TRANSLATION OF RABELAIS 184
APPENDICES 209
ILLUSTRATIONS
1. PORTRAIT OF SIR THOMAS URQUHART _Frontispiece_
2. SIGNATURE OF SIR THOMAS URQUHART _Page_ vii
3. THE POET SURROUNDED BY THE MUSES _Facing page_ 109
4. FAC-SIMILE OF HIS HANDWRITING " 116
5. SCULPTURED STONE AT KINBEAKIE HOUSE " 137
SIR THOMAS URQUHART
CHAPTER I
The Urquharts and their Predecessors in Cromartie--Sir Thomas Urquhart,
senior--Birth of our Author--School and University Days--Pecuniary
and other Troubles at Home--The Castle of Cromartie--Our Author's
Studious Bent--Foreign Travel--The Englishman Abroad--The Scot
Abroad.
The right of Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie to be included in the
list of famous Scots will scarcely be granted by many of his
fellow-countrymen without some inquiry into the grounds upon which it is
based. He himself, undoubtedly, would not have been backward in
asserting his claim to such honourable distinction, though he would have
entered a protest against the presence of some of those in whose company
he would find himself. In the ecclesiastical and political controversies
of the first half of the seventeenth century, he was, as an Episcopalian
and a Cavalier, connected with the losing side, and, consequently, it
is not to be expected that posterity should be so impartial as to
cherish his name along with those of the victors in the conflict. It is
to his literary, and not to his martial achievements, that he owes his
fame. His translation of Rabelais is probably the most brilliant feat of
the kind ever accomplished, and casts all his own original writings into
the shade. The fantastical character of his own compositions, indeed,
both in regard to their subject-matter and the diction in which they are
clothed, forbids their ever having a large circle of readers. An author
whose phraseology is like a combination of that used by Ancient Pistol
with that of Sir Thomas Browne may have enthusiastic admirers, but they
are almost certain to be few in number. Yet his works contain much
interesting matter, and to them we are indebted for many details of the
life of their author.
Though it is hard to believe Sir Thomas Urquhart's assertion that the
connexion of the Urquharts with the north-west of Scotland dates as far
back as the year B.C. 554, when an ancestor of his named Beltistos
crossed over from Ireland, and built a castle near Inverness, the family
was of considerable antiquity, and for many generations was one of the
most distinguished in that part of the country. Nisbet, the great
authority on heraldry, says that "they enjoyed not only the honourable
office of hereditary Sheriff-Principal of the Shire of Cromartie, but
the far greater part, if not the whole of the said shire did belong to
them, either in property or superiority, and they possessed a
considerable estate besides in the Shire of Aberdeen."[1] The admiralty
of the seas from Caithness to Inverness also belonged to them.
The Urquharts were not, however, the earliest to bear rule in the part
of Scotland with which their name is connected. Cromartie was originally
the Crwmbawchty (or Crumbathy) of which Macbeth was reputed thane,
before he became king. Wyntown in his _Cronykil_ relates Macbeth's dream
that he was first Thane of Cromartie, then Thane of Moray, and then King
of Scotland.[2] After the first and second titles had been conferred
upon him, he took steps to secure the third. Probably the mote-hill of
Cromartie was the site of his official residence as thane of the
district when he was at the beginning of his ambitious career.
In the thirteenth century the family of Mouat (then _de Monte Alto_)
were in possession,[3] but early in the following century the estate had
accrued to King Robert the Bruce, probably because the Mounts had
submitted to the English king, Edward I. King Robert granted Cromartie
to Sir Hugh Ross, eldest son of William, Earl of Ross, in 1315, and by
him it was afterwards, in the reign of King David Bruce (1329-70), given
to an Adam of Urquhart ("de Vrquhartt"),[4] with whose descendants it
remained for many generations. In 1357 he got from the Crown the
hereditary sheriffdom of Cromartie, and eight years later the same Hugh
Ross gave him the estate of Fisherie, in King-Edward, Aberdeenshire.
This Adam is the first of the family to emerge from the darkness of
antiquity into the light of history, and probably his name, as the
founder of the Urquhart fortunes, suggested the still more famous
progenitor to whom our Sir Thomas traced back his pedigree link by link,
as our readers will afterwards hear.
