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The earliest motto borne on these arms by the Seatons, "Hazard, yet forward," might indeed be mournfully applied to all who engaged in the hopeless Rebellion of 1715. Lord Wintoun, like Lord Derwentwater, was in the bloom of his youth when he summoned his tenantry to follow him to the rendezvous appointed by Lord Kenmure.
George, the fifth Earl of Wintoun, and the unfortunate adherent to the Jacobite cause, succeeded to the honours of his ancestors under circumstances peculiarly embarrassing.
The Earl of Carnwath had joined with Lord Kenmure, and rode forwards with him to the rencontre with Lord Wintoun. Lord Kenmure took with him three hundred men to the field. At the siege of Preston, in which those who fell dead upon the field were less to be compassionated than the survivors, Lord Kenmure was taken prisoner. His brother-in-law, the Earl of Carnwath, shared the same fate.
"No," said Wintoun, peevishly; "the summons have been called over, and they have not appeared, either in person or by agents." "Say you so, my Lord?" cried Dun; "and what is the result?" "Outlawry, for non-appearance, is pronounced against them," replied Wintoun, haughtily, and went straight back into the council-chamber.
However gallant personally, Forster was an incapable soldier, no leader of men, and General Wills had but to spread wide his net to sweep in the bulk of the insurgents Forster, Derwentwater, Kenmure, Nithsdale, Carwath, Wintoun, and men less exalted in rank by the score and the hundred. The bag was a heavy one, that day of disaster to the Stuart cause; and alas, for many of those who filled it!
This important point being established, Lord Wintoun served himself heir to his father and became the possessor of the family estates, chiefly situated in East Lothian, their principal residence being the palace of Seaton, so recognized in the royal charters, from its having been the favourite resort of royalty, the scene of entertainment to Mary of Scots, and her court, and the residence of Charles the First, when in Scotland in 1633.
The loyalty of the Seatons was untainted. The first Earl of Wintoun had adopted as one of his mottoes, "Intaminatis fulget honoribus," and the sense of those words was fully borne out by the testimony of time. The Seatoun Charter Chest contained, as one of their race remarked, no remission of any offence against Government, a fact which could not be affirmed of any other Scottish family of note.
Ten years before he had been employed by the Whig Government of George of Hanover to ferret out evidence which not infrequently meant manufacturing it against the Jacobites. Posing as a Jacobite, Rofflash wormed himself into the secrets of the conspirators, and he figured as an important witness against the rebel lords Derwentwater, Nithsdale, Carnwath and Wintoun.
And being a man held in great veneration by all parties, and well known to the household of the court, he obtained access to the ante-chamber after the council was met; and standing there, he was soon surprised by her Highness coming out, leaning on the arm of the Lord Wintoun, and seemingly much disturbed.
It was on the twelfth of October, 1715, that Viscount Kenmure set out in the intention of joining the Earl of Wintoun, who was on his road to Moffat, and who was accompanied by a party of Lothian gentlemen and their servants.
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