Earl of Dunfermline, was the fourth son of George, the seventh Lord Seton, and was the godchild of Queen Mary. From his godmother he received, as ‘ane Godbairne gift,’ the lands of Pluscarden, in Moray. ‘Finding him of a great spirit,’ his father sent him to Rome at an early age, and he studied for some time in the Jesuits’ College, with the view of entering the priesthood. It seems probable that he did take holy orders, and it was thought that if he had remained at Rome he would have been made a cardinal. The overthrow of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland probably induced young Seton, to abandon his ecclesiastical pursuits, and to betake himself to the study of the civil and the canon law; and he passed as an advocate before James VI and the Senators of the College of Justice in the Chapel Royal at Holyrood in 1577. The most illustrious of these legal luminaries, he was created an Extraordinary Lord of Session in 1586, obtaining in the following year a gift of the revenues of Urquhart and of the Priory of Pluscarden.  Two years later Alexander Seton became an Ordinary Lord of Session under the title of Lord Urquhart, and in 1593 he was elected by his brethren to the president’s chair at the comparatively early age of thirty-eight. He was appointed one of the Octavians—a committee of eight persons to whom the King, in 1596, entrusted the management of public affairs, and who introduced a number of important administrative reforms. On the accession of James to the English throne, Lord Fyvie was entrusted with the guardianship of Prince Charles, the King’s younger son. In the following year he was summoned to London, along with the Earl of Montrose, to take part in the negotiations for a union of the two kingdoms, but though the King himself eagerly pressed the measure, and was zealously supported .by Lord Bacon, it was found to be premature, and had to be postponed for a century. While in England Montrose was persuaded to resign the office of Chancellor, which was conferred upon Seton. In 1605 Lord Fyvie was advanced to the dignity of Earl of Dunfermline. His long enjoyment of the royal favour and the good fortune which it had brought him had no doubt excited the envy and jealousy of some of the courtiers.