Old family; or, The Setons of Scotland and America

J
124 AN OLD FAMILY. [ A .D.
in the pope's chapel in the Vatican, with great applause. He was in great
esteem at Rome for his learning, being a great humanist in prose and
poecie, Greek and Latine ; well versed in the mathematicks, and had great
skill in architecture and herauldrie. I was told att Rome, if he had stayed
ther, it was not doubted but he had been Cardinall."
While at Rome he obtained from Oueen Mary the Priory of
Pluscardin, of which his father had been CEconomus and Com-
missioner since the 17th of April, 1 56 1. " The grant was de-
clared to be as effectual as if he had been provided to the bene-
fice at the Court of
C Rome, according to the
order observit in tymes
past."* In some char-
ters he is styled Commen-
datarius perpetuus monaste-
SIGNATURE OF LORD CHANCELLOR SETON. ' '
[Alexander Canceltarius.] Til lie PluSCardhl. There
(1606.) ,._ , .
are difficulties in recon-
ciling his holding of this Church property with his favor at
Rome, his substantial adherence to the Catholic faith, and
the manner he is spoken of by contemporary Catholic writers
who understood all the circumstances of such a case after the
change of religion and the subversion of the Church in Scot-
land. It is not, however, evidence, but mere denunciation
on the part of the Anglican editors of the new edition of Sir
Henry Spelman's Fate of Sacrilege, which includes him in that
awful crime. Pluscardin followed the Cistercian rule. It
has recently been purchased from the Duke of Fife by Lord
Bute, under whose generous and Catholic impulse it will
again, I have understood, become a living monastic institu-
tion. Owing to the civil and religious disturbances in Scot-
land, voung Seton abandoned his intention of taking Orders
and went to France, where his father was Ambassador, to
studv law. On returning to Scotland a few years later he
* Hailes : Senators of the Col. of Just., p. 19S.