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Robert de Quincey, a Northamptonshire baron, acquired the manor of Travernent, (vulgo, Tranent,) which in the reign of David the First had been held by Swan, the son of Thor, soon after the accession of William the Lion; and he served for some time as justiciary to that monarch. At the end of the twelfth century he was succeeded in his immense estates by his son, Seyer de Quincey, the hero of the ballad, who set out for Palestine in 1218, where he died in the year following.

“Intaminatis fulget honoribus,” was the proud motto of the Seton family.

The original Seton arms were three crescents with a double tressure, flowered and counter-flowered with fleurs-de-lis. A sword supporting a royal crown was afterwards given by Robert the Bruce, for the bravery and loyalty of the family during the succession wars. At a later period, three garbs azure were quartered with the Seton arms, by George, the second lord of that name.

“This lord George,” saith old Sir Richard Maitland, “tuk the armes of Buchan, quhilk ar thrè cumming schevis, quarterlie wyth his awin armes, allegeand himself to be air of the said erldome, be ressoun of his gudedame.”—Chronicle of the Hous of Seytoun, p. 37.

The crest was a green dragon spouting fire surmounting a ducal coronet, with the words over it, “Set on.” The supporters were two foxes collared and chained.

Sir Robert Sibbald, in his History of Fife, quotes a charter by the Earl of Winchester to Adame de Seton, 1246, De Maritagio herædis Alani de Fawside, from which, as well as from some incidental passages in Maitland's History of the Hous of Seytoun, it is evident that Falsyde Castle was a heritage of the younger branches of the Seton family. It was first acquired by them from intermarriage with the De Quinceys.

The date of Falsyde Castle is uncertain. It was burned by the English under the Duke of Somerset, 1547, the day following the fatal battle of Pinkie. The strength of the mason-work, however—the tower being arched at the top of the building, as well as at the first story—prevented its entire demolition. Paton, in his Diary, gives a very cool description of the burning to death of its little garrison, and calls it “a sorry-looking castle.” In 1618, the family of Fawside of that Ilk appear to have removed to a more modern mansion in the immediate vicinity, which has the initials J. F., J. L., above one of its windows. The dovecot of the ancient fortalice still remains; and within it is a curious place of concealment, secured by an antique grated door. There is a similar hole of secrecy in the staircase of the oldest part of the castle.

It is now the property of Sir George Grant Suttie of Prestongrange and Balgone, having descended to him through his maternal ancestors, the Setons, Earls of Hyndford.

The building of Roslin Castle is anterior to the dawn of authentic record. “Its origin,” says Chalmers, (Caledonia, vol. ii. p. 571,) is laid in fable.” According to Adam de Cardonnel, (Picturesque Antiquities,) William de Sancto Claro, son of Waldernus Compte de St Clare, who came to England with William the Conqueror, obtained from King Malcolm Canmore a grant of the lands and barony of Roslin. Hawthornden and Roslin are associated with many bright names in literature—Drummond, Ben Jonson, Ramsay, Macneil, Scott, Wilson, and Wordsworth.

Newbottle Abbey was beautifully situated on the banks of the South Esk, nearly on the same site as the modern mansion of the Marquis of Lothian, who is a descendant of the last abbot. It was founded by that “sore saint for the crown,” King David I., in the year 1140. “The monks,” says Bishop Keith, “were brought from Melrose, together with their abbot, Radulphus. Patrick Madort, a learned divine, who is mentioned from the year 1462 until 1470, recovered a great number of original writs and charters belonging to this place, which were transcribed into a chartulary, which is now in the Advocates' Library.”—Religious Houses, p. 417. Ed. 1824.

The only relics of antiquity now about the place, are the remains of the stone enclosure which surrounded the Abbey, still called Monkland Wall—a striking and venerable gateway, surmounted by its time-worn lions; a solemn line of yew-trees; and a doorway, amid the lawn to the east, said to be the entrance of a subterranean passage to the old Abbey.

Many of the trees in the park are beautiful and majestic, especially some of the planes and elms; and a beech, in the neighbourhood of the house, measures twenty-two feet in circumference, at a yard from the ground. It contains nine hundred cubic feet of wood, and its branches cover a circle of thirty-three feet diameter.

