"And the Setons were ever a great house, zealous of honour, loyal unto death."  The interests of dedicated professional genealogists and the enthusiasm of amateur family historians should not be denigrated merely because they have been known occasionally to lead to eccentric passions and careless misjudgements. The pursuit of a specific family's past can contribute much to the general understanding of life in other centuries, and ought to be encouraged as early as possible.

Obviously, amid the contemporary deconstruction of the traditional family unit it is necessary to introduce the subject to children with a measure of sensitivity, and at times it may rightly be considered improper, but at some stage all humans have to recognise they are the product of their forebears, even if these forebears must remain individually anonymous.

George, 7th Lord Seton, concerned for the memory of his family's origins, asked his nephew, Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington, to "collect, gadder and set furth the historie and cronicle of his hous and surname, quhilk has been verray ancient and honorable." A copy of Lethington's manuscript, annotated by George Seton, 4th Earl of Winton, includes a memorable preamble. It is divided here into two parts, the first of which is the more famous. The second is a pedagogic counsel that reads pompously to twentieth-century eyes, yet it is not without a naïve charm, and reflects much of what some great houses truly believed.

 

The Seton Representatives