The Sterling genealogy

THE KEIR LINE 57
Delabatie that Laird Meldrum was slain and his proceedings are
recorded by Pitscottie. " He incontinently gart strike an alarm
and blew his trumpets and rang the common bell, commanding all
men to follow him, both on foot and horse, that he might revenge
,
the Lard slaughter and rushed fiercely forward to the place whar
the battle was stricken and saw him noblemen lying deadly wounded
and his men about him in the same manner ; and passed fiercely
after the enemies and committers of the said crime and over hyed
them at Linlithgow, where they took the peel upon their heads to
be their safe quard, thinking to defend themselves therein ; notwith-
standing, this noble Regent lap manfully about the house and
sieged it continually till they rendered the same to come in his
will ; who took them and brought them to Edinburgh and gave
them a fair assize; who were all convicted and condemned of the
said crime and thereafter were put in the Castle of Edinburgh in
sure keeping, induring the Regents will."
Graphic as the language of Pitscottie is, his prose account of
the skirmish between the Stirlings and Squire Meldrum is perhaps
surpassed by his kinsman of the Mount, in his celebrated poem of
" Squyer Meldrum," which was composed about the year 1550:
" Gude William Meldrum he was namit
Quhilk in his honour was never defamit," etc.
In justification, so far as Sir .John Stirling's conduct to Squire
Meldrum, it is not too much to suppose that the Lady of Glen-
eagles and Luke Stirling may have been engaged to be married at
the time that the Squire made his fatal appearance at Glencagles
Castle and overcame the heart and virtue of the lady by his fame
and superior address. " Scotland, existing under an anarchial
minority, furnished such a Squire many a field, both for the con-
flicts of war and the dalliances of love. His concluding adventure,
in both, happened on the road from Edinburgh to Leith, in August,
1517, when jealousy and hatred in the person of Stirling of Keir,
marched out with fifty men, to cut off his retreat to Fife."
Sir John Stirling could have had no ground for jealousy and
hatred, unless on account of rivalry in love on the part of his uncle
Luke, who may have been unceremoniously supplanted at Glen-
eagles by the Squire, who, in his turn, met with a hard retribution.