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Several fine monuments of the Lords of Seton and of their Ladies yet remain in tolerable preservation within the chapel of Seton, both inserted into the walls, and strewed along the dilapidated floor, and contain epitaphs in part legible. Grose in his Antiquities has given us that at length which commemorates the courage, the calamities, and the unflinching fidelity of George, the fifth baron, the friend of Queen Mary, in whose cause he suffered exile. He it was whose funeral procession, by a strange coincidence of circumstances, intercepted for a few minutes on the road the triumphant progress of her son, James the Sixth, and his court retinue, on their way south to take possession of the English throne; a touching episode, which Mr Tytler very appositely employs to conclude his History of Scotland. The stone on which the King sate, while his retinue joined in paying the last services to the dead, is still shown, and forms a projection in the circular turret, at the south-west corner of the ancient garden-wall.

The greater part of the floor of the area of the chapel is strewn with tombstones of elaborate workmanship, but cracked, broken, defaced, and nearly illegible. This arose from the building having, through a long series of years, been allowed to remain literally open in door and window. For some time past, more attention has been paid to it, the Earl of Wemyss, the proprietor, having secured the windows and doorway.

At a remote period this chapel was endowed by the wealthy house of Seton as the parish church; and other establishments being subsequently added to it, it was rendered collegiate in the reign of James the Fourth. Many curious particulars of the additions to, and the alterations made on the ancient structure, may be found in the quaint and interesting little book, The Chronicle of the House of Seatoun, by Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington, (Glasgow Reprint, 1829.) An aisle was added by Dame Catherine Sinclair, wife of the first lord, and the choir roofed with stone by George, the third lord, whose widow, Jane, in turn demolished Dame Catherine's aisle, replacing it by one of better proportions, which gave to the whole structure the complete form of the cross. It is also recorded that she equipped the church and its officiating priests with a complete stand of purple velvet, embroidered with the same devices, and richly gifted the altar with plate and other decorations. These, however, only held out more cogent inducements to plunder to the army of the Earl of Hertford in 1544, who, after laying waste Holyrood, Loretto, and other adjacent establishments, ransacked and burned the chapel. The present edifice is not of great extent, and is surmounted by a spire, which does not seem to have ever been raised to the intended elevation.

Through several centuries the family of Seton occupied a first rank in Scotland, in wealth, retinue, and high connection. After the forfeiture of the vast estates of the De Quinceys, at the termination of the succession wars of the Bruce and Baliol, these were conferred by King Robert, in large part, on the Setons, who had remained faithful to his cause; and on Sir Chrystal, who had been instrumental in saving his life at the battle of Methven, he conferred the hand of his sister. From this circumstance, a sword supporting a royal crown was added to the Seton arms, which originally consisted of three crescents with a double tressure, flowered and counter-flowered with fleurs-de-lis. In the reign of James the Sixth, the Lords of Seton became Earls of Winton. In 1715, George, the fifth and last Earl, took up arms for the Stuarts. He escaped from the Tower of London by sawing through the bars of the windows, and ended his chequered life at Rome in 1749. His magnificent estates were forfeited, and with him closed his long and illustrious line. Seton is now the property of the Earl of Wemyss and March, and Winton of Lord Ruthven. Within the last two or three years the Earl of Eglinton has also assumed the title of Earl of Winton. Diu maneat.

The Seton family were strongly attached to the Roman Catholic faith, which they warmly fostered by their influence and by munificent ecclesiastical endowments. The Protestant Reformation was obstinately opposed by George, Lord Seton, and after its accomplishment the family, although devoted royalists, almost ceased to interfere in public matters. The ancient bias, however, again showed itself in the first Jacobite rebellion, which proved fatal to the house of Seton.

The house, or rather palace of Seton, as it was commonly termed, was demolished towards the close of last century, and a large unmeaning castellated mass of building reared in the immediate vicinity of the site, which for many years, along with the sea-house of Port Seton, which was in 1844 destroyed by fire, was used as barracks for the militia. It was during this occupancy that the interior of the chapel, then open and exposed, suffered such dilapidation.

The ancient palace was a strong turreted edifice, evidently built at various times, although the general style of ornament was that of the sixteenth century. On various parts of it were inscribed the words Un Dieu, un Foy, and un Roy, un Loy, as expressing the sacred and civil tenets of George, Lord Seton, the friend of Mary. Some portions of the structure were evidently, however, of much greater antiquity, and the whole was surrounded by a loopholed wall with turrets, which also included the chapel. Some fragments of this wall yet remain to the north of the ancient garden, which, with its buttressed and crumbling enclosures, yet exists—a curious memento of past times.

From the time of Bruce downwards, the palace of Seton was occasionally the abode of the Scottish kings; and after the junction of the crowns, it was visited by James the Sixth and by Charles the Second. On the former occasion, we are informed in The Muses' Welcome to the High and Mighty Prince James, printed in the following year, (1618,) that on the 15th May “the King's Majestie come to Sea-toune,” where he was enlarged in a Latin poem by “Joannes Gellius a Gellistoun, Philosoph. et Med. Doc.”

From the connection of the house of Seton with the once powerful family of Buchan, “thre Cumming schevis” were also quartered with their arms, (Chron. of House of Seytoun, p. 37); and by intermarriage its male descendants have come to represent the illustrious families of Gordon, Aboyne, and Eglinton. The great houses of the Seton Gordons are descended from Margaret Seton, who married Alan de Wyntoun about the middle of the fourteenth century, her second son, Sir Alexander, having espoused the heiress of the house of Gordon.

Of the ancient palace of Seton, as stated in the text, scarcely one stone is left upon another, and it is difficult amid the grass to trace out the lines of its foundations.