Our author's father, also a Thomas, and the first of his line who was a
Protestant in religion, was born in 1585. He succeeded to the property
in 1603, and in 1617 was knighted by James VI. in Edinburgh. As he was
left an orphan at an early age, he was brought up under the care of his
grand-uncle, John Urquhart of Craigfintray, who has been commonly called
from this circumstance "the Tutor of Cromartie."[5] His
great-grandnephew, our Sir Thomas, has celebrated his praise in very
high terms. "He was," he says, "over all Britain renowned for his deep
reach of natural wit, and great dexterity in acquiring of many lands and
great possessions, with all men's applause."[6]
From all accounts, it seems that the "Tutor" was faithful in the
discharge of all the duties belonging to his office,[7] though he did
not succeed in imparting to his pupil the secret of acquiring landed
property, either with or without applause.
Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior, received his estates, we are informed,
"without any burthen of debt, how little soever, or provision of
brother, sister, or any other of his kindred or allyance wherewith to
affect it."[8] He married Christian, the fourth daughter of Alexander,
fourth Lord Elphinstone (1552-1638), and received with her a dowry of
nine thousand merks Scots (_i.e._ £500 Sterling). The date of our
author's birth is given by Maitland as 1605, but it is now certain that
this is an error, and that the true date is 1611.[9] Sir Thomas was the
eldest of the family, and he tells us that he was born five years after
the marriage of his parents. He also informs us that his mother's
father, Lord Elphinstone, held the office of High Treasurer in Scotland
at the time of the marriage. As that nobleman was High Treasurer only
from just before 19th April, 1599, till 22nd September, 1601, it would
not have been unreasonable to fix the date of the marriage as probably
some time in 1600, if we had no other information on the subject. But it
so happens that the marriage-contract is in existence,[10] and is dated
the 9th of July, 1606, and consequently Sir Thomas's birth would fall in
the year 1611. Our author must therefore have been in error in
describing his grandfather as being High Treasurer at the time of his
daughter's marriage. He had, indeed, occupied this office some years
before. Sir Thomas should have said "had been," instead of "was," but
his lordly disposition of mind would probably make him contemptuous of
such trifles.
In 1611, James VI. was drawing near to the end of the first period of
his reign, during which he had been under the influence of the
traditions of the days of Elizabeth and Burghley, and had not yet passed
into his own keeping, and the hands of profligate favourites. Bacon was
still in the shade of distrust, from which, however, he was soon to
emerge: he was now, indeed, Solicitor-General, but his ambition was not
satisfied by this post. The heir-apparent to the throne was Prince
Henry, who died in the following year. Charles, his brother, was now
eleven years of age. Shakespeare brought out this year his play of _The
Winter's Tale_, and Ben Jonson his _Catiline_. Sir Walter Raleigh was a
prisoner in the Tower, and was busily engaged in writing his _History of
the World_, which he completed in the following year, though it was not
published until 1614. The Authorised Version of the English Bible
appeared this year. Milton was now a child of scarcely three years old,
and Cromwell a boy of twelve.
The birthplace of our author is unknown; for though the castle of
Cromartie was the official residence of the sheriffs, Sir Thomas
Urquhart, senior, is known to have had several other manor-houses, one
of which was Fisherie,[11] in the parish of King-Edward, Aberdeenshire,
in which he resided from time to time. It is probable that the future
translator of Rabelais laid the foundation of the erudition by which in
after years he was distinguished, in Banff,[12] which then possessed a
grammar-school, rather than in the more northern town which is
associated with his name.
Sir Thomas was only eleven years old when, in 1622, he entered the
University of Aberdeen,[13] but there is no reason to believe that the
average age of the "men" of his year would be in excess of his own.
