DUNFERMLINE, Earl of,
a title in the Scottish peerage, now extinct, conferred in 1606, on
Alexander Seton, one of the most eminent lawyers of his time, third son
of George, sixth Lord Seton, and brother of Robert, first earl of
Winton, (see WINTON, Earl of] by Isobel, daughter of Sir William
Hamilton of Sanquhar. He was born about 1555. Originally intended for
the church, he went to Rome in his youth, and was admitted a student in
the college of Jesuits. In his sixteenth year he delivered, with great
applause, in the Pope’s chapel in the Vatican, in presence of Gregory
the Thirteenth and the assembled cardinals and prelates, an oration of
his own composition, ‘De Ascensione Domini.’ According to
Spotswood, he took holy orders and Scot of Scotstarvet, in his
‘Staggering State of Scots Statesmen.’ says, that his chalice wherewith
he said mass, at his return to Scotland was sold in Edinburgh. While at
Rome he obtained from Queen Mary the priory of Pluscardine, of which his
father had been economus and commissioner, since 17th April
1561. The establishment of the reformed religion in Scotland induced him
to abandon his design of continuing in the church, and betake himself to
the study of the civil law, and for that purpose he went to France,
where he remained for several years. On his return to Scotland he
continued his legal studies, and at length passed advocate. With King
James the Sixth he was in high favour, and on 27th January
1583, he was appointed one of the extraordinary lords of session, when
he took his seat on the bench by the title of prior of Pluscardine. On
16th February 1587, he was appointed an ordinary lord, when
he assumed the title of Lord Urquhart. He was elected president of the
court, 27th May 1593, and the same year was, by James’s
queen, Anne of Denmark, on whom the temporal lordship had been
conferred, appointed heritable bailie of Dunfermline. On the 9th
January 1596, he was nominated one of the eight commissioners of the
treasury, called from their number Octavians, but with his colleagues,
he resigned that unpopular office on the 7th January
following. In consequence of his partiality to his Roman Catholic
kinsman, the earl of Huntly, he was cited to appear before the Synod of
Lothian. The Synod remitted him to the commissioners of the church, to
whom he cleared himself of the accusation. He was one of the principal
objects of popular fury in the well-known riot of Edinburgh of December
17, 1596, and one of the conditions of pacification proposed by the
insurgents to James the Sixth, was that he and two others named should
“not be admitted to sit in council, at least when the cause of religion
and matters of the church are treated, seeing they are enemies to the
quietness thereof, and have, by their devices, raised the troubles that
presently do vex the same.” It was even proposed to excommunicate him.
Notwithstanding this, however, the citizens of Edinburgh elected him
their provost for nine successive years. On 4th March 1597-8,
he obtained a letter under the great seal, erecting the barony of Fyvie
into a free lordship, with the title of a lord of parliament, and
shortly after he was intrusted with the education of the king’s second
son, Prince Charles, afterwards Charles the First. On the 8th
February 1604 he was appointed vice-chancellor, and in the following
July one of the commissioners nominated by parliament to treat of a
union then projected between the kingdoms. The same year he was
appointed high chancellor of Scotland, and, on 4th March
1606, was created earl of Dunfermline. He was admitted a member of the
English privy council in 1609, and was commissioner to the parliament
holden at Edinburgh 24th October 1612, in which the obnoxious
acts of the General Assembly of Glasgow in June 1610, were ratified, and
the act of parliament of 1592, establishing presbyterianism, was
rescinded. He died at his seat of Pinkie, near Musselburgh, which had
been built by himself, 16th June 1622, in the 67th
year of his age. after an illness of fourteen days. Spotswood says of
him that “he exerted his place with great moderation, and to the
contentment of all honest men; he was ever inclining to the Roman faith,
as being educated at Rome in his younger years, but very observant of
good order, and one that hated lying and dissimulation, and above all
things studied to maintain peace and quietness.” [Spotswood’s
History, p. 543.] Calderwood states “that howsoever he was popishly
disposed in his religion, yet he condemned many abuses and corruptions
in the Kirke of Rome. He was a good justicier, courteous and humane both
to strangers and to his own country people; but noe good friend to the
bishops.” [Calderwood’s History, v. vii. p. 548.] He is said to
have been a good scholar. Some fragments of his poetry are still extant,
particularly an epigram prefixed to Lesley’s History of Scotland, and
another addressed to Sir John Skene, on his publication of the Regiam
Majestatem. He is also the subject of one of Arthur Johnston’s
panegyrics. He was thrice married, first to Lilias, second daughter of
Patrick, third Lord Drummond, by whom he had six daughters; secondly, to
Grizel Leslie, fourth daughter of James, Master of Rothes, and by her he
had a son, Lord Fyvie, who died young, and a daughter; and, thirdly, to
Margaret Hay, sister of John, first earl of Tweeddale (who had married
Lady Jean Seton, a daughter of the chancellor) by whom he had, with two
daughters, a son, Charles, second earl of Dunfermline.
