Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie, Knight Part 3

Yet so far was the caitiff creditor from being touched by this proof of magnanimity on the part of his debtor, that he applied himself with renewed vigour to the concoction of schemes for his total destruction.

So at least Sir Thomas would have us believe. On one occasion Lesley tried to inveigle him to Inverness, with the intention of having him arrested at the suit of an accomplice--James Sutherland, "Tutor of Duffus"--and kept in durance until he had satisfied all his enemy's demands. On another occasion Lesley managed to get a troop of horse quartered upon the tenants of Cromartie, till, says our author, "I should transact for a sum, of money to be paid to his son-in-law; which verily was the greater part of his portion."[77] In addition to this, a garrison was stationed for nearly a year in the castle of Cromartie, where they conducted themselves in a way calculated to wound and humiliate the proud spirit of its proprietor. Among other wrongs and losses inflicted upon him was the sequestration of his library, which he had collected with such pains. Sir Thomas says that he sought eagerly to be allowed to purchase back the precious volumes, but was hindered by the spitefulness and indifference of those to whom he made application, and was ultimately able to secure only a few of them, which had been stolen from the collection and dispersed through the country.[78]

In an amusing pa.s.sage in the _Logopandecteision_, our author gives us a specimen of the peculiarities of speech which distinguished his arch-enemy, Lesley of Findra.s.sie. As we read it we seem to hear the very tones in which he enunciated or defended his "felonious little plans."

"Several gentlemen of good account," he says, "and others of his familiar acquaintance, having many times very seriously expostulated with him why he did so implacably demean himself towards me, and with such irreconciliability of rancor, that nothing could seem to please him that was consistent with my weal, his answers most readily were these: 'I have (see ye?) many daughters (see ye?) to provide portions for, (see ye?), and that (see ye now?) cannot be done, (see ye?) without money; the interest (see ye?) of what I lent, (see ye?), had it been termely [regularly] payed, (see ye?), would have afforded me (see ye now?) several stocks for new interests; I have (see ye?) apprized[79] lands (see ye?) for these summes (see ye?) borrowed from me, (see ye now?), and (see ye?) the legal [time] being expired, (see ye now?), is it not just (see ye?) and equitable (see ye?) that I have possession (see ye?) of these my lands, (see ye?), according to my undoubted right, (see ye now?)?' With these over-words of 'see ye' and 'see ye now,' as if they had been no less material then [than] the Psalmist's _Selah_, and _Higgaion Selah_, did he usually nauseate the ears of his hearers when his tongue was in the career of uttering anything concerning me; who alwayes thought that he had very good reason to make use of such like expressions, 'do you see' and 'do you see now,' because there being but little candour in his meaning, whatever he did or spoke was under some colour."[80]

It must have been very hard for the proud-hearted chieftain to see his farms devastated, his tenants maltreated, his library thrown to the winds, a garrison placed in his house, and troops of horse quartered upon his lands without any allowance, in addition to all the misery and impoverishment which his father's wastefulness and neglect had brought down upon his head.

In 1647 an event occurred which seriously affected the interests of our author, and placed him in a still more humiliating position. Sir Robert Farquhar[81] of Mounie had "apprised" the estate and sheriffship of Cromartie, and was now confirmed in the possession of them. He proceeded to sell his rights to (Sir) John Urquhart of Craigfintray, the great-grandson of the Tutor of Cromartie. Immediately upon this (Sir) John purchased a commission from Charles I. to become hereditary Sheriff of Cromartie. In this way the ancestral domains and jurisdiction of which Sir Thomas Urquhart was so proud virtually pa.s.sed out of his hands. It was not, however, till after the Restoration apparently that the new proprietor entered into possession. He evidently allowed his claims to lie dormant until the death of his cousin, Sir Thomas, and then put them in force. Even if our author had no other troubles to contend with, the knowledge that this Damoclean sword was suspended above his head would have been enough to destroy his peace.

