Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie, Knight Part 6

[108] _General a.s.sembly Records_, 1648-49, p. 264.

[109] _General a.s.sembly Records_, 1648-49, p. 270. The instructions given to the Commissioners suggest the process known to us in modern times as "rubbing it in" (the phrase is a technical one).

[110] In March of the following year, 1650, occurred the descent of Montrose on the north of Scotland, which ended so disastrously for him.

After spending a few weeks in the Orkneys, where he collected a few recruits, he landed in Caithness, and proceeded into Sutherland, where he suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Strachan and Halket, the generals who had successfully suppressed the insurrection in the north in the previous year. Montrose was taken prisoner, and was executed in Edinburgh, on Tuesday, 21st May, 1650.

[111] Baillie's _Letters_ (Edinburgh, 1841), ii. 84.

[112] Robert Douglas (1594-1674) had been chaplain to a brigade of Scottish auxiliaries, sent with the connivance of Charles I. to the aid of Gustavus Adolphus, in the Thirty Years' War. He was minister of the second charge of the High Church, Edinburgh, and then of the Tolbooth Church, and was five times Moderator of the General a.s.sembly (1642, 1645, 1647, 1649, and 1651). Wodrow says, "He was a great man for both great wit, and grace, and more than ordinary boldness and authority and awful majesty appearing in his very carriage and countenance." Burnet affirms that he had "much wisdom and thoughtfulness, but was very silent and of vast pride" (_Dictionary of Nat. Biog._ xv. 347).

[113] _Works_, p. 279.

[114] Carlyle's _Oliver Cromwell_, iii. 148.

[115] Carlyle's _Oliver Cromwell_, iii. 154.

[116] _Works_, p. 408.

[117] _Cal. State Papers, Dom._

[118] _Ibid._

[119] _Works_, p. 408.

[120] _Works_, p. 419. Roger Williams (c. 1600-c. 1684) was himself a remarkable man. He was a native of Wales, was educated at Oxford, and entered into holy orders; but his aversion to the government and discipline of the Church of England led him to seek for greater freedom in America. He was a strenuous a.s.serter of religious toleration at a time when it was little understood and less practised anywhere. His liberty of thinking and speaking led to his being banished from Ma.s.sachusetts; and, thereupon, he purchased a tract of land from the Indians, and founded a settlement, which he named Providence. At the time when he generously interceded in favour of Sir Thomas Urquhart, he was residing in London as the agent of the new settlement, of which he was afterwards chosen president. He was on intimate terms with Cromwell, Milton, and other leading Puritans, and consequently would be in a position to render great service to his friend Urquhart.

[121] The leave granted was for five months from the 14th of July, 1652.

Before the expiration of this time, Sir Thomas asked for liberty to stay for six weeks longer in Scotland, and this was granted (_Acts of Parliament_, vol. vi. pt. 2, p. 748_b_).

[122] _Works_, p. 377.

[123] _Ibid._ p. 378.

[124] _Works_, p. 384.

[125] _Ibid._ p. 380.

[126] P. 37.

[127] _Rabelais_, p. xiv.

[128] _Cal. State Papers, Domestic_, 1660-61, p. 237.

[129] In the preface to a new translation of Rabelais by W. F. Smith, Esq., Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, some doubt is cast upon the above narrative of Sir Thomas's death. Mr Smith remarks, "This looks something like an imitation of Rabelais in his account of the death of Philemon." The reference is to the following pa.s.sages in Rabelais, who alludes to the story no fewer than three times. In Book i. 10, we read: "Just so the heart with excessive joy is inwardly dilated, and suffereth a manifest resolution of the vital spirits, which may go so farre on, that it may thereby be deprived of its nourishment, and by consequence of life itself, by this Pericharie or extremity of gladnesse, as Galen saith ... and as it hath come to pa.s.se in former times ... to Philemon and others, who died with joy." In chap. xx. some more particulars are given of the case: "As Philemon, who, for seeing an a.s.se eate those figs, which were provided for his own dinner, died with force of laughing." But in Book iv. 17, we are told the whole story: "[Neither ought you to wonder at] the death of Philomenes, whose servant, having got him some new figs for the first course of his dinner, whilst he went to fetch wine, a straggling ... a.s.s got into the house, and, seeing the figs on the table, without further invitation, soberly fell to.

