We are commissioned to offer for sale the Dignity of ‘The Baron of Tranent’. Our clients have indicated that they will give serious consideration to offers of £60,000. Purchasers are advised to read carefully our Terms of Business posted on our web-site. Following the passing, and coming into effect of the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000 barony titles are separated from their former lands. The purchaser of The Barony of Tranent will not acquire any land as a result of his/her acquisition of the barony title.
The new holder of the title will be able to style him/herself ‘Baron (ess) of Tranent’.
Tranent, in East Lothian, was originally known as Travernent. The earliest known person connected with Tranent was Thor, son of Sweyn, who was granted the lands in a charter of Holyrood around 1124. Thor died in 1154 and the lands reverted to the king.
Robert de Quincy, a Northumberland baron, acquired Tranent in 1165 from King William the Lion. His eldest son Sayher, Lord of Tranent, was created Earl of Winchester. He died in Egypt during a Crusade around 1220. His brother Roger succeeded him and on Roger’s death in 1264, three daughters shared the lands of Tranent. Because their husbands supported England during the Wars of Independence their lands in Scotland were forfeit to the Crown.
Sir Alexander de Seton was awarded several estates by King Robert the Bruce for his services, these included the superiority of the commonty of Travernent, and in 1322 the Barony of Travernent which William Ferraris had forfeited, of the lands of Fauside. Sir Alexander joined the Order of St John of Jerusalem and was appointed to the charge of the House of Torpichen by the Grand Master at Rhodes. Sir Alexander died around 1450 but by then his sons were dead, so the lands and titles went to a grandson William de Seton.
This William was a knight who had visited Jerusalem and later participated in a major raid into England in 1383. He is also noted for his part in the Battle of Otterburn in 1388. Sir William was the premier baron in Scotland and was made a Lord of Parliament by 1393. Lord William, 1st Baron Seton married Catherine Sinclair and they had eight children. Sir William Seton, Lord of that Ilk, and of Tranent, died around 1410 and was succeeded by his elder son John.
Sir John de Seton was confirmed in the lands and baronies of Tranent and Seton in 1411. John was Master of the Royal Household under King James I and undertook several visits to France on behalf of the king. He died in 1441 and was buried in Seton Church. His son and heir to be William, Master of Seton, fought with the Scottish contingent aiding the French against the English, but was killed at the Battle of Verneuil in 1424. It was his son, George, who later succeeded his grandfather in the lands and titles.
Sir George de Seton was created a Lord of Parliament in 1445 and served on embassies to Flanders, France and Burgundy as George, Lord Seton. Lord Seton was married twice. By his first wife he had a son named John. John, Master of Seton, married Christian Lindsay and they were the parents of three sons and a daughter. As John predeceased his father, the lands and titles fell to the eldest grandson George.
George, 2nd Lord Seton, converted the Church of Seton into a Collegiate Church in 1494. In 1499 he acquired a major warship, the Eagle, for King James IV which was later used to fight the privateers of Dunkirk. He was also a noted scholar who had studied at St Andrews and in Paris, and was knowledgeable in astrology, music and theology. The 2nd Lord Seton died in 1507 and was buried in Seton Church. He was succeeded by his eldest son George.
George, 3rd Lord Seton, developed Seton House, built Niddrie Castle, and improved the Collegiate Church of Seton. He was a friend of King James IV and was killed along with him at the Battle of Flodden in 1513.
George, 4th Lord Seton, was served heir to his father in Seton, Winton, and Tranent in 1513, his father having died at Flodden. On 13 March 1542 his town and lands of Tranent were erected into a free burgh of barony with permission to hold a weekly market on the Lord’s Day. George was a Privy Councillor and a skilled falconer. He died at Culross on 17 July 1549. His first wife was Elizabeth Hay and their eldest son George succeeded to the lands and titles.
George, 5th Lord Seton, was born in 1531, and was educated in France. In later life he served on diplomatic missions from Scotland to France, and was Master of the Royal Household under Mary, Queen of Scots. George was a supporter of Mary and opposed the Protestant regime in Scotland. However he served under King James VI. George died in January 1586 and was buried in Seton church. George was succeeded by his second son Robert. George had a sister named Mary Seton who was one of the ‘four Maries’ who accompanied Mary, Queen of Scots, when she went to France in 1548.
In 1583, as Master of Seton, Robert had been granted the lands, lordship and barony of Seton and Winton. Robert, 6th Lord Seton, was granted a crown charter of Cockenzie which erected it into a free port, while the town was erected into a burgh of barony in 1591. In 1600 he was created Earl of Winton. Robert died on 22 March 1603 and was buried in Seton church. He had married Margaret Montgomerie, daughter of the Earl of Eglinton, in 1582, and they had six children, of whom Robert, the eldest, succeeded his father.
