Meantime, Lord Seton and his gallant associates, who were anxiously reconnoitring from their eyrie the progress of the little bark and its precious freight across the lake, remained in a state of the greatest excitement, not daring to believe that so feeble an instrument as the orphan Willie had succeeded in achieving an exploit which the bravest peers in Scotland might have been proud of having performed, and her own royal kinsmen, the allied princes of France and Spain, had not ventured to attempt. But all doubts and fears were dispelled when they recognized the stately figure of their queen, distinguished from the other females by her superior height, rising in the boat and giving the telegraphic signal of her safety, as previously agreed, by waving her vail, which was white with a crimson border, the royal colors of Scotland. The moment that auspicious ensign was displayed, fifty horsemen, who had lain concealed behind the hill, sprang to their saddles, and, with Lord Seton at their head, galloped down to the shore, where George Douglas and Beton, with another party of devoted friends, were already waiting to receive and welcome their enfranchised sovereign, as she sprang to the land. The fleetest palfreys that Scotland could supply had long been provided, and concealed by George Douglas's trusty confederates in the village, in anticipation of the success of this enterprise, and were now ready caparisoned for the queen and her ladies. Mary mounted without delay, and, attended by the faithful companions of her perils and escape, scoured across the country at fiery speed, without halting, till she reached North Queen's Ferry, about twenty miles from Lochleven. Embarking in the common ferry-boat at that port, she and her company crossed the rough waters of the Firth, and landed, tradition says, at the ancient wooden pier, which formerly jutted out into the sea, just above the town of South Queen's Ferry. There she was met and welcomed by Lord Claud Hamilton, and fifty cavaliers and other loyal gentlemen, eager to renew their homage, and burning to avenge her wrongs.
Lord Seton conducted his royal mistress to his own castle at West Niddry, distant seven miles from South Queen's Ferry, where she partook of his hospitality, and enjoyed the repose of a few hours, after her moonlight flitting. West Niddry now forms part of the fair domain of the Earl of Hopeton. The roofless shell of the stately castle, which afforded the first safe resting-place to the fugitive sovereign is still in existence. The changes of the last few years have conducted the railroad line between Edinburgh and Glasgow in close proximity to the ruins of the feudal fortress, which gave rest and shelter to the royal fugitive, after her escape from Lochleven. The gray mouldering pile, in its lonely desolation, arrests for a moment the attention of the musing moralist or antiquarian among the passengers in the trains that thunder onward to their appointed goal through solitudes that recall high and chivalric visions of the past. But Niddry Castle should be visited in a quiet hour by the historical pilgrim, who would retrace in fancy the last bright scene of Mary Stuart's life, when, notwithstanding the forced abdication which had transferred the regal diadem of Scotland to the unconscious brow of her baby-boy, she stood a queen once more among the only true nobles of her realm, those whom English gold had not corrupted, nor successful traitors daunted.
One window in Niddry Castle was, within the memory of many persons in the neighborhood, surmounted with the royal arms of Scotland, together with a stone entablature, which, though broken, is still in existence, in the orchard of the adjacent grange, inscribed in ancient letters with the day of the month and the date of the year, and even the age of George Lord of Seton, at the memorable epoch of his life when the beauteous majesty of Scotland, whom he had so honorable a share in emancipating from her cruel bondage, slept beneath his roof in safety.
Lord Seton had been an old and faithful servant of his queen. He was the master of the royal household, and had been present at her nuptials with the beloved husband of her youth, King Francis II., of France. On her return to Scotland, after the death of that sovereign, Mary offered to advance Seton to the dignity of an earldom, but being the premier baron in parliament, he refused to be the puisne earl, giving humble thanks to her majesty for her proffered grace at the same time. Mary then wrote the following extempore distich in Latin and also in French:
"Sunt comites ducesques denique reges;
Setoni dominum sit satis mihi;"
which, in plain English, may be rendered thus:
"Though earls and dukes, and even kings there be,
Yet Seton's noble lord sufficeth me."
"After that unfortunate battle of Langside, the said Lord George Seton was forced to fly to Flanders, and was there in exile two years, and drove a wagon with four horses for his subsistence. His picture in that condition," adds the quaint, kindred biographer of the noble family of Seton, "I have seen drawn, and lively painted, at the north end of the long gallery in Seton, now overlaid with timber. From Flanders, the said Lord George went to Holland, and there endeavored to seduce the two Scots regiments to the Spanish service, upon a design thereby to serve his sovereign the queen, the king of Spain being very much her friend. Which plot of his being revealed, the states of Holland did imprison and condemn him to ride the cannon; but by the friendship and respect the Scotch officers had to him, he was by them set at liberty, notwithstanding this decision of the States."[6]
Lord Seton outlived these troubles, he was preserved to enjoy the reward of his integrity after those who pursued his life had been successively summoned to render up an account of the manner in which they had acquired and acquitted themselves of their usurped authority, till all were clean swept away. It is a remarkable fact that the most relentless of the persecutors of their hapless sovereign, Mary Stuart, especially those who for a brief period were the most successful in their ambitious projects, Murray, Lennox, Marr, Lethington, and Morton, all by violent or untimely deaths preceded their royal victim to the tomb.
James VI. testified a grateful sense of the services Lord Seton had rendered to queen Mary, by preferring him and his sons to the most honorable offices in his gift.