Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie, Knight Part 9

Amongst other celebrated persons who had the honour of being enrolled amongst the ancestors of Sir Thomas Urquhart are Pothina, a niece of Lycurgus; aequanima, the sister of Marcus Coriola.n.u.s; Diosa, the daughter of Alcibiades; and Tortolina, the daughter of King Arthur. It is observable that for a good many generations immediately preceding the author's time, the ladies who figure in the genealogy are of comparatively lowly birth--seldom, indeed, do they reach the rank of an earl's daughter. Either the supply of princesses was by this time somewhat exhausted, or the demands of the Urquharts were less exorbitant. The high-spirited character of the most remarkable scion of the family who drew up the genealogy forbids us to think that, with the lapse of time, they had suffered any diminution of courage. It rather seems as though the world had entered upon a less heroic stage. Perhaps, like Sir Thomas Browne in a later age, they had concluded that "it was too late to be ambitious, for the great mutations of the world were acted."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SCULPTURED STONE AT KINBEAKIE HOUSE]

In the time of Vocompos (A.D. 775) a further change took place in the arms of the Urquharts, which gave them their final form. "Vocompos," we learn, "was the first in the world that had the bears' heads to his arms, being induced to exchange, by the instigation of King Solvatius, his arms of three lions' heads, for the three bears' heads, razed, because of the great exploit, in presence of the King, done by him and his two brothers, in killing, one morning, three wild bears, in the Caledonian forrest: the supporters were also changed into two greyhounds: the crest and impress remaining still the same as it was since the days of Astioremon."[188]

An alleged ancestor of our author, William de Monte Alto (Mouat),[189]

took part in the patriotic resistance of Scotland against English oppression which is a.s.sociated with the names of Bruce and Wallace, and the faint local traditions of that time partly corroborate Urquhart's statements. "This William," he says, "caried himself so lovingly towards King Robert, that when almost all Scotland was possest by King Edward's faction, and his lands at Cromartie altogether overrun by them, and his house garrisoned and victualed with three yeers provision of all necessaries for one hundred men, he by a stratagem gained the castle, and with the matter of fourty men, keept it out against the forces of Edward for the s.p.a.ce of seven yeers and a half, during which time all his lands there were totally wasted, and his woods burnt; so that, having nothing then he could properly call his own but the mote-hill onely of Cromartie, which he fiercely maintained against the enemies, he was agnamed _Gulielmus de Monte Alto_. At last William Wallace came to his relief, but, as I conceive, it was the brother's son of the renowned William, who in a little den [or hollow] within two miles of Cromartie, till this hour called Wallace Den, killed six hundred of King Edward's unfortunate forces. Afterwards, raising the siege from about the mote-hill of Cromartie by the a.s.sistance of his namesake the other William, the shire of Cromarty was totally purged of the enemy."[190]

Tradition, according to Hugh Miller, is silent respecting the siege, but relates many details of the battle. The Scottish forces lay in ambuscade in the ravine or hollow which is still, or was until recently, called by Wallace's name, and attacked a large body of English troops on their way to join some of their countrymen, who were encamped on the peninsula of Easter Ross. The English were surprised and panic-struck, and left six hundred dead on the field of battle. The survivors were unacquainted with the country, and were under the impression that there was continuous land between them and their countrymen on the opposite sh.o.r.e.

"They were only undeceived," we are told, "when, on climbing the southern Sutor, where it rises behind the town, they saw an arm of the sea more than a mile in width, and skirted by abrupt and dizzy precipices, opening before them. The spot is still pointed out where they made their final stand; and a few shapeless hillocks, that may still be seen among the trees, are said to have been raised above the bodies of those who fell; while the fugitives, for they were soon beaten from this position, were either driven over the neighbouring precipices, or perished amidst the waves of the Firth."[191]

Sir Thomas does not let us off easily. After subjecting our credulity to a severe strain by one kind of statement, he unexpectedly increases the tension by another. Thus he says that an ancestor in the fifteenth century, Thomas Urquhart, had by his wife Helen Abernethie, daughter of Lord Salton, five-and-twenty sons, who grew up to manhood, and eleven daughters, all of whom found husbands. It would only have been kind of him to have reduced these numbers a little. But on one point he has spared us: we are not asked to believe that there were others who died in infancy.

