Old family; or, The Setons of Scotland and America

54 AN OLD FAMILY. [a.D.
portion of the surrounding land. Sir Richard Maitland, our
earliest family historian, who lived before the downfall of
the Old Religion in Scotland, tells us that he had sundry
times held in his hand and read the king's charter endowing
the chapel, that he had heard mass there, and that it was
standing whole and entire in the year 1552. The chapel
was closed after the establishment of the New Religion in
Scotland, and its endowments were secularized. It remained
standing for nearly two centuries, a forlorn protest against the
spoliation, until it was torn down in a panic by the towns-
people in 1 7 15, to build a wall and rampart against an ex-
pected attack of the Jacobite insurgents. A Presbyterian
church was raised in 1838 on what is still called "The
Chrvstal Mount"; and when the excavations were being
made, traces of the foundation of the chapel were discovered,
and " many of the stones, but all without ornaments, are still
to be discerned in the neighboring dykes." A few of these
were collected and set up, with a well-meaning but inelegant
inscription, within his private burial ground bv the late Major
James Adair in 1840. Sir Christopher's widow was con-
fined for a time in a nunnerv in England, but was liberated
in a few vears, and died in peace. About the same time that
all this happened, Sir John Seton, Christopher's brother, was
executed at Newcastle. Burton, writing in his History of
Scotland (II., 245) of the many and cruel executions among
the Norman nobilitv, observes that ' ' these are the acts that
break the spirit of servile races, but only nerve those of higher
mettle to defiance." Even the plain people were shocked at
the shedding of so much noble blood, and regretted the death
of their leaders, although of an alien race :
Where's Nigel Bruce, and De la Have,
And valiant Seton — where are they ?
Where Somerville, the kind and free ?
And Fraser, flower of chivalry ?
— Scott : Lord of tin- Isles.