Philomenes coming into the room, and nicely observing with what gravity the a.s.s eat its dinner, said to his man, who was come back, 'Since thou hast set figs here for this reverend guest of ours to eat, methinks it is but reason thou also give him some of this wine to drink.' He had no sooner said this, but he was so excessively pleased, and fell into so exorbitant a fit of laughter, that the use of his spleen took that of his breath utterly away, and he immediately died." The story is taken from Lucian (a??????, c. 25) or from Valerius Maximus (ix. 12), in which in the Paris folio edition (1517) the name is given as Philomenes.

There is undoubtedly a resemblance between the account of Philemon's death and that of our author, but we think it can only be accidental.

The editor of the Edinburgh edition of the Tracts is, as I have said, our only authority for the story of Urquhart's death; but there is no adequate reason for doubting it. He seems to have been well versed in the history of the Urquhart family, which he brings up to date, and must have derived his information from some members of it. It would be strange if in little more than a century after our author's death, an utterly mythical account of it should have sprung up and found a place among the details of family history. According to Lowndes's _Bibliographer's Manual_, the editor of the volume was David Herd, the well-known antiquary. If this statement be correct, we have all the more reason to rely upon the supplementary information the volume contains, as Herd's acquaintance with Scottish history and biography was very extensive and accurate. In one of the _Notes Ambrosianae_ (_Blackwood's Magazine_, September, 1832), a highly extravagant version is given of Urquhart's death. It is intended to be humorous, but is merely flat and silly. Only those can smile at it who have been trained up to believe that the _Notes_ contain exquisite humour, and who have, therefore, been accustomed to welcome pa.s.sages from it as mirth-inspiring. The statement made in this mention of Urquhart, that his death was caused by excessive alcoholic celebration of the happy event of the Restoration, is utterly baseless and offensive; and it is a pity that in Allibone's _Dictionary_ and in the _Dictionary of National Biography_ this article in _Blackwood's Magazine_ should be referred to as one of the sources of information concerning Urquhart. The author of it had not access to any other account of Sir Thomas's death than that given in the above-mentioned edition of the Tracts.

[130] _Acts of Parliament_, vii. 70.

[131] _Inverness Sasines._ The date when Sir Alexander Urquhart received knighthood seems to be approximately fixed by the fact that in a grant under the Privy Seal of 5th March, 1661, he is called Alexander, and in a notice of him of the 29th of the same month and year he appears as Sir Alexander (_Acts of Parliament_, vii. 93). From the fact that in this year the succession to the estates and hereditary Sheriffship of Cromartie were entered upon by his cousin Sir John Urquhart of Craigfintray, it was taken for granted by the editor of the Tracts (Edinburgh, 1774) that Sir Alexander had died. This error is repeated by Hugh Miller, and by most of those who have made any reference to him. He was still alive in 1667, for during that year he sold his salmon fishings in Over-rak and the King's Water to John Gordon (see also _Acts of Parliament_, vii. 537). He is spoken of as _quondam_ in a charter of certain lands which had belonged to him, 19th June, 1668. His cousin, Sir John Urquhart, received knighthood about the same time; at least he appears in Parliament as Sir John, 1st January, 1661 (_Acts of Parliament_, vii. 4).

[132] "There was the Bluidy Advocate Mackenyie, who, for his worldly wit and wisdom, had been to the rest as a G.o.d" ("Wandering Willie's Tale"

_Redgauntlet_, chap. xi.).

[133] There is said to have been some tragedy in connection with the death of this Sir John Urquhart. According to Wodrow, as quoted by Hugh Miller, after having posed as an ultra-Presbyterian, he became the friend and counsellor of the Earl of Middleton, Charles II.'s Commissioner for Scotland, under whom Presbyterianism was overturned and Episcopacy set up in its place (1661). Tradition says that "about eleven years after the pa.s.sing of the Act, he fell into a deep melancholy, and destroyed himself with his own sword in one of the apartments of the old castle. The sword, it is said, was flung into a neighbouring draw-well by one of the domestics, and the stain left by his blood on the walls and floor of the apartment was distinctly visible at the time the building was pulled down" (_Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland_, p. 111). Tradition is wrong, however, in saying eleven years after 1661; for on August 7th, 1677, Sir John, along with others, received a commission "for putting the laws against conventicles and other disorders into execution" (_Wodrow_, ii. p. 366).

