Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/277

 he was recalled to Scotland (ib. No. 1430), and, returning shortly afterwards, became one of the queen's most consistent and devoted supporters during the remainder of her checkered career in Scotland. On the night after the murder of Rizzio, having been made privy to the queen's purpose to escape from Holyrood, he waited in the neighbourhood with a body of horse, and attended her first to Seton and thence to Dunbar. A catholic by conviction, he was one of the few noblemen present at the baptism of the young prince in the castle of Stirling on 17 Dec. 1566; and, when others refused to bear ‘the salt, grease, and candle, and such other things,’ Seton, with the Earls of Eglinton and Atholl, ‘brought in the said trash’ (, ii. 536). It was to Seton House that the queen went for privacy after Darnley's assassination, Seton himself vacating the house and leaving it to be wholly occupied by the queen and her attendants. He remained faithful to her after her marriage to Bothwell, and it was at Seton she slept on the day before her surrender at Carberry, Seton being one of her supporters there. He was made privy to the plan for her escape from Loch Leven in May 1568, and, having invaded the neighbourhood with a large body of horse, he, immediately that she touched the shore, convoyed her first to his own castle of Niddrie, Linlithgowshire, and thence to Hamilton. He was one of the leaders at Langside on the 13th, and was there taken prisoner. On 13 Dec. 1569 he gave surety that he would enter into ward in the castle of St. Andrews (Reg. P. C. Scotl. ii. 69). After the assassination of the regent Moray he joined with other lords in support of the queen, and he signed the letter of May 1570 to Elizabeth on her behalf. When the lords deemed it advisable to leave Edinburgh, Seton assembled his supporters at the palace, and ‘bragged that he would enter in the town and cause beat a drum [i.e. to summon the people to the queen's standard] in despite of all the carles’ (, ii. 560). He did so, but without effect (ib.) In his company at Holyrood was the Lady Northumberland, and shortly afterwards she and he were sent on an embassy to the Duke of Alva (ib.; Cal. State Papers, For. 1579–71, No. 1277). There is a tradition that when in Flanders he was forced to support himself by becoming a wagoner; but this is unlikely, although a picture of him as a wagoner is said to have been at one time in the long gallery at Seton. He arrived at the castle of Edinburgh with money from Flanders on 19 Feb. 1572 (ib. 1572–4, No. 144). After the fall of the castle he made his peace with Morton's government, and gave sureties for his obedience and allegiance (Reg. P. C. Scotl. ii. 212). It would appear, however, that then and afterwards he remained under the ban of the kirk's excommunication, for in an action against him before the privy council for refusing to allow a designation of a manse and a glebe, it was declared that ‘he had no place to stand in judgment by reason of the sentence of excommunication against him’ (ib. p. 314). On 27 June 1577 he, as well as Robert, master of Seton, obtained a license to go abroad (ib. p. 735).

Seton was one of the nobles who assembled in Edinburgh in July 1578 to oppose the reinstatement of Morton in power, some time after his resignation of the regency (, Memoirs, p. 14); and for intercepting Bowes, the ambassador of Elizabeth, on the 18th, between Edinburgh and Kirkliston, on his way to Stirling, and compelling him to turn back to Edinburgh, he was summoned before the council, and failing to appear was denounced a rebel and put to the horn (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iii. 11). He was also denounced a rebel on 24 Sept. for failing to answer to a complaint of James Crichton of Cranston-Riddell, for violently preventing Cranston from intromitting with the lands of Tranent (ib. p. 35), but in November gave caution to appear before the council by December (ib. p. 48), and finally gave caution not to make further impediment to Crichton (ib. p. 55). On 7 May 1579 he also answered a summons for intromitting with the king's goods and household stuff (ib. p. 152), which he had pledged in payment of a debt (ib. p. 195). On 12 June Seton and his eldest surviving son, Robert, signed a bond for him and his three sons to serve the king, and cease from having communication with John Hamilton, sometime commendator of Arbroath, and Claud Hamilton, sometime commendator of Paisley (ib. p. 182), against whom the old acts for the murder of the two regents had been revived, and who were then in hiding.

Seton was one of the lords who, after the fall of Morton, conveyed him on 18 Jan. 1580–1 to Dumbarton Castle (, p. 29;, iii. 484). Before the trial of Morton the king stayed some days at Seton (, p. 32). Although justly objected to by Morton as one of his well-known enemies, Seton sat on the assize for Morton's trial, and, with his two sons, he witnessed Morton's execution in a stair south-east of the cross (, iii. 575). He was a strong supporter of the Duke of Lennox, and, when Lennox was commanded to depart from Scotland, convoyed him south to