The Stirlings of Keir and Cawder.
Keir House, near Dunblane in Perthshire, sits to the north of the River Forth at the top of a slope to the west of the Allan Water. The position gives an excellent view over the Carse of Lecropt to Stirling Castle on its huge rock. This pleasant spot was the principal seat of the Stirlings of Keir and Cawder until its sale in 1975. The family is probably descended from David, Earl of Huntingdon, brother of King William the Lion (reigned 1165-1214). It is certainly descended from Walter de Striuelying or Striveling, who lived around 1339-1393 and who acquired the lands of Ratherne or Quoigs in the parish of Dunblane either late in the fourteenth Century or early in the fifteenth.
In 1448, his son Lukas excambioned or exchanged land with the Laird of Leslie in Fife and thus acquired Keir. Writing in the Statistical Account of Scotland of 1796, Rev. Dr. James Robertson, the Minister of Callander, says that a kier (sic) is a local name for "one of a chain of rude forts." In the same article, Dr. Robertson goes on to praise the Stirlings with the words "this family has long been justly respected, by all ranks, for the qualities which adorn human nature in the higher spheres of life."
One of these qualities is that of public service. Thomas, a younger son, was an early exemplar in the thirteenth Century, when he was Archdeacon of Glasgow and Chancellor of Scotland. Another, in the early sixteenth Century, was Sir John Striveling (died 1539), who was appointed one of the Keepers of the person of the young King James V. Perhaps the most important example is that of Sir Archibald Stirling of Garden (1617-1668), who became a Senator of the Royal College of Justice in February 1661, and took the judicial title "Lord Garden." He was chosen as a Lord of the Articles in 1661 and again in 1663, and was, therefore, one of the men who effectively controlled the introduction of proposed legislation to Parliament.
Sometimes the perceived path of public duty leads in strange directions. James Stirling (died 1749), proprietor of Keir from 1693 to 1715, was a supporter of the Stuarts. He was tried for high treason in November 1708, after the failed Jacobite invasion of that year, and acquitted. As a consequence of his presence at the Battle of Sheriffmuir during the Fifteen, he was attainted. This unjust legal procedure did not include a trial, but merely condemned the victim by Act of Parliament. The punishment of loss of legal capacity included forfeiture of property.
Fortunately, Keir was bought by a group of relations and friends, led by Robert, 7th Lord Blantyre, Stirling's brother-in-law, whose family was impeccable in its opposition to Jacobitism. It was reconveyed to John, James's eldest son, in 1728. Lord Blantyre's sister, Marion, had a life made difficult by her husband's politics, for he was arrested in August 1727, for interfering in elections and again imprisoned on the breaking-out of the Forty-Five. Clearly, she was a woman of considerable stamina - she was a mother of twenty-two children.
Nevertheless, the difficulties of the times did not prevent the improvement of the property and house. In the 1770s, Archibald Stirling, 12th of Keir, extensively built farm buildings - "neat steadings of houses in centrical places, and covered them with tiles or blue slates." James (1766-1831), the nephew of Archibald, was a successful cattle-farmer, something remarkable in an area where "they pay great attention to the rearing of horses." He also planted extensively in the grounds, made the North and South approaches, built two lodges and added on to the West side of the house, "including the drawing room and gallery." The cattle enterprise was continued by his brother and successor, Archibald, 14th of Keir (1769-1847), who specialised in shorthorns, then a comparatively new breed. This Archibald married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Maxwell, 8th Bt. of Pollok on 1st June, 1815.
Their only son, William, was born on 8th March, 1818, and was a personification of those qualities extolled by the Rev. Dr. Robertson a generation before, to the extent that he was praised among his contemporaries as "that prince of good fellows." He served the County of Perth as M.P. from 1852 to 1868 and again from 1874 until his death in 1878. As well as maintaining the family tradition of public service, he also maintained that of agricultural innovation, further improving the Keir strain of shorthorns and starting to breed a strain of Clydesdale horses. Between 1849 (when he disentailed the property) and 1851, he altered the house considerably. The entrance was moved from the East to the North and a library constructed in place of the old hall. A bay of five windows was added to the centre of the East front and a porch, gateway, and connecting arcade were built, as were three terraces around the house. Rather more mundanely, he also built a new set of domestic "offices." Similarly, a new steading was constructed at a cost of #8,000 and was regarded as such a wonder that a model of it was exhibited at "the Kensington Museum." This burst of creativity suggests to an observer that he was something more than a leading light of the Highland and Agricultural Society, of which he was Honorary Secretary from January, 1868.
