian eighth Lord Falconer, who succeeded in 1776, and
on the death of Earl Marischal in 1778, obtained the estate,
and became the fifth Earl Kintore. He was the father of
William sixth Earl, and grandfather of Anthony Adrian
seventh Earl, who died in July 1844, and was succeeded
by his second son Francis, born in 1828, who enjoyed the
second title of Lord Inverury by the accidental death of his
elder brother in England in the spring of 1844.