In a postscript Sir Thomas Urquhart explains that he has just given his readers a sketch of the history of his family, but hopes to furnish them with a complete narrative as soon as he obtains his release from his parole, and is at liberty to attend to this and to other matters of greater importance. The thought of the delightful book in store for mankind is so attractive to him that he cannot help dilating upon it.

"In the great chronicle of the House of Urquhart," he continues, "the aforesaid Sir Thomas purposeth, by G.o.d's a.s.sistance, to make mention of the ill.u.s.trious families from thence descended, which as yet are in esteem in the countries of Germany, Bohemia, Italy, France, Spain, England, Scotland, Ireland, and several other nations of a warmer climate, adjacent to that famous territory of Greece, the lovely mother of this most ancient and honourable stem."[192] He also intends not to omit the name of any family with which at any time the aforesaid house has contracted alliance.

The concluding paragraph is very amusing; for in it our author promises to give proof of the statements he has made, by quoting from the works of respectable chroniclers of past ages, though the degree of certainty which the reader may thereby expect to reach falls short of that given by Holy writ or the works of Euclid. "And finally," he says, "for confirmation of the truth in deriving of his extraction from the Ionian race of the Prince of Achaia, and in the deduction of all the considerable particulars of the whole story, [the author] is resolved to produce testimonies of Arabick, Greek, Latin, and other writers of such authentick approbation, that we may boldly from thence infer consequences of no less infallible verity then [than] any that is not grounded on faith by means of a Divine illumination, as is the story of the Bible, or on reason, by vertue of the unavoidable inference of a necessary concluding demonstration, as that of the Elements of Euclid; which being the greatest evidence that in any narration of that kinde is to be expected, the judicious reader is bid farewel, from whom the Author for the time most humbly takes his leave."[193]

It is needless to say that the scheme of filling out the sketch of the history of the Urquhart family was never carried out, if ever it had been seriously entertained by Sir Thomas; and we are left in ignorance of the names of the Arabic, Greek, Latin, and other authors on whose testimony our belief in the authenticity of the narrative was to have been firmly based. In the absence of this our judgment is left in suspense, unless, indeed, we conclude that, as the genealogy begins and ends with the names of actual persons,[194] the intermediate part is not likely to have been a mere fabrication. If the links are sound in the places where we can test them, it requires no very great exercise of credulity to believe that they are the same throughout.

Matthew Arnold on one occasion laid down the principle, that a book should either "edify the uninstructed," or "inform the instructed." Sir Thomas Urquhart's "???????????????" certainly justifies its existence according to this standard of judging literature; for if it does not serve to edify the uninstructed, it _does_ inform the instructed, since the information it contains is not to be found in any other quarter.[195]

One's faith in the credibility of his narrative is, however, a little shaken by finding that in the second book of his favourite author, Rabelais, the genealogy of the giant Pantagruel is carried up to a period far beyond the Flood. It may be a mere coincidence, but it is one of those coincidences that make us very thoughtful.[196]

At the time when Sir Thomas Urquhart wrote, Scotland was supposed to have had a dynasty of kings and a connected political history dating far back before the birth of Christ. The impudent fictions of Hector Boece, whose history of Scotland was published in 1526, had been accepted by the public, and were regarded as genuine facts even by such literary personages as Erasmus and Paulus Jovius. Perhaps Sir Thomas thought that a credulity which had endured the considerable strain which Boece had put upon it might be trusted to bear a still greater weight.

Indeed, he interwove the story of his family with that which was current as the genuine history of his native land.

