Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Seton, Alexander (d.1542)
SETON, ALEXANDER (d. 1542), Scottish friar and reformer, was educated at the university of St. Andrews, and is probably to be identified with a student of that name who was a determinant in 1516. According to Calderwood (History, i. 93), he was ‘brother to Ninian Seton, laird of Touch,’ and if so he was the youngest son of Sir Alexander Seton of Touch and Tullybody, by Lady Elizabeth Erskine, daughter of Thomas, second earl of Mar. It was probably about 1534 or 1535 that he began, according to Knox, to ‘tax the corrupt doctrine of the papacy’ (Works, i. 45), maintaining that the ‘law of God had of many years not been truly taught’ (ib.) His statements, reflecting especially on the conduct of the bishops, gave such offence that they accused him to James V, whose confessor he was, whereupon, dreading the king's anger, he suddenly left for England. From Berwick he sent the king a letter, in which he offered to return to Scotland and debate the matters in dispute in his presence before any bishop, abbot, friar, or secular he might name (printed in Knox, i. 48–52). According to Knox, he ‘taught the evangel’ in England for some years (ib. p. 54), but in 1541 he made a recantation at St. Paul's Cross in London, which was published with the title, ‘The Declaracion made at Paules Crosse in the Cytye of London, the fourth Sunday of Advent, by Alexander Seyton, and Mayster William Tolwyn, persone of St. Anthonyes in the sayd Cytye of London, the year of our Lord God MDXLI, newly corrected and amended. Imprinted at London in Saynt Sepulchres parysshe in the Olde Bayly by Richard Lant. Ad imprimendum solum.’ He was for some time chaplain to Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, in whose house he died in 1542.
[Histories of Knox and Calderwood; Foxe's Book of Martyrs; Laing's Notes to Knox's History.]