[134] On the death of Jonathan's son, Colonel James Urquhart, in 1741, the shadowy honour of the headship of the family pa.s.sed to the Urquharts of Meldrum, who were descended from the Tutor of Cromartie by a third marriage with Elizabeth Seton, only daughter of Alexander Seton of Meldrum, and ultimately heiress of that estate. The last male representative of this line was Major Beauchamp Colclough Urquhart, who closed a promising career by a heroic death at the battle of Atbara, in the Sudan, on 8th April, 1898. His sister, Isabel Annie, is wife of Garden Alexander Duff, Esq., Hatton Castle, Turriff.

[135] See p. 58.

[136] Poc.o.c.ke, in his _Tour through Scotland_ (1761), says of the castle of Cromartie: "It has fallen into the hands of one Mr Urquhart, who had commanded a Spanish Gally, and died a Convert to Popery; which slip his son, now eighteen years old, has in some degree recovered, by conforming to the Church of England" (p. 176; _Scottish History Society_).

[137] In the old Statistical Account of Cromartie, and in the preface to the Maitland Club edition of Urquhart's Works, the estate is said to have pa.s.sed into the hands of Sir William Pulteney.

[138] Mr Ross is mentioned in the _Letters_ of Junius (see those of 29th November and 12th December, 1769). He was succeeded by his nephew, from whom the present proprietor of Cromartie, Major Walter Charteris Ross, is descended.

[139] Our Sir Thomas's memory should be cherished by defenders of the name and fame of Mary Queen of Scots, for he goes so far as to say that "ignorance, together with hypocrisie, usury, oppression, and iniquity, took root in these parts [Scotland], when uprightness, plain-dealing, and charity, with Astra, took their flight with Queen Mary of Scotland into England." Probably few of her admirers would be so daring as to a.s.sert this, though many of them doubtless would be glad to hear the a.s.sertion made.

[140] We take the liberty of extracting those few sentences from the letter of a friend, who has taken great interest in the execution of this work;--"Sir Thomas would have been an original character in almost any surroundings--a kind of literary Quixote, with what may be called a 'parenthetical' genius, branching off at every comma into the fresh images furnished by a teeming imagination. He was more than a translator of Rabelais--he seems to have been a kind of Rabelais himself."

[141] Sir Theodore Martin, _Rabelais_, p. xix.

[142] See p. 28.

[143] A different opinion is expressed in the preface to W. Harrison Ainsworth's capital novel of _Crichton_. "Sir Thomas," he says, "is a joyous spirit--a right Pantagruelist; and if he occasionally

'Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba,'

he has an exuberance of wit and playfulness of fancy that amply redeem his tendency to fanfaronade." Our readers have abundance of material before them for coming to a decision upon this question.

[144] See p. 85.

[145] _Works_, p. 226.

[146] Sir Theodore Martin, _Rabelais_, p. xx.

[147] In Granger's _Biographical Dictionary_ (1779), this portrait is described erroneously, as Sir Thomas Urquhart is said in it to be dressed in armour. Probably the description was given from memory. In the second volume of Bohn's edition of _Rabelais_, the frontispiece is a half-length portrait of the translator, evidently reproduced from the above. The effect, however, is highly disagreeable, and the likeness must have produced an unfavourable opinion of our author in the minds of most of those who have looked upon it.

[148] In this engraving, which is our frontispiece, the Greek inscription runs thus: t??? se pe?as?? ?a? p??statas?? e??a??st?, and means, "_I thank those who sent you and gave the order_." These words are, of course, addressed to the messenger who has been commissioned by the Muses to convey the wreath to Sir Thomas. Above the wreath itself is an obscure phrase--M??sa??[] st????--which is evidently a mixture of Latin and Greek, musarum st???? (=?p?st?????), "_messenger of the muses_." It may, however, be that st???? is to be taken as "_equipment_"

or "_decoration_," as referring to the wreath. The courage with which Greek and Latin forms are mixed up, and an old word despatched on its way with a new meaning, of which this brief phrase gives evidence, is highly characteristic of Cromartian Greek. For further ill.u.s.tration of the peculiarities of this local variety or h.e.l.lenic speech, see p. 149.

[149] Sir Thomas, therefore, claims by antic.i.p.ation the t.i.tles of Baron and Sheriff, which were afterwards to be his.

[150] This use of the quills is referred to in the following pa.s.sage in Sir Thomas Urquhart's _Epigrams_ (MS.):--

"The Invocation to Clio.

Book 2.