According to the mythical history of Scotland, Gathelus, a Grecian prince, having quarrelled with his father Miol, took refuge in Egypt, and married Scota, a daughter of the Pharaoh who perished in the Red Sea. The young people came west and founded Portugal (_i.e._ Port of Gathelus), and then journeyed north to Scotland, bringing with them, as part of their baggage, the coronation-stone yet to be seen in Westminster Abbey. Their descendant Fergus, "the father of a hundred kings," was the founder of the Scottish monarchy. These shadowy persons appear again, "with the moonlight streaming through them," and play their parts in the genealogy of the Urquharts.

Some have thought that Sir Thomas believed devoutly in the genealogy himself, and was the dupe of his own imagination. One would be sorry to form so low an opinion of his mental endowments. If the book in question were not an elaborate joke, it can only have been intended to impose upon the English people by convincing them of the extraordinary dignity and grandeur of their captive. If this were indeed the case, he must have had an humbler opinion of the intellectual faculties possessed by the average Englishman than even the majority of his fellow-countrymen entertain.

A very amusing reference to this book of Sir Thomas Urquhart's is to be found in the Decisions of the Court of Session, under date of 23rd to 25th January, 1706.[197] In that year an action was brought by the Earl of Sutherland against the Earls of Crawford, Errol, and Marischal, to determine the question of precedency in the rolls of Parliament. The pursuer a.s.serted that he was lineally descended from an Earl of Sutherland living in 1275, while his opponents' ancestors were not Earls till about 1399. The pursuer laid stress upon the fact that, in 1630, a formal inquiry into this matter had been held at Inverness, and that the decision had been in his favour. The persons who conducted the inquiry were, he said, of undoubted credit, and well versed in the particulars investigated, and "might have had good information from old men and writs, which in the course of time and through accidents had long disappeared." The advocate for the defenders replied that the "Chancellor of the Inquest" had been Sir Thomas Urquhart, who might have traced the pursuer's descent from Noah, as he had deduced his own genealogy from Adam, and that the decision arrived at was of no more value than "his fanciful derivation of his own pedigree. For the members of the Inquest seemed to have sworn rashly upon matters of greater antiquity than they could certainly know." "It is true," was the pursuer's reply, "the defender in his gaiety objects against Sir Thomas Urquhart as an ill genealogist; and it is owned that his derivation from Adam and Noah was fantastic enough, and indeed but _lusus ingenii_; but, after all, the defender's criticism will not hinder him to pa.s.s for a most knowing gentleman." The case was decided in favour of the Earl of Sutherland, so far as some of his contentions were concerned. But it is somewhat curious that his advocate overlooked the fact that the Sir Thomas Urquhart of 1630, who had been the "Chancellor of the Inquest,"

was not the author of the book containing the genealogy of the Urquharts, but that it was written by his son. It is quite possible, however, that it was a matter of notoriety that the elder Sir Thomas had been a believer in the long pedigree which his more famous son had, years after, elaborated and published.[198]

FOOTNOTES:

[175] The full t.i.tle of the work is as follows:--???????????????: or, A Peculiar PROMPTUARY of TIME; Wherein (not one instant being omitted since the beginning of motion) is displayed A most exact DIRECTORY for all particular _Chronologies_ in what Family soever: And that by deducing the true Pedigree and Lineal descent of the most ancient and honourable name of the VRQVHARTS, in the house of CROMARTIE, since the Creation of the world, until this present yeer of G.o.d, 1652. London, Printed for Richard Baddeley, and are to be sold at his shop, within the Middle-Temple-Gate, 1652.

[176] _Works_, p. 151.

[177] _Works_, p. 152.

[178] _Ibid._ p. 152.

[179] Poor Sir Thomas thought that he was going back to the beginning when he traced his descent up to Adam, or, to be more exact, to the red earth of which the "protoplast" was made. The late Charles Darwin carried back the pedigree of man a prodigious length, though he lowered its quality. There can be little doubt that our author would have disdained to accept what used to be called "the lower animals" as, in any sense, ancestors of mankind, or, at any rate, of the dignified family of Urquhart.

[180] _Works_, p. 156.

