George Seton, 5th Earl of Winton

George Seton, 5th Earl of Winton (c. 1678–1749) was a Scottish nobleman who took part in the Jacobite rising of 1715 supporting "The Old Pretender" James Stuart. Captured by the English, Seton was tried and sentenced to death, but escaped and lived the rest of his life in exile.

Seton was originally brought up to assume his rightful place as head and heir of line of the Seton Family. To this end, his father bestowed upon him the Barony and Lordship of Seton at a very early age, and provided for him well, so that he would be educated at the best schools in Europe. Unfortunately he was not disposed to entertaining, as the many generations of the family had been, nor did he express an interest in the political affairs of his country until later in his life which caused his father great distress and grief and for which created a rift in the family. With this, George left to travel Europe and into a life of somewhat obscurity. For a time, he worked as a blacksmith's apprentice in Flanders, though he maintained contact with the doings of the family through a confidential servant in the Seton household back in Scotland.

He was abroad on his travels when his parents died, and "no man knew where to find him, till accident led to the discovery." Macky's memoirs say that he "was at Rome when his father died.": and did not return to Scotland until several years after his succession to the earldom, much to the detriment of his house and estate, which were dilapidated by sundry kinsmen during this protracted absence. He seems, like all his family, to have been given study and researches of some kind, and to travel; and in 1708 Robert Calder, a minister of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, dedicated to him his edition of the Genuine Epistles of the St. Ignatius.

He was one of the first Scottish noblemen who played an active part in the "Rising" of 1715, to restore the exiled family to the throne. "He took with him three hundred men to the standard of James Stuart; but he appears to have carried with him a fiery and determined temper, the accompaniment, perhaps, of noble qualities, but a dangerous attribute in times of difficulty."

The Seton family, as we have seen, had always been noted for their loyalty and their attachment to the old Church, and the last Earl, though he had renounced the Catholic faith, held firmly to the political creed of his ancestors. He was living peaceably in his own mansion at Seton when the rebellion of 1715 broke out. His involvement in the rebellion was hastened by the treatment which he received from a body of the Lothian militia, who forcibly entered and rifled his mansion at Seton, as he alleged on his trial, 'through private pique and revenge.' 'The most sacred places,' he adds, 'did not escape their fury and resentment. They broke into his chapel, defaced the monuments of his ancestors, took up the stones of their sepulchres, thrust irons through their bodies, and treated them in a most barbarous, inhuman, and unchristian like manner.' After this event the Earl took up arms against the Government, assumed the command of a troop of horse mostly composed of gentlemen belonging to East Lothian, and joined the Northumbrian insurgents under Mr. Forster and the Earl of Derwentwater. Their numbers were subsequently augmented by a body of Highlanders under Brigadier Macintosh, who formed a junction with them at Kelso.

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