Sir Christopher de Seton (2)

Sir Christopher succeeded his pious father and married Agnes, daughter of Patrick, Earl of March.  He was a valiant knight, and did many brave deeds against the English when the crown of Scotland was in dispute between Bruce and Balliol. He was a friend and companion of the national hero, Sir William Wallace, and when driven off his own lands by the enemy, took refuge with forty followers in Jedburgh Forest "ay awaiting his tyme contrare the Englishmen," says Maitland.  He was finally killed at the Battle of Dillicarew, on the 12th of June, 1298, leaving two sons, Christopher and John.

Sir Christopher de Seton (3)

Sir Christopher Seton succeeded his unfortunate but gallant father in these troublous times of the War of Independence. He was knighted by King Robert Bruce, and for his courtesy and valor was called by the common people, with whom he was a favorite, Good Sir Chrystell. He is mentioned
by Lord Hailes (Annals, II., 2) as one of the twenty "chief associates of Bruce in his arduous attempts to restore the liberties of Scotland." He is there styled Christopher Seton of Seton; for with the more perfect amalgamation of races in that kingdom, and the consequent decline of Norman influence with the Norman language, the French de--the particule nobiliare of feudal possession--fell into disuse, and a new mode of appellation arose. When a family and the estate bore the same name, and, as was usually the case, the place gave its name to the owner, the Scottish manner of expression is of that ilk; as, for instance, "Fawside of that Ilk," i.e., of that same place; but when the estate, on the contrary, derived its name from the surname of the owner--a more unusual case--the Scottish manner was to use both names together, as "Seton of Seton." This was more distinguished; and Lord Hailes, as above, shows his perfect acquaintance with these little points of Scotch etiquette and pride.

At the disastrous battle of Methven, near Perth, on June 19, 1306, soon after Bruce's coronation, the Scottish chiefs were defeated by Aylmer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, and "the king was thrice unhorsed, and once so nearly taken, that the captor, Sir Philip De Mowbray, called aloud that he had the new-made king, when Sir Christopher Seton felled Mowbray to the earth and rescued his master." (Tytler: History, I., 207) The large two-handed sword, wielded on this occasion is now in the possession of George Seton, Esq., of Edinburgh, Representative of the Setons of Cariston. It has been several times engraved and publicly exhibited. After many and notable acts against the English, Chrystell was taken prisoner at last, in the Castle of Loch Doon, near Dalmellington, in Ayrshire, through the treachery of one of his retainers named MacNab. Barbour says, in his antiquated style of English:

And worthy Christoll of Seytoun
In to London betresyt was
Throw a discipill of Judas,
Maknab, a fals tratour thatay
Was off his duelling nycht and day.
-- The Bruce.

This account is confirmed by a tradition current in the neighborhood of Loch Doon that a portion of land, at the lower end of the lake, which is still known by the name of Macnabston, was given to the traitor as the price of his crime. (Paterson, Ayrsbire, III., 9.) The ruins of the ancient Castle of Loch Doon are on a rocky islet, at the head of the lake whose waters, still famous for fish, are embosomed in hills that are now bare and bleak, but were once covered with primeval trees forming part of the Forest of Buchan. Sir Christopher was immediately conveyed to London to be exhibited to the king, and then brought back to Dumfries and executed there, because he had been present and consenting (?) to Bruce's killing of the Red Comyn in a sudden quarrel in the Greyfriars' Church in that town on February 10, 1305.

In a quaint Life of Robert Bruce, published in the early part of the eighteenth century, our own Sir Christopher is thus enshrined in verse:

"The noble Seton, ever dear to Fame,
A god-like Patriot, and a spotless Name,
By factious Treason in Lochdown betrayed,
And to Augusta's hostile towers conveyed;
For Scotia's sake resigned his gallant Breath,
Great in his Life, and glorious in his Death."

The historian Tytler says: "So dear to King Robert was the memory of his faithful friend and fellow warrior, that he afterwards erected on the spot where he was executed a little chapel, where mass was said for his soul."  The widow of Sir Christopher was really the one who built this chapel for her husband, in honour of the Holy Cross; but her royal brother  so generously endowed it by a charter dated at Berwick-on-Tweed, the last day of November, 1323, that he is sometimes called the founder.  This memorial chapel stood on a natural eminence just outside of the twon walls, which was ever after called "Chrystell's Mount," and, by corruption, Kerstie's Mount."  It was a beautiful little Gothic building of oblong shape, cornered by pointed buttresses, and having a richly decorated oriel window.  It was further endowed with a small portion of the surrounding land.  Sir Richard Maitland, our earliest family historian, who lived before the downfall of the Old Religion in Scotland, tells us that he had sundry times held in his hand and read the king's charter endowing the chapel, that he had heard mass there, and that it was standing whole and entire in the year 1552.  The chapel was closed after the establishment of the New Religion in Scotland, and it's endowments were secularized.  It remained standing for nearly two centuries, a forlorn protest against the spoilation, until it was torn down in a panic by the townspeople in 1715, to build a wall and a rampart against an expected attack of the Jacobite insurgents.  A Presbyterian church was raised in 1838 on what is called "The Chrystal Mount"; and when the excavations were being made, traces of the foundation of the chapel were discovered, and "many of the stones, but all without ornaments, are still to be discerned in the neighboring dykes."  A few of these were collected and set up, with a well-meaning but inelegant inscription, within his private burial ground by the late Major James Adair in 1840. 

Sir Christopher's widow was confined for a time in a nunnery in England, but was liberated in a few years, and died in peace.  She was a prisoner in England, and Edward II, on the 18^th July 1314 issued an order to the prior of Sethill,ordinis de Semprygham, quad corpus Christiana, sororis Roberti de Brus, quae fsit uxon Christophion de Seyton, should be delivered unto the Sheriff of Lincoln, to be brought before the King of York.  Foedera III.189. The wife, daughter and sister of Robert de Brus, were ordered to be conducted to Carlisle 2^nd October, 1314.  ib 496. Christian Bruce died in 1357. Fordan,II.360

About the same time that all this happened, Sir John Seton, Sir Christopher's brother, was executed at Newcastle.  Burton, writing in his History of Scotland (II., 245) of the many and cruel executions among the Flemish and Norman nobility, observes that "these are the acts that break the spirit of the servile races, but only nerve those of higher mettle to defiance."  Even the plain people were shocked at the shedding of so much noble blood, and regretted the death of their leaders, although of an alien race:

"Where's Nigel Bruce, and De la Haye,
And valiant Seton - where are they?
Where Somerville, the kind and free?
And Fraser, the flower of chivalry?
                     - Scott" Lord of the Isles.

The large hereditary estates of the family in England were now confiscated.  The manor of Seton at Whitby Strand, in Yorkshire, was conferred upon Edmund de Manley, a very eminent person in the reigns of Edward I and II, and distinguished in the Scottish wars.  He subsequently fell at Bannockburn.  The more extensive domain in Northumberland was granted to William, Lord Latimer.  He also came to grief, being made prisoner at Bannockburn.

Sources: "The History of the House of Seytoun to the Year MDLIX", Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington, Knight, with the Continuation, by Alexander Viscount Kingston, to MDCLXXXVII. Printed at Glasgow, MDCCCXXIX. "A History of the Family of Seton during Eight Centuries" George Seton, Advocate, M.A. Oxon., etc. Two vols. Edinburgh, 1896"An Old Family" Monsignor Seton, Call Number: R929.2 S495