vance at the escape of Beaton, by burning the castle and church of Seton. Seton is usually stated to have died in July 1545, an error which appears originally to have been the result of a misprint; for Sir Richard Maitland, his particular friend and near neighbour, affirms the date of the death to be 19 July 1549. That this could not have been a clerical error on Maitland's part is clear from his statement that the English were then besieging Haddington, and were masters of East Lothian, on which account the body was first placed in the abbey of Culross, and not removed for burial in the choir of the college hall of Seton until the retirement of the English.
By his first wife, Elizabeth, daughter of John, lord Hay of Yester, Seton had three sons and four daughters: George, fifth lord Seton [q. v.]; John, ancestor of the Setons of Carriston, Fifeshire; James; Marian, married, first to John, fourth earl of Menteith, and secondly to John, eleventh earl of Sutherland; Margaret, married to Sir Robert Logan of Restalrig; Eleanor, married to Hugh, seventh lord Somerville; and Beatrice, married to Sir George Ogilvy of Dunlugas.
Maitland, who describes Seton as ‘a wise and virtuous statesman,’ mentions that he ‘was well experienced in all games, and took pleasure in hawking, and was holden to be the best falconer of his days.’ It was at his request that Sir Richard Maitland undertook to write his ‘History of the House of Seton.’
[Knox's Works; Sadler's State Papers; Hamilton Papers; Maitland's History of the House of Seton; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), ii. 643–4.]
SETON, GEORGE, fifth Lord Seton (1530?–1585), born about 1530, was eldest son of George, fourth lord Seton [q. v.], by Elizabeth, daughter of John, lord Hay of Yester. He was one of the commissioners sent by the parliament of Scotland, 17 Dec. 1557, to witness the nuptials of Queen Mary with the dauphin of France. He is mentioned as lord provost of Edinburgh in November of the same year (Extracts from the Burgh Records of Edinburgh, 1557–71, p. 13), having succeeded Archibald Douglas of Kilspindie, and, during his absence in France, his friend, Sir Robert Maitland, acted as president (ib. p. 16). He was also provost in 1558–9. Knox states that, although he attended the preaching of the reformer John Willock [q. v.] in 1558, he afterwards resiled to the old beliefs (Works, i. 256), and officially, as provost of Edinburgh, ‘greatly troubled and molested the brethren’ by taking upon him the protection of the Black and Grey Friars (ib. pp. 362–3). Knox consequently characterises him as ‘a man without God, without honesty, and oftentimes without reason’ (ib.) His protection of the friars was, however, vain, and on the arrival of the lords of the congregation in Edinburgh in June 1559, he ‘abandoned his charge,’ and permitted them to work their will in the suppression of ‘all monuments of idolatry’ (ib.) After the departure of Knox from Edinburgh in the autumn of the same year, he was sent with the Earl of Huntly ‘to solicit all men to condescend to the queen's mind’ by permitting mass to be said in St. Giles's, and allowing the people to choose what religion they would (ib. p. 389), but, as Knox expressed it, ‘the brethren stoutly and valiantly in the Lord Jesus gainsaid their most unjust petitions’ (ib. p. 390). Shortly after this Seton, according to Knox, without provocation offered ‘brak a chaise upon’ [endeavoured to capture] Alexander Whitelaw, an agent of Knox, who was coming to Edinburgh, and pursued him without success as far as Ormiston in the belief that he ‘had been John Knox’ (ib. p. 393).
After the triumph of the protestant party Seton went for a time to France, arriving at Paris on 3 July 1560 (Throckmorton to the queen, 9 Aug., in Cal. State Papers, For. 1560–1, No. 411). On 1 Oct., however, he obtained from Mary [Stuart], queen of France, a passport to pass from France through England into Scotland (ib. No. 593), and, meeting Throckmorton in Paris, he told him that, though he had been ‘evilly used’ in Scotland, he intended ‘to go home and live and die a good Scotchman’ (Throckmorton to the queen, 22 Oct., ib. No. 666). On the return of Queen Mary to Scotland in 1561 he was sworn a member of the privy council, and appointed master of the household. On 10 Nov. he and the Earl of Bothwell, who had been at feud, entered into bonds—in presence of the queen and by her express command—to keep the peace to each other until the first February following, under pain ‘of dishonour, infamy, and defamation’ (Reg. P. C. Scot. i. 183). In 1564 he quarrelled with Maitland of Lethington on account of one Francis Douglas (Cal. State Papers, For. 1564–5, No. 917), and, the queen deeming it advisable that he should for a time leave the country, he obtained permission in March 1564–5 to go to France (Randolph to Cecil, ib. No. 1044). He was still in France when the queen was married to Darnley, but was so high in favour with the queen that she went to his house at Seton to spend the honeymoon (ib. No. 1298). In August following
