Old family; or, The Setons of Scotland and America

198 AN OLD FAMILY. [a.d. it. so
Spain, unmarried, and Robert, who is last heard of near
Hawick in Roxburghshire, where he married the daughter
of a gentleman of the neighborhood — her name unknown —
and had a son called James, of whom hereafter.
The Barony of Parbroath had been in the family for three
hundred years, but the estate was sold to the Lindsays before
1633, because in that year one of them was created Earl of
Lindsay and Lord Parbroath. It now belongs to the Hopes.
It was situated on the north side of the County of Fife, and
in the Parish of Creich. Sir Robert Sibbald refers, in his His-
tory of Fife and Kinross, published in I 7 10, to the " ruins of
the house of Parbroath, the dwelling; of a gentleman of the
name of Seton, descended from the brave governor of Ber-
wick " ; and the following reference to the ancient mansion i&
found in the New Statistical Account of Scotland (IX., 645):
" Of this house or castle, which belonged to the family of Seton, nothing
now remains to mark the site save part of an arch, surrounded by a few old
trees, which has been carefully preserved by desire of the late Earl of
Ilopetoun. It stands near to the place where the road between the Forth
and Tay ferries crosses the road from Cupar to Xewburgh. The house is.
said to have been surrounded by a moat, over which there was a drawbridge,
and the park in which they were situated is still called the Castlefield.
There is a tradition that one of the late farm-buildings at Tarbroath, which
was long used as a barn, had at one time been a chapel, and that at it, and
the Church of Creich, divine service was performed on alternate Sabbaths.
In confirmation of a chapel having been here, it may be stated that, a few
years ago, when the foundation of a wall was dug up close by the site of the
old barn, some graves were discovered, which probably formed part of the
burying-ground connected with the chapel."
The situation of Parbroath, four miles and a half from
Cupar, is in a tract of valley land enclosed by high and beau-
tifully rounded hills. The present road runs right through
this valley and the Parbroath farm of four hundred and twenty
acres, but the old one ran across the hills behind it. The
fragment of an arch now stands in a large cultivated field, a
square of about fourteen acres. A short distance beyond it is.