scarcely have been found a more excellent man, nor a more feeble commander. At the head of a troop of gentlemen, full of ardour in the cause, the plain dress and homely manners of Lord Kenmure seemed inappropriate to the conspicuous station which he held; for the exercise of his functions as commander was attended by some circumstances which required a great combination of worldly knowledge with singleness of purpose.

George Seaton, the fifth Earl of Wintoun, was another of those noblemen who raised a troop of horse, and engaged, from the very first commencement of the rebellion, in its turmoils. The family of Seaton, of which the Earl of Wintoun was the last in the direct line, "affords in its general characteristics," says a celebrated Scottish genealogist, "the best specimen of our ancient nobility. They seem to have been the first to have introduced the refined arts, and an improved state of architecture in Scotland. They were consistent in their principles, and, upon the whole, as remarkable for their deportment and baronial respectability, as for their descent and noble alliances."[4]

In consequence of so many great families having sprung from the Seatons, they were styled "Magnæ Nobilitatis Domini;" and their antiquity was as remarkable as their alliances, the male representation of the family, and the right to the honours which they bore, having been transmitted to the present Earl of Eglintoun, through an unbroken descent of seven centuries and a half.

The loyalty of the Seatons was untainted. The first Earl of Wintoun had adopted as one of his mottoes, "Intaminatis fulget honoribus," and the sense of those words was fully borne out by the testimony of time. The Seatoun Charter Chest contained, as one of their race remarked, no remission of any offence against Government, a fact which could not be affirmed of any other Scottish family of note. But this brave and ancient house had signal reason for remaining hitherto devoted to the monarchs of the Scottish throne.

Four times had the Seatons been allied with royalty: two instances were remarkable. George Seatoun, second Earl of Huntly, married the Princess Annabella, daughter of James the First, and from that union numerous descendants of Scottish nobility exist to this day: and George, the third Lord Seaton, again allied his house with that of Stuart, by marrying the Lady Margaret Stuart, daughter of the Earl of Buchan, and granddaughter of Robert the Second. In consequence of these several intermarriages, it was proverbially said of the house of Seaton, "the family is come of princes, and reciprocally princes are come of the family." And these bonds of relationship were cemented by services performed and honours conferred. The devotion of the Seatons to Mary, Queen of Scots, has been immortalised by the pen of Sir Walter Scott. George, the seventh Lord Seaton, attended on that unhappy Princess in some of the most brilliant scenes of her eventful life, and clung to her in every vicissitude of her fate. He, as Ambassador to France, negotiated her marriage with the Dauphin, and was present at the celebration of the nuptials. He afterwards aided his royal mistress to escape from Lochleven Castle, in 1568, and conducted her to Niddry Castle, his own seat. When, in gratitude for his fidelity, Mary would have created him an Earl, Lord Seaton declined the honour, and preferred his existing rank as Premier Baron of Scotland. Mary celebrated his determination in a couplet, written both in French and in Latin:

The successor of Lord Seaton, Robert, judged differently from his father, and accepted from James the Sixth the patent for the Earldom of Wintoun; distinguishing the new honour by a courage which procured for him the appellation of "Greysteel."[5]

George, the fifth Earl of Wintoun, and the unfortunate adherent to the Jacobite cause, succeeded to the honours of his ancestors under circumstances peculiarly embarrassing. His legitimacy was doubted: at the time when his father died, this ill-fated young man was abroad, his residence was obscure; and as he held no correspondence with any of his relations, little was known with regard to his personal character. In consequence partly of his absence from Scotland, partly, it is said, of an actual hereditary tendency, a belief soon prevailed that he was insane, or rather, as a contemporary expresses it, "mighty subject to a particular kind of caprice natural to his family."[6]

The Viscount Kingston, next heir to the title of Wintoun, having expressed his objections to Lord Wintoun's legitimacy, the young man, in 1710, took steps to establish himself as his father's heir. Two witnesses were produced who were present at the marriage of his parents, and bonds were found in the family chests, designating Lord Wintoun as "our eldest lawful son," by Dame Christian Hepburn Countess of Wintoun, "our spouse." This important point being established, Lord Wintoun served himself heir to his father and became the possessor of the family estates, chiefly situated in East Lothian, their principal residence being the palace of Seaton, so recognized in the royal charters, from its having been the favourite resort of royalty, the scene of entertainment to Mary of Scots, and her court, and the residence of Charles the First, when in Scotland in 1633. It was afterwards the place of meeting for the Jacobite nobles, and their adherents.[7]

Differing from many of his companions in arms, Lord Wintoun was a zealous Protestant; but without any regard to the supremacy of either mode of faith, it appears to have been a natural consequence of his birth and early associations that he should cling to the house of the Stuarts. One would almost have applied to the young nobleman the term "recreant," had he wavered when the descendant of Mary Stuart claimed his services. But such a course was far from his inclination. It was afterwards deemed expedient by his friends to plead for him on the ground of natural weakness of intellect; "but," says a contemporary, "Lord Wintoun wants no courage, nor so much capacity as his friends find it for his interest to suggest."[8] He was forward in action, and stimulated the military ardour of his followers, as they rushed with their ancient cry of "Set-on" to the combat. The earliest motto borne on these arms by the Seatons, "Hazard, yet forward," might indeed be mournfully applied to all who engaged in the hopeless Rebellion of 1715.

Lord Wintoun, like Lord Derwentwater, was in the bloom of his youth when he summoned his tenantry to follow him to the rendezvous appointed by Lord Kenmure. He took with him three hundred men to the standard of James Stuart;