The second
earl, a zealous adherent of the Covenant, was sent in June 1639, from
the Scots camp at Dunse law with the petition to Charles the First, then
with his army at the Bricks, about three miles from Berwick-on-Tweed,
which produced the short pacification of Dunse. In the following
November, after the sudden prorogation of the Scots parliament by the
earl of Traquair, the king’s commissioner, the earls of Dunfermline and
Loudoun were despatched by the estates to London, to vindicate the
proceedings of the assembly and the parliament, but they were denied
access to the presence of the king, and refused a hearing, on the
pretext that they had not obtained the permission of the lord high
commissioner. He was also one of the commissioners sent by parliament to
London early in 1640. He returned in May, and commanded a regiment in
the Scots army which, under General Leslie, crossed the Tweed to England
on the 21st August of that year, and was governor of Durham
during the time it was occupied by them. In the following October he was
one of the eight Scots commissioners for the treaty of Rippon, and a
member of the sub-committee which afterwards concluded a peace at
London. While there, he obtained from Charles, on 21st June
1641, a lease of the valuable abbacy of Dunfermline for three times
nineteen years. On the 30th July he was again sent to London
with the final instructions of parliament to their commissioners. In
November of the same year he was sworn a privy councillor, and in 1642
he was appointed by the king high commissioner to the General Assembly
of the church of Scotland, which met at St. Andrews in July of that
year. He took an active part in the subsequent transactions of that
important period. IN January 1646 he was chosen one of the committee of
the estates during the interval between the sessions of parliament, and
after the surrender of the king to the Scots army he was at Newcastle
with his majesty the same year, and offered, along with the chancellor
and the marquis of Argyle, to go to London to treat with the parliament
of England for a mitigation of the articles proposed by them. As he
supported the “Engagement” in 1648, for the attempted rescue of the
king, he was in consequence deprived by the act of Classes. After the
execution of the king, his lordship went to the continent in April 1649,
to wait on King Charles the Second, with whom he returned to Scotland in
1650. He was admitted a member of the committee of estates, and of the
committee for managing the affairs of the army, and also commanded a
regiment of horse in the army levied to invade England under Charles the
Second. At the Restoration he was sworn a privy councillor. ON 2d
November 1669, he was appointed an extraordinary lord of session, and
chosen one of the lords of the articles in the parliament which met that
year. In 1671 he was appointed lord privy seal. He died before 14th
January 1673. He married Lady Mary Douglas, third daughter of the earl
of Morton, and had, with one daughter, three sons; Alexander, third
earl, who died soon after succeeding to the title; the Hon. Charles
Seton, killed in a sea-fight with the Dutch in 1672; and James, fourth
and last earl of Dunfermline.
The fourth
earl, in his youth, served under the prince of Orange in several
memorable expeditions. On his accession to the title he returned to
Scotland, and in 1689 he was outlawed and forfeited by parliament.
Following King James the Seventh to St. Germains, he had the order of
the Thistle conferred upon him, and died in exile in 1694. He married
Lady Jean Gordon, sister of the first duke of Gordon, but had no issue,
on which the title became extinct and the earl being at the time of his
death under forfeiture, the whole estates reverted to the crown. The
office of heritable bailie of the regality of Dunfermline had been in
1665 assigned to John earl of Tweeddale, for a debt due to him by the
earl of Dunfermline.
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DUNFERMLINE, Lord,
a title in the peerage of the United Kingdom, conferred in 1839 on the
Right Hon. James Abercromby, third son of the celebrated Sir Ralph
Abercromby, by the daughter of John Menzies, Esq. of Fernton, Perthshire,
created Baroness Abercromby. Born in 1776, he was called to the English
bar in 1800. In 1827 he was appointed judge-advocate-general, and sworn
a member of the privy council, and in 1830 chief baron of the exchequer
in Scotland. Master of the mint, 1834, and Speaker of the House of
Commons from 1835 to 1839, for which he had a pension of £4,000 a-year;
M.P. for Caine from 1812 till 1830, and for Edinburgh from 1832 till
1839, when he was raised to the peerage; elected in 1841 dean of faculty
in the university of Glasgow. He was for several years auditor to the
duke of Devonshire’s estates. Married in 1802 the daughter of Egerton
Leigh, Esq. of West Hall, Cheshire, and died in 1858. His son, Sir Ralph
Abercromby, K.C.B., born in 1803, minister plenipotentiary and envoy
extraordinary to Sardinia from 1840 to 1851, when he was transferred in
the same capacity to the Hague, succeeded as second Lord Dunfermline;
married eldest daughter of second earl of Minto; issue, a daughter.
