Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Seton, George (d.1478)

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608720Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 51 — Seton, George (d.1478)1897Thomas Finlayson Henderson

SETON, GEORGE, first Lord Seton (d. 1478), was, according to Sir Richard Maitland, the son of ‘Lord John Seton’ (Sir John Seton of Seton), but according to Douglas (Peerage, ed. Wood, ii. 642), his grandson, and the son of Sir William Seton, killed in the lifetime of his father, Sir John Seton, at the battle of Verneuil in Normandy on 17 Aug. 1424. The latter version of his parentage is corroborated by the register of the great seal, where George, lord Seton, is referred to as the grandchild of Sir John (Reg. Mag. Sig. vol. i. No. 332). According to Sir Richard Maitland, the first Lord Seton, when nine years of age, fell into the hands of Lord-chancellor Crichton, who for a time kept him a prisoner in the castle of Edinburgh, from which he was, however, delivered by the laird of Johnstone. In 1448 he accompanied Crichton on an embassy to France and Burgundy, to arrange for a marriage between James II and the daughter of the French king (Rymer, Fœdera, xi. 213). The same year he was created a peer of parliament by the title of Baron Seton. In March 1451 he conceded to Crichton the lands of Winton in the barony of Seton (Reg. Mag. Sig. vol. i. No. 432). In 1472 and 1473 he was sent on embassies to England (Rymer, xi. 749, 755). He died on 14 July 1478. Maitland describes him as ‘a good householder, and all given to nobleness.’ By his first wife, Lady Margaret Stewart, only daughter and heiress of John, earl of Buchan, he had a son John, who predeceased him, leaving a son George, second Lord Seton; and, according to Maitland, he had also another son, Dougal. By his second wife, Christian Murray of the house of Tullibardine, he had a daughter Christian.

[Maitland's Genealogy of the House of Seton; Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. vol. i.; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), ii. 642–3.]

T. F. H.