The Seton Earls of Dunfermline

ALEXANDER SETON, First Earl of Dunfermline, was the fourth son of George, the seventh Lord Seton, the ‘defender of the beauteous Stewart.’ He was born before the Reformation, and was the godchild of Queen Mary, and he survived the union of the Crowns (1555—1622). From his godmother he received, as ‘ane Godbairne gift,’ the lands of Pluscarden, in Moray. ‘Finding him of a great spirit,’ his father sent him to Rome at an early age, and he studied for some time in the Jesuits’ College, with the view of entering the priesthood. It seems probable that he did take holy orders, and it was thought that if he had remained at Rome he would have been made a cardinal. The overthrow of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland probably induced young Seton, as his biographer conjectures, to abandon his ecclesiastical pursuits, and to betake himself to the study of the civil and the canon law; and he passed as an advocate before James VI. and the Senators of the College of Justice in the Chapel Royal at Holyrood in 1577. The Setons had hitherto been more distinguished in warlike than in civil pursuits, but in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries no less than six members of the family obtained seats on the Scottish Bench. Alexander Seton, the most illustrious of these legal luminaries, was created an Extraordinary Lord of Session in 1586, obtaining in the following year a gift of the revenues of Urquhart and of the Priory of Pluscarden. With all their attachment to the old Church, the Setons, like the rest of the Scottish nobility of that day, seem to have been by no means unwilling to share in its spoils. Two years later Alexander Seton became an Ordinary Lord of Session under the title of Lord Urquhart, and in 1593 he was elected by his brethren to the president’s chair at the comparatively early age of thirty-eight. He was appointed one of the Octavians—a committee of eight persons to whom the King, in 1596, entrusted the management of public affairs, and who introduced a number of important administrative reforms, though they were regarded with great suspicion and distrust by the clergy. These councillors, indeed, were so unpopular that to satisfy the fears of the Presbyterian party, James promised that he would not meet them in Council, ‘at least when the cause of religion and matters of the Church were treated.’

The Court of Session had long been in bad odour in Scotland, on account of its subserviency to the Court and its partial and unjust judgments. It is therefore with a feeling of agreeable surprise that we learn that, though Seton was a favourite with the King, he had the courage to resist and defeat a characteristic attempt of James to induce the Court to decide unjustly in his favour against a claim of the celebrated Robert Bruce, the successor of Andrew Melville, as the leader of the Presbyterian Church. Bruce had been most unjustly deprived of his stipend by the King, and he sued the Crown in the Court of Session for redress. James pleaded his own cause, and commanded the senators to pronounce judgment in his favour. Seton, with great dignity and firmness, informed the King that though they were ready to serve him with their lives and substance, ‘this is a matter of law, in which we are sworn to do justice according to our conscience and the statutes of the realm.’ ‘Your majesty,’ he added, ‘may indeed command us to the contrary, in which case I and every honest man on this bench will either vote according to conscience, or resign and not vote at all.’ The judges, with only two dissentient voices, pronounced their decision in favour of Mr. Robert Bruce, and the mortified monarch ‘flung out of court, muttering revenge and raging marvellously.’ As Mr. Tytler justly observes, ‘When the subservient temper of the times is considered, and we remember that Seton, the president, was a Roman Catholic [a mistake], whilst Bruce, in whose favour he and his brethren decided, was a chief leader of the Presbyterian ministers, it would be unjust to withhold our admiration from a judge and a Court which had the courage thus fearlessly to assert the supremacy of the law.’

The anger and disappointment of the King were not lasting, for Seton still continued to enjoy the royal favour, and to receive a succession of honours and appointments. But, notwithstanding, he firmly opposed, in 1600, the foolish and dangerous proposal of the King in the Convention of Estates to raise an army to be in readiness, on the death of Queen Elizabeth, to secure for him the succession to the English throne. The scheme was supported by the majority of the higher nobility and prelates, but was stoutly and successfully resisted by the barons and the burghs, led by Seton and the young Earl of Gowrie. ‘Notwithstanding the undisguised mortification of the King, the result occasioned all but universal satisfaction throughout the country.’ In 1598 the President obtained the erection of the barony of Fyvie into a free lordship, with the dignity of a lord of Parliament. On the accession of James to the English throne, Lord Fyvie was entrusted with the guardianship of Prince Charles, the King’s younger son. In the following year he was summoned to London, along with the Earl of Montrose, to take part in the negotiations for a union of the two kingdoms, but though the King himself eagerly pressed the measure, and was zealously supported .by Lord Bacon, it was found to be premature, and had to be postponed for a century. While in England Montrose was persuaded to resign the office of Chancellor, which was conferred upon Seton.