Donne was the same age as Urquhart when he entered Oxford. The famous
Crichton went up to St Andrews at the age of ten, though up to that time
he had not given evidence of any extraordinary precocity. A generation
before, Montaigne had already completed his collegiate course when he
attained his thirteenth year. It seems strange to us that boys of such
tender age should have been found able to pass through a university
curriculum; and we are forced to conclude either that the boys of those
days were intellectually superior to those with whom we are familiar, or
that the studies which occupied them were less deep and severe than
those which are now pursued in seats of learning. The latter is probably
the true explanation of the matter. University education in Scotland
had been remodelled, and adapted to the requirements of the time and of
a Protestant society in the previous generation, and in this work Andrew
Melville had a very notable part. In 1583 a new constitution had been
drawn up for the University of Aberdeen, and the arrangements prescribed
by it may have existed there when our author was a student. The
Principal, according to this constitution, was Professor of Theology, as
well as incumbent of the parish of Old Machar, and was responsible for
the government and discipline of the college.[14] Under him were four
Regents, one of whom was Sub-Principal, and to them was assigned the
duty of training students in various departments of learning. Thus
physiology, geography, astrology, history, and Hebrew were assigned to
the Sub-Principal. Another Regent explained "the principles of reasoning
from the best Greek and Latin authors, with practice in writing and
speaking"; while a third lectured upon Greek, and read the more
elementary Latin and Greek authors. The fourth Regent taught arithmetic
and geometry, and, along with them, a portion of Aristotle's _Organon,
Ethics, and Politics_, and Cicero's _De Officiis_. This attempt to
assign special departments to the various regents respectively, was a
marked improvement upon the older system, under which they were each
responsible for teaching all the subjects included in the curriculum.
The students paid fees, which varied in amount according to their
social standing. On entering the university they were required to take
an oath of loyalty to the Reformed religion. None were allowed to carry
arms, or to converse in any other tongue than Greek or Latin. Perhaps,
however, this latter rule was merely an attempt to restrain the
measureless tide of human speech. And in order that nothing might
interfere with the progress of the students, the _Nova Fundatio_, or new
constitution of Aberdeen University, abolished all holidays ("omnes
consuetas olim a studiis vacationes aboleri penitus").[15]
Sir Thomas Urquhart's name does not appear in the list of graduates in
1626, so that there are no means of determining from the records of
King's College how many years he spent there. For the city in which he
had received his education he ever afterwards had a high regard. Thus he
says of it: "For honesty, good fashions, and learning, Aberdeen
surpasseth as far all other cities and towns in Scotland, as London doth
for greatness, wealth, and magnificence, the smallest hamlet or village
in England."[16]
He gives unmeasured praise to some of those eminent men who were
associated with the fame of Aberdeen University in what has been called
its "Augustan age"--the first four or five decades of the seventeenth
century. Thus, according to him, William Lesley, D.D.,[17] was "one of
the most profound and universal scholars then living"--like Socrates in
having published no works, but, unfortunately, unlike that philosopher
in not having among his disciples a Plato and an Aristotle to receive
their master's knowledge and transmit it to future generations.[18] Of
his successor in the principalship, Dr William Guild, he says: "He
deserveth by himself to be remembered, both for that he hath committed
to the press many good books, tending to the edification of the soul,
and bettering of the minde; and that of all the divines that have lived
in Scotland these hundred yeers, he hath been the most charitable, and
who bestowed most of his own to publike uses."[19] At the time when he
wrote these estimates of the sages at whose feet he had sat as a
student, some of his old friends were under a cloud, and he had to be
careful not to compromise them by his praise. And so he says of "Master
William [?] Seaton," who had been his tutor, "[he was] a very able
preacher truly, and good scholar, and [one] whom I would extoll yet
higher, but that being under the consistorian lash, some critick
Presbyters may do him injury, by pretending his dislike of them, for
being praised by him who idolizeth not their authority."[20]
At the time of the marriage of Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior, Lord
Elphinstone, who was fully acquainted with the prosperous condition of
his son-in-law's affairs, made him pledge himself to manage his property
so that it might descend to his heir as he had himself received it.