No doubt Sir Thomas sometimes thought that he was the most unlucky chieftain the Urquhart race had yet known,--that such a mult.i.tude of misfortunes had never come upon one who bore his name since that day when, on a sunny plain in Achaia, wild armed men first raised Esormon "aloft on the buckler-throne, and with clanging armour and hearts"

hailed him as "fortunate and well-beloved."[82] Sir Theodore Martin, indeed, says that Urquhart's statements with regard to his misfortunes should not be construed to the letter, any more than should the announcements of his wonderful inventions and designs. They were both, he considers, in a great degree pet objects on which he had permitted his imagination to rest, till they had been transfigured into a magnitude to which the reality probably bore but a faint resemblance.[83] There is, however, ample evidence in what we have already quoted, to show that certain of the grievances he complained of were by no means imaginary. It is beyond dispute that he suffered heavily in his property in consequence of his adherence to the Royalist cause. In 1663 his brother, Sir Alexander, presented a pet.i.tion asking compensation for the losses suffered in the time of his father and brother. The Commissioners appointed to examine into these claims reported that, before 1650, the damage inflicted upon the Urquhart property amounted to 20,303 Scots, and during 1651-52 to 39,203 Scots--in all 59,506 Scots, which is almost 5000 Sterling.[84]

The relations of Sir Thomas Urquhart with the ministers of the churches of which he was patron were unfortunately of a painful character. The grounds of misunderstanding and dispute were numerous. In addition to political and ecclesiastical differences of opinion between the ministers of the three parishes[85] (of which Sir Thomas was the sole heritor) and himself, there were disputes about augmentation of stipends,[86] which they thought inadequate but with which he had no fault to find, the abolition of his heritable right to the patronage of these churches, the legal proceedings taken by the inc.u.mbents to compel him to agree to arrangements decided upon by the Presbytery with regard to stipends and the upkeep of buildings, and there were also personal quarrels with the ministers themselves. In the following pa.s.sage he tells his side of the story, and gives us a vivid, though not an edifying glimpse of the parochial politics of that far-off time and remote corner of Scotland. It is to be noticed that Sir Thomas writes of himself in the third person. "I think," says the supposed anonymous writer of him, "there be hardly any in Scotland that proportionably hath suffered more prejudice by the Kirk then [than] himself; his own ministers (to wit, those that preach in the churches whereof himself is patron, Master Gilbert Anderson, Master Robert Williamson, and Master Charles Pape by name, serving the cures of Cromartie, Kirkmichel, and Cullicudden), having done what lay in them for the furtherance of their owne covetous ends, to his utter undoing; for the first of those three, for no other cause but that the said Sir Thomas would not authorize the standing of a certain pew (in that country called a desk), in the church of Cromarty, put in without his consent by a professed enemy to his House, who had plotted the ruine thereof, and one that had no land in the parish, did so rail against him and his family in the pulpit at several times, both before his face and in his absence, and with such opprobrious termes, more like a scolding tripe-seller's wife then [than]

good minister, squirting the poyson of detraction and abominable falshood (unfit for the chaire of verity) in the cares of his tenandry, who were the onely auditors, did most ingrately and despightfully so calumniate and revile their master, his own patron and benefactor, that the scandalous and reproachful words striving which of them should first discharge against him its steel-pointed dart, did oftentimes, like cl.u.s.ters of hemlock or wormewood dipt in vinegar, stick in his throat; he being almost ready to choak with the aconital bitterness and venom thereof, till the razor of extream pa.s.sion, by cutting them into articulate sounds, and very rage it self, in the highest degree, by procuring a vomit, had made him spue them out of his mouth into rude, indigested lumps, like so many toads and vipers that had burst their gall.[87]

"As for the other two, notwithstanding that they had been borne, and their fathers before them, va.s.sals to his house, and the predecessor of one of them had shelter in that land, by reason of slaughter committed by him, when there was no refuge for him anywhere else in Scotland; and that the other had never been admitted to any church had it not been for the favour of his foresaid patron, who, contrary to the will of his owne friends and great reluctancy of the ministry it self, was both the nominater and chuser of him to that function; and that before his admission he did faithfully protest he should all the days of his life remain contented with that competency of portion the late inc.u.mbent in that charge did enjoy before him; they nevertheless behaved themselves so peevishly and unthankfully towards their forenamed patron and master, that, by vertue of an unjust decree, both procured and purchased from a promiscuous knot of men like themselves,[88] they used all their utmost endeavours, in absence of their above recited patron, to whom and unto whose house they had been so much beholding, to outlaw him,[89] and declare him rebel, by open proclamation at the market-cross of the head town of his owne shire, in case he did not condescend [consent] to the grant of that augmentation of stipend which they demanded, conforme to the tenour of the above-mentioned decree; the injustice whereof will appeare when examined by any rational judge.

