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George Seton, 7th Lord Seton
In Sir Richard Maitlands' History, written in Lord Seton's
lifetime, he correctly lists the 7 Lord's Seton and the five George's Seton in
succession with their appropriate Titles, but his manner in writing is the cause
of confusion as he wrote the passage for the George's that begins: ' George
lord Seytoun, first of that name, succedit, have and bot nyne yeiris of age, to
Lord Johne his father'.
Each
succeding Lord Seton is given afterwards as ' OFF LORD GEORGE, the secund of
that name' etc... culminating in Viscount of Kingston's note: ...' OF THE FIFT
GEORGE LORD SETON TO THIS SEVENTH GEORGE LORD SETON, OF THAT NAME, AND THE
ELEVENTH LORD SETON, FOURTH EARL OF WINTON...'
The portrait, right, is of George Seton, 7th Lord Seton and 5th
Seton Lord in succession of the name of 'George', although long at Winton House
and no longer in the family's possession, it is still incorrectly labelled as 5th
Lord, even at the National Gallery in Scotland, when only the slightest
inspection would correct the error to read as his proper title is: the 7th Lord Seton.
George Seton
was born in 1531, and succeeded his father, the 6th Lord Seton in 1549. It was to this “noble and
mighty lord” that Maitland dedicated his history of the Seton Family, begun at
the request of his father. He was addicted to horse-racing and to hawking in
his youth, and on May 10, 1552, won a silver bell which was run for at Haddington, the county town.
Before he was twenty he married Isabel, daughter and heiress of Sir William
Hamilton of Sanquhar, at the time one of the Senators of the College of Justice
and Captain of Edinburgh Castle, a singular combination of Peace and War. She
brought him the Manor of Sorn and other lands in Kyle. A number of gold medals
were struck to commemorate this union, on account, especially, of the bride’s
relationship to the Earl of Arran, Regent of Scotland and Duke of Chatellerault
in France. The medal is now very rare. It is described by Francisque Michel in
his Civilization in Scotland.
Sir
William Hamilton of Sanquhar was also Lord Treasurer to James V, and invited his
Majesty to Sorn Castle, in Ayrshire, to be present at the marriage of his
daughter to Lord Seton. On the eve of the appointed day the king set out on the
journey; “but he had to traverse a long and dreadry tract of moor, moss, and
miry clay, where there was neither road nor bridge; and when about half-way from
Glasgow, he rode his horse into a quagmire, and was with difficulty extricated
from his perilous seat on the saddle. Far from a house, exposed to the bleak
wind of a cold day, and environed on all sides by a cheerless moor, he was
compelled to take a cold refreshment in no better position than by the side of a
very prosaic well; and he at length declared, with more pettishness than wit,
that ‘if he were to play a trick on the devil, he would send him to a bridal at
Sorn in the middle of winter.’ The well at which he sat and swore is still
there and is called the King’s Well; and the quagmire in which his horse
floundered is ironically called the King’s Stable.
Soon after coming of age, Lord Seton was elected Provost of Edinburgh, and
governed the capital for several tumultuous years with firmness and discretion.
On one occasion there was an uproar in the city, whereupon two of the municipal
officers hurried out to the Provost at Seton; but he, finding they were to
blame, promptly confirned them in his castle dungeon, while he rode into
Edinburgh, summoned the guard, and suppressed the riot. Toward the end of 1557
he was one of the Commissioners appointed by Parliament to be present at the
marriage of Queen Mary Stuart with the Dauphin of France, afterward Francis II,
on which occasion a magnificent present of silver plate exquisitely wrought by
Benevenuto Cellini was made him by the king. This work of art, superior to
anything yet seen in Scotland, after serving at banquets prepared for royalty
and Winton House and Seton Castle, was finally stolen and beaten to pieces or
melted down, in the plunder of the family mansions in 1715.
The
Seton’s were always in the forefront of culture and refinement, and progress.
As an illustration, it is stated, among other things, in the Memorie of the
Somervilles, that “the first coach brought to Scotland was by this Lord
Seton when Queen Mary came from France.” After the marriage of Mary and
Francis, he was sent to England to present Queen Mary’s portrait to her cousin
Queen Elizabeth, and was worthily entertained at the English Court. He returned
to France to accompany Queen Mary, now a widow, back to Scotland; and having
enjoyed her favor in the hour of prosperity, he was a devoted friend in the days
of her adversity.
He
was sworn by the young Queen one of her Privy Council, and appointed Master of
the Household. He was also a knight of the most noble Order of the Thistle.
Nisbet describes a life-sized portrait of him at Seton, in which he grasps his
official baton, and underneath which were painted in letters of gold lines:
“In Adversitate Patiens –
In Prosperitate Benevolus –
Hazard Yet Forward !”
A
motto which denotes his characteristics of patience, courtesy, and courage.