[181] In one respect, at any rate, we have legitimate ground of triumph over our ancestors--we spell better than they did. Charles Lamb once lent a volume of the old dramatists to a friend, and asked him his opinion of it. The reply was that it contained a considerable amount of bad spelling! The name Urquhart, as thus written, occurs here in Sir Thomas's "Pedigree," and is, doubtless, the correct form of the name. In the Latinised shape of Urquhardus it occurs on the register of the University of Aberdeen, at which our author studied. Yet Urchard seems to have been

"The name our valiant Knight To all his challenges did write."

The unbridled licence in the matter of spelling prevalent at that period is still further ill.u.s.trated by the historian Gordon, who wrote the _History of Scots Affairs_, and who gives us the name in the form of Wrqhward! This, one would think, was as far as it was possible to get in the way of bad spelling, without altogether taking leave of the sounds to be expressed by alphabetical signs. After it the spelling Wrwhart, as we find it in an Act of Parliament of 1663, seems rather poor.

[182] _Works_, p. 156.

[183] _Works_, p. 159.

[184] Horace gives us the speech in which she told Lynceus of his danger, and urged him to make his escape--

"'Wake!' to her youthful spouse she cried, 'Wake! or you yet may sleep too well: Fly--from the father of your bride, Her sisters fell: They, as she-lions bullocks rend, Tear each her victim: I, less hard, Than these, will slay you not, poor friend, Nor hold in ward:

Me let my sire in fetters lay For mercy to my husband shown: Me let him ship from hence away, To climes unknown.

Go; speed your flight o'er land and wave, While Night and Venus shield you; go Be blest: and on my tomb engrave This tale of woe.'"

_Odes_, iii. 11 (Conington's Translation).

Her sad forebodings concerning her own fate, it is satisfactory to know, were not fully realised. Perhaps she was shipped away to Cromartie, or Ireland, or Portugal, or Africa, or wherever it was that the head of the Urquhart family was then reigning. Instead of Lynceus having the melancholy satisfaction of putting an inscription on her tombstone, it is probable that she performed that office for him.

[185] Clanmolinespick is, we believe, more correctly _clann-maol-an-easbuig_ (the last p.r.o.nounced _cspick_), and means "the clan" or "family of the servant of the bishop." They are probably the Irish ancestors of the Macmillans of Knapdale in Argyleshire. The word "_maol_," "a tonsured servant," occurs in Malise (_maol-Josa_), "a servant of Jesus," a family name of the old Earls of Strathearn; and _easbuig_ in Gillespie or Gillespic, "a servant" or "gillie of the bishop."

[186] Clanrurie is "the clan" or "family of Roderick." These are the Macrories and Fullartons, their eponym having been Rory or Roderick, one of the two sons of Reginald, whose father in almost prehistoric times was Somerled, Lord of the Isles. They settled in Bute and Arran, and about Ardnamurchan and the islands there.

[187] This phrase--"by many"--is very delightful.

[188] _Works_, p. 168. A curious stone lintel now at Kinbeakie gives a representation of the Urquhart coat of arms, such as it was in Sir Thomas's own time. It was no doubt executed at his orders and under his direction, for inscribed on it are the names of some of those worthies who appear in the above genealogical history. The representation which we give of this stone is from a photograph specially taken for the ill.u.s.tration of this work. As the porch in the wall of which the slab is set is very narrow, it was impossible, even with the use of a wide-angle lens, to get a more satisfactory photograph than that which is here reproduced. Our readers will therefore kindly excuse the distortion of shape which is only too apparent, and accept as a measure of compensation the vividness with which the details of the engraved stone are brought out. "This singular relic," says Hugh Miller, "which has, perhaps, more of character impressed upon it than any other piece of sandstone in the kingdom, is about five feet in length by three in breadth, and bears date A.M. 5612, A.C. 1651. On the lower and upper edges it is bordered by a plain moulding, and at the ends by belts of rich foliage, terminating in a chalice or vase. In the upper corner two knights in complete armour on horseback, and with their lances couched, front each other, as if in the tilt-yard. Two Sirens playing on harps occupy the lower. In the centre are the arms--the charge on the shield three bears' heads, the supporters two greyhounds leashed and collared, the crest a naked woman holding a dagger and palm, the helmet that of a knight, with the beaver partially raised, and so profusely mantled that the drapery occupies more s.p.a.ce than the shield and supporters, and the motto MEANE WEIL, SPEAK WEIL, AND DO WEIL. Sir Thomas's initials, S. T.