"Now the best is, when by some moderate gentlemen it was expostulated, why against their master, patron, and benefactor, they should have dealt with such severity and rigour, contrary to all reason and equity; their answer was, They were inforced and necessitated so to do by the synodal and presbyterial conventions of the Kirk, under paine of deprivation, and expulsion from their benefices: I will not say, ?a??? ???a???

?a??? ??? [an evil egg of an evil crow], but may safely think that a well-sanctified mother will not have a so ill-instructed brat, and that _injuria humana_ cannot be the lawfull daughter of a _jure divino_ parent."[90]

Sir Thomas Urquhart is not to be taken as infallible in the opinions which he formed and expressed concerning the quality of the sermons which were delivered from the Presbyterian pulpits of his time. But there can be no doubt that he hits upon one great fault by which many of them were marred--that of being rather political harangues than exhortations to G.o.dliness after the Pauline fashion. Indeed, he goes so far as to say that, as a rule, the preachers of his time seldom gave such exhortations, as they were "enjoyned by their ecclesiastical authority [authorities?] to preach to the times,[91] that is, to rail against malignants and sectaries, or those whom they suppose to be their enemies."[92] Preaching "to the times" Sir Thomas found meant in his neighbourhood preaching against _him_; and one may be allowed, it is to be hoped, without unduly wounding the feelings of those who admire the Covenanters, to think sympathetically of his sufferings. Sydney Smith once spoke of a form of capital punishment in which the victim was to be "preached to death by wild curates." If the above description of Mr Gilbert Anderson's sermons be true, he certainly was eminently qualified to officiate as one of the executioners in carrying out such a death sentence.[93]

But though Sir Thomas Urquhart was a Royalist in politics, and an Episcopalian in religion, he was certainly no bigot in his devotion to the King or the Church. In a pa.s.sage in _The Jewel_, he plainly declares his belief "that there is no government, whether ecclesiastical or civil, upon earth that is _jure divino_, if that divine right be taken in a sense secluding all other forms of government, save it alone, from the privilege of that t.i.tle."[94] Indeed, he treats such an idea as merely a pious fraud, by which despotism is established and maintained at a very cheap rate over tender consciences by threatening them with the vengeance of Heaven in case of disobedience. Such a man was not likely to be a blind partisan of any cause. Differences in religious beliefs and practices he attributed to differences of temperament among individuals, and to climatic and national peculiarities; and in no obscure terms he hints that he was of the opinion of Tamerlane, "who believed that G.o.d was best pleased with diversity of religions, variety of worship, dissentaneousness of faith, and multiformity of devotion."[95] However powerfully such opinions may appeal to a certain cla.s.s of minds, it is hard to conceive of their being a.s.sociated with deep religious feeling; and accordingly we can scarcely be wrong in concluding that one of the reasons why Sir Thomas Urquhart held aloof from the Covenanting movement was that he was at the antipodes to the majority of his fellow-countrymen in the matter of religious belief. A certain measure of aversion, suspicion, and horror is still manifested by many towards those whose creed is supposed to be of too limited and negative a character; and we can easily believe that in the middle of the seventeenth century this att.i.tude was taken up even more openly and emphatically. On a later occasion, when, as we shall relate, Sir Thomas Urquhart applied to the Commission of the General a.s.sembly to pardon his having taken part in the capture of Inverness, his case was referred to the minister of that town, Mr John Annand, "that he might confer with him [Sir Thomas] concerning some dangerous opinions, which, as is informed, he hes sometimes vented."[96] In the view of the Commission of a.s.sembly the guilt of cherishing "dangerous opinions" was as great as that of rekindling the flames of civil war, if, indeed, it did not surpa.s.s it.

FOOTNOTES:

[44] The utter chaos which resulted from the fusion of religion and politics may be estimated from the fact that, in the October of 1650, there were in the narrow bounds of Scotland four different armies, at enmity with each other, and each prepared to maintain with the sword a different cause, namely, the Scottish (Presbyterian) army under General Lesley, for King and Covenant combined; the English (Independent) army, under Cromwell, which was against both; the Highland army, under General Middleton, which was for the King without the Covenant; and the Westland, or ultra-Covenanting army, which was for the Covenant without the King.

[45] Gordon's _Scots Affairs_, i. 49, 50. James Gordon (? 1615-1686) was minister of Rothiemay in Banffshire. His _History of Scots Affairs from 1637 to 1641_ is one of the princ.i.p.al authorities for this period. It has no pretensions to style, but is correct and impartial. It was first published in 1841 by the Spalding Club.