Mottoes were all the vogue among distinguished people in this and the following
reign. Under the arms of the celebrated Lord Chancellor Seton, moulded in
stucco at Pinkie House, is this one:
“Nec Cede Adversis Rebus”
Nec Crede Secundis.”
It
lacks the chivalrous sentiment of his fathers, and smacks too much of the Jesuit
Balthasar Gracian’s Art of Worldly Wisdom.
During the years of comparative peace and happiness following Queen Mary’s
home-coming she was a frequent visitor to Seton, where she would practice
archery and play at golf, two games for which the Seton Butts and Seton Links
were famous. Chambers, in his Stories of Old Families, describes the
joyous times at Seton; and the beautiful “Seton Necklace,” sold with other
Eglinton heirlooms a few years ago, was a prize won by Mary Seton at golf in a
game against the Queen. Maitland mentions some of the architectural
improvements and additions of this lord to his principle residence, which had
suffered severely from English depredations, being on the direct road from
Edinburgh to Berwick. Maitland also tells us how on the 16th of
February, 1561, at two o’clock in the morning “the great dungeon of the old
tower of Seton fell to the ground, but as God would have it, it did nobody
harm.”
Nevertheless Lord Seton rebuilt and enhanced the old Palace which was esteemed
at the period and for many years afterward, much the most magnificently
constructed and furnished house in Scotland. It was often called, in accordance
with the Scotch fashion introduced under the influence of French ideas, the
Palace of Seton, because it was so frequently the abode of royalty. This vast
and handsome structure occupied a pleasant position in the midst of a
well-wooded demesne in East Lothian, on the coast of the Firth of Forth, and
took it’s name from one of the oldest, wealthiest, and most influential families
in the kingdom. There is no end of traditions regarding the princely style
maintained at Seton. It had been visited in the royal progresses by Queen Mary,
by her son King James VI, by the unfortunate Charles I, and by the merry monarch
Charles II, and an account of the masques and ceremonies on these occasions
would fill a volume.
At
the Reformation and for almost a century afterward, Seton House was the
stronghold of the Catholic party in the South, one of the refuges and hiding
places for the priests, and the first mansion at which the clergy coming from
the Continent were received and entertained, after landing in disguise in that
part of Scotland. The Seton’s also had a large and magnificent townhouse in
Edinburgh. Lord Darnley sojourned there in 1565, and about eighteen years later
the French ambassador Manzeville. It is referred to in the Diurnal of
Occurents in Scotland.
When Queen Mary, then at his house, was about to create her half-brother, Lord
James Stuart, Earl of Moray, in January, 1561, she proposed to advance her
faithful friend also; but he asked – with a pride, perhaps, that apes humility –
to be allowed to retain his lower rank, because, as it has been alleged, he
preferred to be the premier baron, rather than the junior earl. It has also
been noted that there was an arriere pensee which he was too perfect a
courtier to express, and that the real reason of his refusal was that, Stuart
being a bastard and a bad man – “False to his vows, a wedded priest” – a
gentleman of Lord Seton’s high sense of honor – no king had ever found a
mistress of his name and blood – would not share the glory of an earldom in his
company. It was on this occasion that the Queen wrote with a diamond ring upon
the window of the great hall – called Sampson’s Hall – at Seton these Latin
verses:
“Sunt comites, ducesque alii, sunt denique reges;
Setoni dominum sit satis esse mihi.”
Sir
Walter Scott has rendered them into English:
“Earl, Duke, or Duke, be thou that list to be;
Seton, thy lordship is enough for me.”
To
indicate the unshaken loyalty of himself and family, and express in a single
line his religious and political principles, he caused to be carved in stone and
filled in with large gilt letters, and then set up over the main entrance to the
house which he rebuilt, the following French inscription:
“Un Dieu,
Un Foy, Un Roy, Un Loy.”
In
june 1567, Queen Mary and Bothwell, with several lords who had answered their
unhappy sovereign’s appeal, and a considerable force assembled for battle on
Carberry Hill. In Aytoun’s poem of Bothwell Lord Seton is described at
the moment:
He was of a noble stamp
Whereof this age hath witnessed few;
Men who came duly to the camp,
When’er the Royal trumpet blew.
Blunt tenure lords, who deemed the Crown
As sacred as the Holy Tree
And laid their lives and fortunes down
Not caring what the cause might be.
Lord Seton’s gallant rescue of Queen Mary from her captivity in Lochleven Castle
in May, 1568, is the most romantic episode in her life and in his own career.
After her escape she rested for several days at his castle of Niddry; and it is
of her stay there, to give time for her adherents to assemble under the
Hamiltons, that Miss Strickland says: “She stood a Queen once more, among the
only true nobles of her realm, those whom English gold had not corrupted, nor
successful traitors daunted.”
A
brief inscription on an oblong stone tablet – George Lord Seton of His Age 36,
1567 – long commemorated this nobleman over one of the windows of the castle.
