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. But this brave and ancient house had signal reason for remaining hitherto devoted to the monarchs of the Scottish throne. Four times had the Seatons been allied with royalty: two instances were remarkable. George Seatoun, second Earl of Huntly, married the Princess Annabella, daughter of James the First, and from that union numerous descendants of Scottish nobility exist to this day: and George, the third Lord Seaton, again allied his house with that of Stuart, by marrying the Lady Margaret Stuart, daughter of the Earl of Buchan, and granddaughter of Robert the Second. In consequence of these several intermarriages, it was proverbially said of the house of Seaton, "the family is come of princes, and reciprocally princes are come of the family." And these bonds of relationship were cemented by services performed and honours conferred. The devotion of the Seatons to Mary, Queen of Scots, has been immortalised by the pen of Sir Walter Scott. George, the seventh Lord Seaton, attended on that unhappy Princess in some of the most brilliant scenes of her eventful life, and clung to her in every vicissitude of her fate. He, as Ambassador to France, negotiated her marriage with the Dauphin, and was present at the celebration of the nuptials. He afterwards aided his royal mistress to escape from Lochleven Castle, in 1568, and conducted her to Niddry Castle, his own seat. When, in gratitude for his fidelity, Mary would have created him an Earl, Lord Seaton declined the honour, and preferred his existing rank as Premier Baron of Scotland. Mary celebrated his determination in a couplet, written both in French and in Latin: "Il y a des comtes, des rois, des ducs aussi, Ce't assez pour moy d'estre Signeur de Seton." The successor of Lord Seaton, Robert, judged differently from his father, and accepted from James the Sixth the patent for the Earldom of Wintoun; distinguishing the new honour by a courage which procured for him the appellation of "Greysteel."[5]