[46] Early in the year 1638 some account was given to King Charles of the chief persons in the north of Scotland whom he might regard as faithful to his cause. "In Rosse," it was said, "Sir Thomas Urqhward, Sheriff of Cromerty, with his following, but they [are] environed with Covenanters, ther neighbours" (_ibid._ i. 61).

[47] _A History of the University of Aberdeen, 1495-1895_, by J. M.

Bulloch, p. 110.

[48] These courageous worthies were the bishop's son, Dr John Forbes, Professor of Divinity in King's College; Dr Robert Baron, Professor of Divinity, and minister in Aberdeen; Dr Alexander Scrogie, minister of Old Aberdeen; Dr William Leslie, Princ.i.p.al of King's College; and Drs James Sibbald and Alexander Ross, both ministers in Aberdeen.

[49] _History of Scotland_, vi. 235.

[50] See note on p. 123.

[51] Towie-Barclay is the name of an estate in the south-east corner of Turriff parish, Aberdeenshire, near Auchterless Station, and four and a half miles south-east of Turriff. The castle is supposed to have been built in 1593. It remained pretty perfect till 1792, was re-roofed in 1874, and retains a fine baronial hall with vaulted ceiling. From at least the beginning of the fourteenth century till 1733, the estate belonged to the Barclays, one of whose line was the celebrated Russian general, Prince Michael Barclay de Tolly (1759-1818). In 1792 it was sold to the governors of Gordon's Hospital, Aberdeen, for 21,000. Towie is a corruption of Tolly. See Billing's _Baronial Antiquities_, vol. iv.

[52] Balquholly, now Hatton Castle: a Square, castellated mansion of 1814, with finely wooded grounds, in Turriff parish, three and a quarter miles south-east of Turriff. It comprises a considerable fragment of the ancient baronial castle of Balquholly (Gael. _bailecoille_, "town in the wood"), the seat of the Mowats from the thirteenth century till 1729, when the estate was sold to Alexander Duff, Esq. Sir Thomas Urquhart must either have rented the house from the Mowats, or have obtained leave to keep arms there. The cellars in which the arms were probably kept are exactly as they were in 1638, except that the old loop-holes are partly filled up. The name of the mansion was changed to Hatton Lodge in 1745, and to Hatton Castle in 1814, when the modern part was built--Hatton being the name of the property in Auchterless, which previously belonged to the Duff family. The present proprietor is Garden Alexander Duff, Esq., who succeeded to the estates in 1866. There is behind Hatton Castle a small croft called Cromartie (see Ordnance Map), probably from our author's occupancy of Balquholly or connexion with it.

[53] An ancestor of Lord Byron.

[54] Spalding's _Memorials_, i. 185. Until within living memory the exact site of Prott's [or Pratt's] grave was pointed out; but it is now quite obliterated by being ploughed over repeatedly.

[55] MS. _Epigrams_: The Animadversion.

[56] "Ther fell only two gentlemen upon the Covenanters syde: one Mr James Stacker, a servant to the Lord Mucholles; and one Alexander Forbesse, servante to Forbesse of Tolqhwone: upon the Gordons syde, one common foote souldiour killed, (by the unskilfullnesse of his owne comerades fyring ther musketts, as was thoughte), whom the Gordons caused burye solemnly, that day, out of ane idle vante, in the buriall place of Walter Barcley of Towey, within the church of Turreffe; not without great terror to the minister of the place, Mr Thomas Mich.e.l.l, who all the whyle, with his sonne, disgwysd in a womans habite, had gott upp and was lurkinge above the syling of the churche, whilst the souldiours wer discharging volleyes of shotte within the churche, and peircing the syling with ther bulletts in severall places" (Gordon's _Scots Affairs_, ii. 258). The reader will keep in mind that Gordon was the family name of the Marquis of Huntly.

[57] This was originally the King's Confession, and was drawn up in 1580 by John Craig, minister of Holyrood House, and subscribed by James VI.

and his household on 28th January, 1580-81. It is printed at length in Row's _Historie of the Kirk of Scotland_. It reaffirms the Confession of Faith of 1560, but contains also a solemn renunciation in great detail of the errors of Popery. It was approved by the General a.s.sembly in April, 1581. A "General Band [Bond] for Maintenance of the true Religion" was added in 1588. The National Covenant of 1637 was an amplification of the previous Confessions, containing in addition an abjuration of Episcopal Church-government, as the King's Confession did of Popery. In September, 1638, Charles I. issued a proclamation for the Scottish people to subscribe this King's Confession and General Band, but the Covenanters regarded this as a subtle plot to divide them, and destroy the National Covenant, and, therefore, protested against the proclamation. The Confession and Band so subscribed, for it was subscribed by some, got the name of the "King's Covenant." It did not, of course, contain the abjuration of Episcopal Church-government. Those who adhered to it were called Malignants; while the name Covenanters was applied to those who subscribed the National Covenant.