The remains of monastic architecture now seen at Newbottle are said to have been brought by the late Marquis from the ruins at Mount Teviot. They are beautiful and interesting.

We should also state, in referring to the antiquities of the place, that a little below the Abbey there is a venerable bridge over the Esk, rudely built, and overspread with ivy, which has long survived all accounts of its age and founder.

The present parish of Newbottle consists of the ancient parish of Maisterton, and the Abbey parish. During the Scoto-Saxon period, the patronage of Maisterton was possessed by the lord of the manor. Near the end of the thirteenth century this belonged to Robert de Rossine, knight, whose daughters, Mariot and Ada, resigned it to the monks of Newbottle, with two-thirds of their estates.

The monks of Newbottle were of the Cistertian order. “They were called Monachi Albi,” says Cardonnel, “to distinguish them from the Benedictines, whose habit was entirely black; whereas the Cistertians wore a black cowl and scapular, and all their other clothes were white. They had the name of Cistertians, from their chief house and monasteries, Cistertium in Burgundy; and Bernardines, from St Bernard, who, with a number of his followers, retired to the monastery, and was afterwards called Abbot of Clairvoux.”—Picturesque Antiquities, part i. pp. 12, 13; and Keith's Scottish Bishops, p. 415.

There were thirteen monasteries of the Cistertian order in Scotland, among which were Melrose, Dundrennan, Culross, Sweetheart, and Glenluce.

The ancient history of the lands of Carberry is lost in obscurity. The lower rooms of the square tower are strongly arched, and evidently of great age. At the time of the Duke of Somerset's expedition it was the property of Mr Hugh Rigg, the king's advocate, who is more than once mentioned in the histories of Knox and Pitscottie. We observe also, from the Inquisitiones Speciales, that the property was conveyed to several subsequent generations of the same family—from whom it passed to the Dicksons—of whom we find that, during the Rebellion of 1745, Sir Robert was chief bailie of Musselburgh.

The assumption of the Lords of this wealthy district having been donators to the Abbey of Newbottle, however unwarranted by record, is far from unlikely, the practice having been a common one with the wealthy for very weighty reasons.

In 1184, as we learn from the chartulary of Newbottle, (71,) Robert de Quincey, the father of our hero, granted to the monks of the abbey the lands of Preston, where they formed an agricultural establishment—hence called Prestongrange—with common of pasture for ten sheep, and a sufficiency of oxen to cultivate their grange. Seyer de Quincey confirmed to the monks all these privileges gifted by his father, by which confirmation we learn that their lands of Preston were bounded on the west by the rivulet of Pinkie, in his manor of Travernent.

A curious fact is also ascertained by these charters of the De Quinceys, which is the date at which coals were first worked in Scotland; and, in contradiction to the pretensions of Fifeshire, this appears to have taken place on this spot. The charter of Robert grants to the monks the right of digging peats and of cutting wood for fuel; whereas, in that of his son Seyer, we find the addition of “carbonarium et quarrarium,” with free access to and recess from the same by the sea.

“This charter,” (that of Seyer,) says Chalmers in his erudite Caledonia, vol. ii. p. 486, “must necessarily have been granted between the years 1202 and 1218, as it is witnessed by William, who became Bishop of St Andrews in 1202, and was granted by Seyer de Quincey, who set out for the Holy Land in 1218, where he died in the subsequent year.”

From Keith's Scottish Bishops, p. 15, we learn that William Malvoisine was translated from the see of Glasgow to that of St Andrews in 1202. It is also added, on the authority of the Chart. of Dunfermline, that he was “contemporary with Pope Honorius and Sayerus de Quincey.”

In connexion with the same family, we also find from the Chartulary of Newbottle, that Elena, the youngest daughter of Roger de Quincey, the Constable of Scotland, married Alan la Zouche, an English baron, and that in the division of his great estates among his three daughters, the barony of Heriot fell to her share; and that, in her great liberality, she granted to the monks of Newbottle the church of “Heryeth,” with the tithes and other rights.—(Chart. 270.)

