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

RIGHT REVEREND BISHOP KEITH. IxXXYU
think, that in the opinion of every indifferent person he has
.sufficiently vouched the birth and descent both of himself and
of his young nephew, against the gross misrepresentation
and injurious aspersion of Mr Alexander Keith, younger of
Ravelston; and, in particular, that the said Mr Robert has not
been the first who set abroad the surmise, that he and his young
nephew are the immediate direct descendents of Alexander Keith,
son to the Earl Marischal, who got from his father the lands of
Pittendrum. Mr Robert has traced the same surmise to have
gone abroad in the world for near a hundred years bygone ;
and until Mr Alexander Keith, younger of Ravelston, shall
produce stronger evidences in his own favour, for being the
first or the only branch of the Laird of Pittendrum, which
is the point he drives at, he must excuse my grand-nephew
and me to persist in the opinion which we find has prevailed
for so many years back ; but when he can produce better
vouchers for himself, we are most ready and willing to give
him the right hand. When Mr Robert Keith came first to
settle in the city of Edinburgh he inquired at Mr Alex-
ander Keith, Extracter, now of Ravelston, of what parti-
cular family he was ? To which he replied, that for his part
he knew not ; but that they supposed he was of the people
of Pittendrum. Then, said Mr Robert, You and I are
cousins. Four or five years thereafter Mr Nisbet, the gene-
alogist, being employed in gathering what helps he could
for his intended Appendix to his Book of Heraldry, asked
Mr Robert Keith, what assistance he could give as to the
Marischal Family \ Mr Keith left him to make the best
he could of the former accounts of that Noble Family, ex-
cepting only that he furnished Mr Nisbet with three lines
on page Gth of that Appendix, as it is now printed. 1
1 [The " three lines" specified by Bishop Keith occurs, as he states, in
Nisbet's " System of Heraldry," vol. ii. folio, Edinburgh, 1742, Appendix,
p. 6. The reference is to William second Earl Marischal, who married
Elizabeth, daughter of Alexander first Earl of Huntly, by whom he had
several children, one of whom, named Alexander Keith, obtained a charter
of the lands of Pittendrum in 1513 ; and "of him," says the Bishop, in
the "three lines'' which he furnished to Nisbet, are lineally descended
Alexander Keith, late Sheriff-Depute of the Mearns, Mr Robert Keith,