[58] Among those who made their escape from Aberdeen along with Urquhart were Adam b.e.l.l.e.n.den, the bishop of the diocese; Alexander Innes, minister of Rothiemay; Alexander Scrogie, a Regent of King's College; together with the bishop's son, nephew, and servant (Spalding's _Memorials_).

[59] _Lives of the Scottish Writers_, vol. i.; Urquhart's MS.

_Epigrams_: The Animadversion.

[60] _Works_, p. 340.

[61] _Works_, p. 346.

[62] Dunlugas is in the parish of Alvah, close by the river Deveron, on the east side.

[63] _Works_, p. 341.

[64] "He was alive last Whitsuntide! said the coachman....

Whitsuntide!--alas! cried Trim.... What is Whitsuntide, Jonathan, or Shrovetide, or any tide or time past, to this!" (_Tristram Shandy_, vol.

v. chap. vii.).

Our author states (_Works_, p. 341) that "his father's death occurred in August in the year 1642, some four yeares after the hatching of the Covenant." He is, however, very careless in details of fact, and is in error concerning this date. Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior, is termed "_umqll_" (_i.e. "the late"_) in the Burgess Roll of Banff, on 14th June, 1642 (_Annals of Banff_, ii. 418). Perhaps the date was April instead of August. The Covenant was signed 1st March, 1638.

[65] _Works_, pp. 346, 347.

[66] _Calendar of Proceedings of Committee for Advances of Moneys-Taxes_, i. 381.

[67] The neighbourhood is now a cl.u.s.ter of narrow, dirty streets and pa.s.sages, lined chiefly with butchers' and grocers' shops, which overflow into the adjacent streets, and are supplemented by fishmongers and miscellaneous stalls and barrows--a crowded, noisy, and unsavoury place on Sat.u.r.day nights. In 1640, Charles I. granted his licence to Thomas York, his executors, etc., to erect as many buildings as they thought proper upon St Clement's Inn Fields, the inheritance of the Earl of Clare. He issued another licence in 1642, permitting Gervase Holles, Esq., to make several streets of the width of thirty, thirty-four, and forty feet. These streets still retain the names and t.i.tles of their founders--Clare Street, Denzil Street, and Holles Street. Clare Street is somewhat rich in interesting a.s.sociations. There is a letter of Steele's to his wife, dated from the Bull Head Tavern in this street, 24th August, 1710. It seems likely that he was hiding there. Mrs Bracegirdle, a celebrated actress of that time, "was in the habit of going into that neighbourhood, and giving money to the poor basket-women, insomuch that she could not pa.s.s without having thankful acclamations from people of all degrees." It was to Clare Street and Clare Market that Jack Sheppard went, after his escape from Newgate: he there bought a butcher's frock and woollen ap.r.o.n, which he was wearing when captured at Finchley. Here was Johnson's Hotel, celebrated for upwards of seventy years for its _a la mode_ beef. Isaac Bickerstaffe, too, lived in this street.

[68] John Holles, created Baron Houghton of Houghton, in the county of Nottingham, in 1616, and Earl of Clare in 1624.

[69] "If I had known that young man [Uriah Heep]," said Mr Micawber, "at the period when my difficulties came to a crisis, all I can say is, that I believe my creditors would have been better managed than they were"

(_David Copperfield_, chap. xvii.).

[70] _Works_, p. 347.

[71] _Ibid._ p. 346. For the authority on which this interesting ornithological statement is made the reader will overhaul his Pliny (_H.

N._ xi. chap. 3).

[72] _Works_, p. 326.

[73] _Works_, p. 328.

[74] _Ibid._ p. 325.

[75] Norman Lesley, Master of Rothes, eldest son of George, fifth Earl of Rothes, died without issue in 1554. This disposes of Sir Thomas Urquhart's statement. The Lesleys of Findra.s.sie themselves claimed to be descended from Robert, the fourth son of Earl George. See _Scotch Peerage Law_, by J. Riddell, p. 190.