The lands themselves of Heryeth were afterwards acquired by the monks; but whether from the liberality of Elena, or from her son La Zouche, who lost his estates in the succession wars, does not appear.

Such transfers of property to religious houses were of common occurrence. We have already alluded to the cession of Maisterton, by the daughters of Sir Robert de Rossine—Mariot, who married Neil de Carrick, and Ada, the wife of Gilbert de Ayton—in 1320; and from the chartulary of Newbottle we learn that the monks had various lands in Clydesdale, in order to have easy access to which, they obtained, from various proprietors in Mid and West Lothian, special grants of free passage to these distant granges.—(Chart. 218-227, 240.)

In conclusion, we may add, as showing the extensive possessions at this early period of the De Quincey family, that Roger de Quincey, Earl of Winton, gave also to the canons of Dryburgh a toft “in villa de Haddintune.”—(Chart. Dryb. 106.)

Cousland Dean, a ravine of considerable depth, which commences where the highway from Dalkeith branches off towards Pathhead on the right, and towards Inveresk on the left, although now partially drained, shows every indication of having been in the olden time a wide and extensive morass; and, at its narrowest points, is still spanned by two bridges, one of considerable antiquity. Indeed, the traces of the watercourse are still evident from behind Chalkyside, on the west, running eastwards along the hollow, midway between Elphinstone Tower and Cousland Park, where it still assumes the form of a rivulet.

In the grants made by Seyer do Quincey to the Abbey of Newbottle, mention is made of “his baronies of Preston and Tranent, bounded on the west by the rivulet of Pinkie.” We find also that Falsyde and Elphingston were in his possession; and he is elsewhere styled Earl of Wyntoun, (Caledonia, vol. ii. 486, note 6,) a proof that the barony of that name formed also a part of his immense possessions. It is not a little curious, therefore, that a charter of King William, the brother of Malcolm surnamed the Maiden, should be still extant, wherein, in the thirteenth year of that monarch's reign, he makes confirmation to Phillip de Seytune of the lands of Seytoune, Wintoun, and Winchelburgh, (nunc Winchburgh,) “quhilk,” as Sir Richard Maitland observes, (Historie, p. 17,) “was auld heretage of befor, as the said charter testifies.”

“Willielmus, Dei gra. rex Scotorum, &c. Sciatis presentis et futuri, me concessisse, et hac carta mea confirmasse, Phillipo de Seytune, terram quæ fuit patris sui; scilicet, Seytune, et Wintune, et Winchilburgh, tenendam sibi et hæredibus suis de me et hæredibus meis, in fædo et hæreditate,” &c.

Philip de Seytune was succeeded, on his death, by his son Alexander; and, by another singular preservation, we have, in the forty-sixth year of the same king, another royal charter of infeftment of the same lands. It is nearly in the same words; and, strange to say, two of the witnesses to it are Robert de Quincey and Henry de Quincey. Both of these charters are printed in Dr M`Kenzie's Lives of the Scottish Writers. They have also been transcribed by the author, or rather compiler, of the Diplomata Scotiæ, which transcripts are still preserved, being now, or lately, in the possession of Mr Dillon, a member of the Maitland Club.

In the succession wars, the De Quincey family took side with Baliol, and the Setons with Bruce. Sir Christopher (or Chrystal) Seton saved the life of that great man at the disastrous battle of Methven, and afterwards married his sister. On the accession of Bruce to the throne, the estates of the De Quinceys, being declared forfeited, were conferred on the Setons; and in Sir Richard Maitland's Chronicle we find that “the said King Robert gave to the said Alexander [Seton] the barony of Tranent, with the tenendury thairof for the time, viz. Falsyde mylis and Elphinstoune, as the charteris testifiis, geven thairupoun.” The “landis of Dundas and Cragye” were also bestowed upon him, “for service done by his father and himself, with the landes and barony of Barnis, aboue Hadingtoun, with dyuers uther landis, quhilk I omit for schortnes.”—Glasgow Reprint, 1829, p. 21.

For centuries the name of De Quincey hath perished from out the rich and extensive district which owned its sway; and, in contemplating the destinies of this once great family, how apposite is the exclamation of Claudian—