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WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH;

AND THOMAS CADELL, LONDON.

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LENOX LIBRARY

NEW YOR

PREFACE.

WHO is Representative of Duncan eighth and last of the ancient Earls of " the Levenax?" This question, which involves the right to the dignity, has never been fully and fairly considered. Indeed the fate of this interesting Comitatus is very slightly and erroneously recorded by the best Historians of Scotland. It has been asserted that the honours were forfeited in the person of Earl Duncan, and the Lennox annexed to the Crown. Yet it can be proved that those honours were taken up by service to the very Earl against whom forfeiture has been alleged; and that the Comitatus itself descended by right of inheritance through his heirs-general for centuries. The same Historians had to record the transmission of the dignity through the Stewarts of Dernely, and therefore found it necessary to assume a new creation in favour of that family. Yet it can be distinctly proved that the race of Dernely itself never pretended that such was the case, but claimed and kept the title of Earls of Lennox upon the pretension of their right of blood alone.

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