A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Seton, Lady
SETON, LADY,
Was the wife of Sir Alexander Seton, who was acting-governor of Berwick-upon-Tweed, at the time that important fortress was besieged by Edward the Third. The garrison, being reduced to a scarcity of provisions, proposed to surrender upon the terms that there should be an armistice of five days, and if in that interval the town and castle should not be relieved by two hundred men-at-arms, or by battle, they should be given up to Edward; the lives and property of the inhabitants to be protected. The eldest son of Sir Alexander Seton was one of the hostages delivered by the Scots for the performance of the conditions: the younger son of Seton was also a prisoner in Edward's hands, having been taken in a sally.
No sooner had Edward obtained the hostages, than he insisted on the immediate surrender of the town, threatening Sir Alexander, that if he refused, his two sons should immediately be hung in front of the ramparts. The governor was thunderstruck, and in his agony, was on the point of sacrificing his country's honour to his paternal tenderness, when he was roused and supported in his duty by his wife, the mother of these two sons Lady Seton came suddenly forward, and called upon her husband to stand firm to his honour and his country. She represented, that if the savage monarch did really put his threat into execution, they would become the most wretched of parents, but their sons would have died nobly for their country, and they themselves could wear out life in sorrow for their loss; but that, if he abandoned his honour, their king, their country, their consciences, nay, their sons themselves, would regard them with contempt; and that they should not only be miserable, but entail lasting disgrace on those they sought to save. Never did Spartan or Roman matron plead with the eloquence of the most exalted virtue, more forcibly against the weakness of her own or her husband's mind. And when she saw, across the water, preparations actually making for the death of her sons, and beheld her husband, at the dreadful spectacle, again giving way, she drew him from the horrid scene, and thus saved his honour, though at the sacrifice of their children. The tyrant put them to death. This was in July, 1332.