V. C., are placed separately, one letter at the outer side of each supporter, one in the centre of the crest, and one beneath the label; while the names of the more celebrated heroes of his genealogy, and the eras in which they flourished, occupy in the following inscription the s.p.a.ce between the figures:--ANNO ASTIOREMONIS, 2226; ANNO VOCOMPOTIS, 3892; ANNO MOLINI, 3199; ANNO RODRICI, 2958; ANNO CHARI, 2219; ANNO LUTORCI, 2000; ANNO ESORMONIS, 3804. It is melancholy enough that this singular exhibition of family pride should have been made in the same year in which the family received its deathblow--the year of Worcester battle" (_Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland_, chap. vii.). The arms of the Urquhart family in their later form, as a.s.sociated with those of the Meldrum and Seton families, are given in the 1774 edition of the ???????????????, and are as follows:--"_Arms_, Or, three Bears-heads, erazed, gules, langued azure. _Crest_, a demy Otter issuing from the wreath sable, crowned with an antique Crown, or, holding betwixt his paws a crescent gules. _Motto_ above, _Per mare et Terras_, and below, _Mean, speak, and do well_. _Supporters_, two grayhounds, proper collared gules, and leashed." There can be no doubt that the Urquhart arms should be the three _bears'_ heads, though they are often described as three _boars'_ heads. The records of 1742 and 1760 in the Lyon Register make this quite certain. Probably the close resemblance between the two words is the princ.i.p.al cause of the confusion with regard to the matter which exists. In the sculptured coat of arms, of which we give a representation, the heads certainly have a superficial resemblance at least to those of boars. A correspondent who takes an interest in this question remarks, however, that "though the heads have tusks worthy of any boar, they (_i.e._ the heads) are set at right angles to the necks in a way in which no boar could be represented." On the other hand, the snouts of the animals have that distinctly _retrousse_ shape which we a.s.sociate with pigs, both wild and domesticated. The question is, therefore, not so simple as at first sight it appears, and can scarcely be adequately dealt with in a mere footnote. Accordingly we leave our readers to discuss and settle the difficulty.

[189] See p. 4, _supra_.

[190] _Works_, p. 170.

[191] _Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland_, Hugh Miller, p. 48.

This battle is supposed to be mentioned by Blind Harry, who has celebrated the achievements of Wallace in the following uncouth lines:--

"Wallace raid throw the northland into playne.

At Crummade feill Inglismen thai slew.

The worthi Scottis till hym thus couth persew.

Raturnd agayne and come till Abirdeyn, With his blith ost apon the Lammess ewyn"

(vii. 1084-88).

[192] _Works_, p. 174.

[193] _Works_, p. 175.

[194] The editor of the 1774 edition of the Tracts of Sir Thomas Urquhart says that he had compared the genealogy with the records kept by the Lord Lyon of Scotland, which go back as far as the reign of Alexander II. (A.D. 1214-1249), and had found it strictly correct from that period. In Appendix I., which contains the lists of names of Sir Thomas's ancestors, we have taken the liberty of indicating the names on which reliance can be placed, by printing them in italics (see p. 211).

[195] Sir Thomas is said to have remarked about "_the Pedigree_," that by the first generation of readers it would be received with scoffs, that the second generation would have their doubts about it, but that the third generation would be heavily inclined to believe it. Time has moved somewhat more slowly, however, than he antic.i.p.ated, and probably but few of us have as yet got past the second stage.