The Seton Armorial Page

History

Coat of Arms

THE SETON ARMORIAL

Beginning from Carolingian times, a knights shield and it's symbols were highly revered and respected devices and in fact from this simple form of identification grew the orders of chivalry, of knighthood and even of the peerage itself. There was a system or order created as a result of these armorial bearings, which symbols eventually laid out an order of precedent. It was then, just as it is now, a guarded honour to bear Arms, and the Seton's kept them in high esteem. The Arms, or heraldry, not only demonstrated a lineage, but stated a creed or belief which positioned oneself or family politically. In fact the Arms of the House of Seton are among the oldest known Arms, recorded throughout France, Spain, Rome, England, Sweden, Germany, Canada, America, and or course, Scotland.

It was in Sir Walter Scott's, "The Abbott", and the description of the Seton's Canongate House, where the prominence of the family's Arms came to light after the demise of the House following the Jacobite wars. What once seemed a long lost art, and demonstration of pride, reemerged in the following words:

..."one of the arched passages which afforded an outlet to the Canongate from the houses beneath, a passage, graced by a projecting shield of arms, supported by two huge foxes of stone". Therein was, "A paved court, decorated with large formal vases of stone, in which yews, cypresses, and other evergreens, vegetated in sombre sullenness, and gave a correspondent degree of solemnity to the high and heavy building in front of which they were placed as ornaments, aspiring towards a square portion of the blue hemisphere, corresponding exactly in extent to the quadrangle in which they were stationed, and all around which rose huge black walls, exhibiting windows in rows of five stories, with heavy architraves over each, bearing armorial and religious devices".

Upon entering the Lord Seton's Lodging, one "pulled the bobbin, and the latch, though heavy and massive... (and) entered the large hall, or vestibule, dimly enlightened by latticed casements of painted glass, and rendered yet dimmer through the exclusion of the sunbeams, owing to the height of the walls of those buildings by which the court-yard was enclosed. The walls of the hall were surrounded with suits of ancient and rusted armour, interchanged with huge and massive stone escutcheons, bearing double tressures, fleured and counter-fleured, wheat-sheaves, coronets, and so forth..."

There are many Arms not yet presented here in the Seton Armorial, but are either being researched or are in the process of development for presentation here. It is intended that all Arms ever borne by members of the Scottish House of Seton will be recorded and presented, and the Roll which follows is currently an incomplete one.

There are currently two segments to the Roll: First, are Arms which are known to have been matriculated are presented on page one, or Folio 1; and Second, are Non-Matriculated Arms and those which due to antiquity cannot be legitimated via documents, but which are historically known, on Folio 2.

Here follows the Roll of Arms, or list of the Shields, of the Seton family:

FOLIO I

Earl of Winton Earl of Dunfermline Viscount of Kingston