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. lxxxix
in a continued series downward since the year 1513, it
will be an easy matter for him to make out his preten-
sion ; but Mr Robert Keith and his nephew are suspicious
that Mr Alexander Keith the clerk is the first, who (together
with his new conquest, to use his own words with a little
variation) has endeavoured to set this surmise abroad in
the world.
Mr Robert Keith hopes that all his friends, and every
unprejudiced person into whose hands this paper may chance
to fall (for he has only printed some few copies to be pri-
vately given away), will have him excused for vindicating his
own and nephew's birth ; for although he himself, now in
the close of the 70th year of his age, and having only one
daughter, might be pretty indifferent about any thing of
this nature ; yet he suspects that his young grand-nephews,
(for there are no less than three of them, Alexander, Robert,
and John), when they come of age, might reproach the
memory of their uncle, and justly perhaps, for his not en-
deavouring to set their birth at rights against so flagrant an
attack, seeing the one was capable, and the others might
not have the same means of knowing, or the same abilities
to perform it.
The following Note illustrative of Bishop Keith's con-
clusive and undeniable refutation of the claims of the Keiths
of Ravelstone, was kindly communicated by John Riddell,
Esq. Advocate, and is an appropriate conclusion to our
venerable Historian's able " Vindication" of himself and
his " young grand-nephew Alexander Keith," from the
" Unfriendly Representation of Mr Alexander Keith, junior
of Ravelston."
" Bishop Keith's statement of the Keiths of Ravelstone
not being of his stock of Pittendrum is corroborated by the
General Service, September 24, 1782, of George Keith of
Northfield as heir-male of Sir Robert Keith, Great Marischal
of Scotland, patris atavi tritavi. It will be found in the