It disappeared in the mid 19th century, but by great good fortune a
sketch of it was made in 1852, and is engraved in Ballingall’s Edinburgh Past
and Present. As is well known, the disasterous battle of Langside destroyed
Queen Mary’s party. Lord Seton here displayed the hereditary valour of his
race, repeatedly charging the rebel heights with the cry, “god and the Queen!
Set on! Seton on!” He was wounded and taken prisoner, and came near being put
to death. “When he was brought into the presence of Moray, he was bitterly
rebuked by him as having been the prime author and the chief performer in this
tragedy; whereas according to Moray, it was his duty to have been one of the
first to protect the infant king. Seton answered that he had given his fidelity
to one prince, and that he would keep it as long as he lived, or until the Queen
should have laid down her right of government of her own free will. Irritated
by the reply, Moray asked him to say what he thought his own punishment ought to
be, and threatened that he should undergo the extreme severity of the law. ‘Let
others decide.’ Said Seton, ‘what I deserve. On that point my conscience gives
me no trouble, and I am well aware that I have been brought within your power,
and I am subject to your will. But I would have you know that even if you cut
off my head, as soon as I die there will be another Lord Seton.’”
As
it was, he got imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle, but after a year’s confinement
went into exile. He lived thus two years in great poverty and distress in
Flanders and Holland, where he came into relations with Alva, and brought
himself into serious trouble, which might have ended fatally, by trying to bring
the Scots regiments then in the service of the rebellious States over to the
Spanish side. Lord Seton returned to Scotland in January, 1571, and is then
constantly mentioned in letters and state papers, and always as an incorruptible
and untiring agent of the imprisoned Queen and of the Catholic cause. In
Bellesheim’s History of the Catholic Church in Scotland, he says:
“An interesting
glimpse of the condition of the Scottish Catholics at this time is given us by
the letter sent to Pope Gregory on February 15, 1574, by John Irving, a Knight
of Malta, from his prison in Edinburgh.
“Irving, who attributes his present situation to the action of
informers, affirms his adherence to the Catholic faith, for which he is ready by
God’s grace to endure every extremity. He mentions, as one of the most faithful
of the Scottish nobles, Lord Seton, who had made great sacrifices in the cause
of religion and who, together with his three sons, had been excommunicated by
the Established Church.
The writer adds that Lord Seton has under consideration various
plans for the restoration of the Catholic faith in Scotland, which he doubts not
will meet with the approbation of his holiness.”
In
November, 1583, Lord Seton was sent ambassador to the King of France (Henry
III), and letters were subsequently written to King James VI by the Duke of
Lorraine, the Cardinals of Guise and Bourbon, and others relative to his embassy
and commending his diligence, zeal, judgment, and unswerving loyalty. An
interesting letter from this Lord Seton to Pope Gregory XIII is published in
Theiner’s Annals.
A
portrait of this nobleman by Holbein was long in the possession of the
Somervilles; but by far the most interesting one is the group by Sir Antonio
More, which has been engraved by Pinkerton in his Scottish Iconographia,
and was also in the possession of the Somervilles and now rests in the Scottish
National Portrait Gallery. This famous composition consists of Lord Seton in
his thirty-ninth year, his daughter and four sons. It has been enthusiastically
described by Sir Walter Scott in the Provincial Antiquities, who there
calls attention to “the grave, haughty, and even grim cast of countenance” which
distinguishes them all. In July, 1882, at the disposal of the Hamilton Palace
collection, a beautiful miniature of “George, Lord setone, aetatis suae 27,” by
H. Bone, R.A., after an original in the Somerville family, was sold to Mr.
Denison for $131 British pounds.
There are also exquisite vis-à-vis miniature portraits of Lord and Lady Seton at
the top of the Armorial Pedigree of Touch in the possession of the Seton-Steuarts,
Baronets.
After a life of trying vicissitudes, during which he had seen the subversion of
the Ancient Faith, the captivity of his sovereign Mistress, and the
establishment of the Protestant Religion in Scotland, Lord Seton died on the 8th
of January, 1585, and was buried in his family church, where, on a slab of black
marble embedded in the wall, there is a lengthy epitaph from the pen of his
son, Alexander, who was an elegant Latin scholar. It is now in parts defaced
and indistinct.
By
his marriage to Isabel Hamilton, Lord Seton had five sons and a daughter:
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George, Master of Seton, who predeceased his father.
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Robert,
8th Lord Seton and first Earl of Winton.
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Sir John Seton,
of Barnes, Lord Barnes.
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Alexander Seton,
Lord Urquhart and Lord Fyvie, first Earl of Dunfermline.
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Sir William Seton of Kylesmuir.
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Margaret, who married Claude Hamilton, created Lord
Paisley. Their son was the first Earl of Abercorn, ancestor of the present
duke. This marriage took place “with great triumph” at Niddry Castle on the 1st
of August, 1574.
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