Old family; or, The Setons of Scotland and America

1490-HOi] MASTER DATID SETON. 185
ings with the people of Boston in their altercations with the
king's troops, yet he bore the stigma of Lexington, and was
killed at Bunker Hill. The name is, perhaps, now best
remembered in connection with that romantic island in the
Pacific Ocean discovered by Carteret in 1767 and named for
one of his officers, and since associated with the mutineers of
the " Bounty. "
Sir Gilbert Seton had five sons by his wife, Marion Pit-
cairn: 1. Sir Alexander, of whom hereafter. 2. William,
whose son, also called William, married Catharine Butler,
Heiress of Rumgavie, and gave rise to the short-lived Setons
of Rumgavie, of whom William was killed at the battle of
Pinkie in September, 1547, leaving by Catharine Auchmuty,
his wife, a son and heir named David. 3. John, of whom
also hereafter. 4. Gilbert, "a Master clerk," a priest and
scholar, who died in Rome. 5. David, a priest. This last
one, called "Master David," was a strong character. He
was Rector of Fettercairn and Balhelny, an important and
lucrative position in the Church at that time. He studied at
the University of Paris, where he took his degree of Doctor
of the Civil and Canon Law, which was an academic honor
infinitely rarer then than now, and in Scotland particularly.
His name turns up frequently in the public records; for in-
stance, as a witness to an instrument of resignation, on April
14, 1497, and again to a charter of confirmation to the Abbey
of Lindores given at Perth on November 9, 1500.* He was
a frank, energetic man, very large and tall, and much esteemed
by King James III. He lived to be over eighty. Sir Rich-
ard Maitland gives a graphic account of the old priest's wit,
pugnacity, and devotion to his family chief, for whom he was
one of the legal advisers, on a certain occasion when King
James IV. came to the Council House at Edinburgh, to hear
a case tried against the then Lord Seton, in which he was per-
s Laing : Lindores Abbey and the Burgh of Newburgk, p. 486.