In 1605 Lord Fyvie was advanced to the dignity of Earl of Dunfermline. His long enjoyment of the royal favour and the good fortune which it had brought him had no doubt excited the envy and jealousy of some of the courtiers, and an intrigue seems to have been tried at this time to bring about his dismissal from the Chancellorship. But ‘pairtly by his friends at home and pairtly by the Queen and English secretaries moyen, he was suffered to enjoy still his office.’ He continued to possess the confidence of the King and of Sir Robert Cecil, and took an active part in carrying on the government in Scotland, and in promoting the restoration of Episcopacy. In addition to his judicial office the Earl was for ten years Provost of Edinburgh—a position which had been previously held by his father. In those days the provostship of the capital was an office of great influence as well as dignity, and was an object of ambition to the most powerful nobles. The Chancellor survived till 1622, retaining to the last the confidence of his sovereign and of his colleagues in the administration. What is more rare, and is a stronger testimony to his moderation, sound judgment, and upright conduct, he commanded the respect both of Episcopalians and Presbyterians, though bitterly hostile to each other. Spottiswood and Calderwood, though they both suspected him of Popish leanings, concurred in their testimony to the impartiality of his administration. Lord Dunfermline, besides being a ‘learned lawyer, was an accomplished scholar. Lord Kingston says, ‘He was great in esteem at Rome for his learning, being a great humourist in prose and poesy, Greek and Latine; well versed in the mathematics, and had great skill in architecture and herauldry.’ He appears to have been also the friend of men of learning and science. Robert Terot dedicated to him his curious tract on the ‘Right Reckoning of Years,’ written to prepare for the introduction of the new style in 1600; and the illustrious Napier of Merchiston, his treatise on ‘Tabulation by Rods,’ which are still used, under the name of ‘Napier’s bones.’ Two of Seton’s Latin epigrams, prefixed to Bishop Lesley’s ‘History of Scotland,’ are regarded as specimens of elegant scholarship, and so is his epigram to Sir John Skene on the publication of his treatise, known as ‘Regiam Magistatem.’ That the commendation bestowed upon Seton’s skill in architecture was well merited is proved by the stately and beautiful Castle of Fyvie, which he built for himself, and by the additions which he made to his fine mansion of Pinkie, near Musselburgh, where he died. The Seton family, indeed, were noted for their munificent architectural taste, as was shown in Seton church, and in that ‘peculiar and beautiful structure,’ Winton House, long the residence of the late venerable Lady Ruthven.

Lord Chancellor Dunfermline was frequently accused of a leaning to Romanism, and Tytler terms him a Roman Catholic. He was buried in a vault under the old church of Dalgety, in Fife, after a sermon by Archbishop Spottiswood. Mr. Seton’s summary of the character and qualifications of Lord Dunfermline is not much, if anything, heightened: ‘An able lawyer, an impartial judge, a sagacious statesman, a consistent patriot, an accomplished scholar, a discerning patron of literature, a munificent builder, a skilful herald, and an ardent lover of archery and other manly sports.’

CHARLES SETON, second Earl of Dunfermline, was a zealous adherent of the Covenanting party, and was prominent in the contest for the rights of the Church and people of Scotland. He was repeatedly sent to England as one of the Commissioners of the Estates, and he commanded a regiment in the army which, under General Leslie, marched into England in 1640 to the assistance of the Parliament in their struggle with Charles I. He was one of the eight Scottish Commissioners who negotiated the treaty of Ripon. In 1641 he was sworn a Privy Councillor, and in the following year he was appointed by the King High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Scottish Church which met at St. Andrews. He took an active part in the subsequent proceedings of that stirring period. He supported the ‘Engagement’ in 1648 for the rescue of Charles from the Republican party, and after the execution of the King he went to the Continent, in April, 1649, to wait on Charles II., with whom he returned to Scotland in 1650. He was appointed a member of the Committee of Estates and of the Committee entrusted with the management of the affairs of the army. He commanded a regiment of horse in the ill-advised and unfortunate expedition into England under Charles II., which terminated in a complete defeat at Worcester, September 3rd, 1651. At the Restoration he was sworn a Privy Councillor, and in 1669 was appointed an Extraordinary Lord of Session. He was nominated Lord Privy Seal in 1671, and died in January, 1673. The Earl left three sons and a daughter by his wife, a daughter of the Earl of Morton.

ALEXANDER, the eldest son, became third Earl, but died soon after succeeding to the title. Charles, the second son, was killed in a sea-fight with the Dutch in 1672. The third son, James became the fourth Earl of Dunfermline.

JAMES SETON, was the fourth and last Earl of Dunfermline. Though he served in his youth under the Prince of Orange, at the Revolution he adhered to the cause of the Stewarts, and commanded a troop of horse under Viscount Dundee at the battle of Killiecrankie. In 1690 he was outlawed and forfeited by the Scottish Parliament. He followed King James to St. Germains, and died in exile in 1694. He married a sister to the first Duke of Gordon, but as he left no issue his titles became extinct, and in consequence of his attainder his estates fell to the Crown.