Robert, 7th Lord Seton and 2nd Earl of Winton, however, was mentally unstable and consequently kept in restraint at Seton Palace until his death. He had married Anna, daughter of Lord Thirleston, but the marriage was annulled on the basis of his impotency. In 1605 Earl Robert transferred his lands and titles to his next younger brother George.
George, 8th Lord Seton and 3rd Earl of Winton, was born in 1584. He expanded the family’s landholdings in the Lothians, built the House of Winton in 1620, and expanded Seton Palace. During the wars of the Three Kingdoms, 1638-1651, he supported the Royal Stuarts. He died in 1650 and also was buried in Seton Church. George had two wives, firstly Anne Hay, daughter of the Earl of Erroll, and secondly Elizabeth Maxwell, daughter of Lord Herries of Terregles. Between them the two wives produced 21 children. The first son George, died in infancy, while the second son George, died within the lifetime of his father. This George, known as Lord Seton, was born in 1613 and fought as a Royalist under the Marquis of Montrose. He was captured at the battle of Philiphaugh and imprisoned in the Castle of St Andrews until ransomed. He died in 1648 and was buried in Seton Church. He had married Henrietta, daughter of the Earl of Huntly, and their eldest son, George, became 4th Earl of Winton and 9th Lord Seton.
On 12 May 1653, George Seton, was served heir to his grandfather George, Earl of Winton, Lord Seton of Winchburgh and Tranent, and in various properties including the lands and Barony of Tranent. George had been born in 1642 and was brought up as a Protestant though educated in France. He had followed a military career in France and later in Scotland where he opposed the Covenanters. He built the harbour of Port Seton near Cockenzie, and died in 1704. The 9th Lord Seton was succeeded by a son born out of wedlock but legitimised per subsequens matrimonium.
George Seton, 10th Lord Seton, 5th Earl of Winton, was born in 1678, and was served heir to his father in 1710. Despite being a zealous Protestant he was also a Jacobite and joined the rebellion of 1715. He was captured after the Siege of Preston, Lancashire, and committed to the Tower of London on a charge of high treason. He was convicted and sentenced to death but escaped via France to Rome where he died in 1749. His lands and titles were forfeited to the Crown.
The Earl of Winton’s lands in Scotland were acquired by the York Buildings Company around 1719. The company developed the existing coal works and saltpans at Tranent by introducing a fire engine and building a wooden railway between the saltpans and the harbour at Port Seton. In 1779 the Company sold the baronies of Tranent and Cockenzie to George Buchan-Hepburn, an advocate, and to John Cadell of Cockenzie. In 1816 the Cadell family acquired both parts (NAS Ref. C2/154/453). The Cadell family was, in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, noted as industrialists and entrepreneurs in the Lothians. The establishment of the Carron Iron Works near Falkirk in 1759 is generally accepted as the start of the Industrial Revolution in Scotland, and one of the founding partners was a William Caddell His family settled in Cockenzie where his sons William and John were merchants and papermakers. John Caddell married a Marie Buchan and it was him that acquired Tranent and introduced modern technology to the coalmines there.
Tranent Parish Church dates from 1800 and incorporates architectural features of the ruins of a 12th century church. The medieval church was granted by Thor, son of swain, to the Abbey of Holyrood around 1150. Later, another Thor, often described as “of Travernent” appears in various documents of King David I as a witness. By the time of the reign of King William the Lion, Travernent had become the property of the De Quincys, men like Roger de Quincy
Nearby to the parish church lies the ruined mortuary of the Cadells of Cockenzie, which partly dates from the 16th century. The Kirkyard is unusually rich in sepulchral monuments, such as that of Alexander Crawford, priest of
Tranent, who died around 1489. There are also a number of Scott and Seton table stones dating from the 18th century which are noteworthy.
Within the grounds of Seton House, a modern mansion built on the site of the 16th century Palace of George, 4th Lord Seton, lies the Collegiate Church of Seton. This is an unusually complete example of 15th century Scottish ecclesiastical architecture. The bell tower contains a bell brought from Holland by Lord Seton in 1577. During the early seventeenth century Tranent was associated with witchcraft. The Seton-thorn, a historical landmark, near the family castle, was an infamous trysting place for witches and is frequently mentioned in Pitcarin’s Criminal Trials.
In 1863 the Baronies of Tranent and Cockenzie were sold by the Trustees of John Caddell to Robert Tennant who held the lands until 1871 where upon he sold the lands to John Polson. The lands and baronies were owned by several owners until in 1933 they wee purchased by Robert Archibald Lindsay S.S.C whose family held the lands until 1989 when they were purchased by Maj. Ronald Stuart Kinsey who sold to Anne Quenelda Stuart Avery in 1996. In 1999 David Lacey Garrison purchased the lands and baronies. The Barony of Tranent is being sold by the Executors of the late David Lacey Garrison.