Before inheriting his maternal uncle's baronetcy in 1865, when he changed his name to Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, he had obtained a Cambridge degree in 1839 and travelled around the Lebanon, the Holy Land and Syria (then all part of the four provinces of Ottoman Syria), returning in 1842. Inspired by this journey, he re-wrote some Biblical episodes as verse and had them privately printed as "Songs of the Holy Land."
He had visited Spain on the way to this Levantine Grand Tour. This stimulated his interest in Spanish art and history, which, combined with his love of books, resulted in a constant flow of books from his own pen. Neglected ground was cleared by his "Annals of the Artists of Spain" (1848), part of which he re-wrote as "Velasquez and his Works" and published in 1855. It was translated into French and German. In 1852, his "The Cloister Life of Charles V" appeared and received the loud approval of the critics. Sadly, it was soon overshadowed by Mignet's "Charles V, son abdication and Gachard's "Retraite et Morte de Charles V," both published in 1854. In 1883, "Don John of Austria," his most inspired history, was published posthumously. Appropriately, this brilliant man was a friend of Thackeray and the Duc d'Aumale.
Sir William had married first Anna Maria, daughter of David, Earl of Leven & Melville, (lot 490), who had died in 1874, leaving two sons, His second marriage, in March 1877, was to an old friend, Caroline Norton, (lot 478), who was as remarkable as her new husband. A grand-daughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, she was a poetess whose first adult work, "The Sorrows of Rosalie," started her on a successful and financially rewarding literary career - she is supposed to have earned #1,400 a year from her writing. She was also a vociferous campaigner for the reform of family law. Already ill at the time of her marriage, she died in June, 1877.
Sir William died the following year. His property, including an art collection of the first rank, was later divided between his sons. The younger, Archibald (1867-1931), inherited Keir. His elder brother, Sir John, inherited Pollok, where part of Sir William's collection may be seen. Archibald Stirling had a distinguished military career, rising to the rank of Brigadier-General. His elder son, William, father of the incumbent Archibald Stirling also had a distunguished wartime service. William's brother, Sir David Stirling (1915-1990), was well-known for having founded the S.A.S., and earning the D.S.O., the Legion d'Honneur and the Order of Orange-Nassau.
The Stirling collection was still a single entity when John Gray, Curator of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, published his "Notes on the Art Treasures at Keir, Perthshire," in 1887. Part of the collection was removed to Pollok House, Glasgow, which had been the Maxwell seat and became that of Sir John Stirling-Maxwell. For example, Jeronimo Cosida's "San Ildefonso receiving the chasuble from the Blessed Virgin," which Gray described as "attributed to the school of Alonso Berrugueto," is there, as are two portraits by El Greco of his daughter. However, the division did not leave Keir bare; there remained works by Velasquez, Murillo, Zurbaran and Goya, in addition to three El Grecos, paintings by Paris Bordone and Claude, together with a remarkable collection of William Blake and countless other examples of Sir William's extensive collecting tastes. Furthermore, many of the items in this sale can be identified from contemporary engravings, inventories and photographs of Keir, including the oak centre tables with tiled tops (lot 132), a collection of walking sticks (lots 151-165), the marble bullock (lot 41) and the white marble figures of John and Archibald Stirling-Maxwell on revolving pedestals (lots 53 and 54).
The library furniture (lots 123-131) was almost certainly designed by Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, as was the distinctive Keir 'linked chain' frame for the portrait of Sir Walter Scott by Sir John Watson Gordon (lot 467) and many of the portraits including those of Marion Stirling and Charles Stirling (lots 474 and 475), by Gregor Urquhart and of William Stirling of Keir (lot 477) and Hannah Ann Stirling (lot 489) by John Graham Gilbert.
Purchasers will have an opportunity to acquire fine objects that have an importance beyond their apparent artistic and financial values - they will be a small part of the history of one of our greatest country houses, and indeed, part of Scotland's history. A.D.M.M.
OBJECTS OF ART AND FURNITURE
A pair of spelter book-ends, modelled as figures of jockeys wearing blue and white silks, on rounded rectangular plinth bases, 10½in. (26.5cm) high (2)
Details
A pair of spelter book-ends, modelled as figures of jockeys wearing blue and white silks, on rounded rectangular plinth bases, 10½in. (26.5cm) high (2)