Mary Seton

Mary Seton (1542–1615) was a Scottish courtier and later a nun. She was one of the four attendants of Mary, Queen of Scots, known as the Four Marys. She was a sister at the Convent of Saint Pierre les Dames in Reims at the time of her death. Sent to France Mary Seton was the daughter of George Seton, 6th Lord Seton, and his second wife Marie Pieris or Pierres, a daughter of René Pierres, of Plessis Baudouin, and Antoinette d'Hommes. Marie Pierres was a lady-in-waiting to Mary of Guise, the wife of King James V of Scotland. The French Pierres family claimed to have descended from the Percy family of Northumberland. As a child, Mary Seton became a lady-in-waiting to the young Mary, Queen of Scots, along with three other girls of similar age and of a similar standing in Scots society. They were famously known as "The Four Marys": she and Mary Beaton, Mary Fleming and Mary Livingston. The Four Marys accompanied Queen Mary in France, where she later married the Dauphin, Francis II of France. Mary Seton was the only one of the four not to marry, and continued in service with Mary, in Scotland and during her captivity in England. Scotland again When Queen Mary returned to Scotland, after her ceremonial entry at Edinburgh in September 1561, she went to Linlithgow Palace, while the four Marys, accompanied by the Queen's uncle, the Grand Prior of Malta, François de Lorraine (1534-1563), went to the house of Mary Seton's brother George Seton, 7th Lord Seton, Seton Palace, for dinner.