Unfortunately this pledge was not fulfilled. Through mismanagement and
neglect his affairs got into disorder, and the later years of his life
were troubled by pecuniary difficulties.[21] His son says of him: "Of
all men living [he was] the justest, equallest, and most honest in his
dealings, [and] his humour was, rather than to break his word, to lose
all he had, and stand to his most undeliberate promises, what ever they
might cost; which too strict adherence to the austerest principles of
veracity, proved oftentimes dammageable to him in his negotiations with
many cunning sharks, who knew with what profitable odds they could scrue
themselves in upon the windings of so good a nature.... By the
unfaithfulnes, on the one side, of some of his menial servants, in
filching from him much of his personal estate, and falsehood of several
chamberlains and bayliffs to whom he had intrusted the managing of his
rents, in the unconscionable discharge of their receits, by giving up
one account thrice, and of such accounts many; and, on the other part,
by the frequency of disadvantagious bargains, which the slieness of the
subtil merchant did involve him in, his loss came unawares upon him, and
irresistibly, like an armed man; too great trust to the one, and
facility in behalf of the other, occasioning so grievous a misfortune,
which nevertheless did not proceed from want of knowledge or abilitie in
natural parts, for in the business of other men he would have given a
very sound advice, and was surpassing dextrous in arbitrements, upon
any reference submitted to him, but that hee thought it did derogate
from the nobility of his house and reputation of his person, to look to
petty things in matter of his own affairs."[22]
One of the ways in which the elder Sir Thomas succeeded in impoverishing
himself and his family was in becoming bail for people who absconded;
so, at least, we would infer from an entry in the Court-book of the
Burgh of Banff under date of 21st April, 1629, in which we find that
"Sir Thomas Urquhurt of Cromarty, having become caution for the
appearance of Alexander Forbes, merchant in Balvenye, alleged
forestaller, and the said Alexander not having appeared, Sir Thomas is
decerned to pay £40 Scots (£3, 6s. 8d. Sterling)."[23]
In 1637 we find that he was obliged to appeal to his sovereign against
the urgency of his creditors, and a Letter of Protection was issued in
his favour. It ran as follows: "Letter of Protection granted by King
Charles the First, under his great seal, to Sir Thomas Urquhart of
Cromarty, from all dilligence at the instance of his creditors, for the
space of one year, thereby giving him a _persona standi in judicio_,
notwithstanding he may be at the horn, and taking him under his royal
protection during the time. Dated at St James's, 20th March, 1637."[24]
A somewhat humorous situation is suggested by this document. The
creditors might "put him to the horn," _i.e._, according to the usual
legal form, order him in the king's name to pay his debts on penalty of
being outlawed as a traitor, while the king himself authorised him to
take no notice of the proceedings.
In the same year we have intimation of the elder Sir Thomas's pecuniary
misfortunes being aggravated by domestic strife, for we find him
instructing a high legal functionary to raise an action against his
sons, Thomas and Alexander, for their unfilial conduct. The charge was
that of "putting violent hands on the persone of the said Sir Thomas
Urquhart of Cromartie, Knycht, their father, taking him captive and
prissoner, and detening him in sure firmance within ane upper chalmer,
callit the Inner Dortour, within his place of Cromertie, _tanquam in
privato carcere_, fra the Mononday to the Fryday in the efter none
therefter, committit in the moneth of December last, 1636." The case
came up for trial before the Court of Justiciary on the 19th of July,
and was postponed for a week, when it was abandoned. The Lords of
Council had appointed a commission to settle all differences between the
father and sons and on receiving their report the Court dismissed the
case.[25] We have no particulars as to the causes of disagreement which
led to such all unhappy state of affairs, but we are not likely to be
far wrong in assuming that the sons wished to prevent their father's
taking some legal step which they considered would be detrimental to his
and their interests. The affectionate terms in which our author
describes his father's character ten years after his death, in the words
above quoted, make us sure that he sincerely regretted any wrong towards
him of which he may have been guilty at this time.
The old castle of Cromartie has now long disappeared, the stones of
which it was built having been used for the erection of a modern house
in 1772, after the estate had passed, by purchase, from the family of
Urquhart to Mr George Ross. It was a building of considerable antiquity.
In 1470 a royal grant was made by James III. to William Urquhart of the
Motehill, or Mount of Cromartie, with permission to erect on this a
tower or fortalice. Advantage was taken of this permission to fortify
the family mansion, and it was converted into a castle of considerable
strength.[26] Sir Thomas says of it: "The stance thereof is stately, and
the house it selfe of a notable good fabrick and contrivance."[27] An
interesting description of the building as it was just before its
demolition is given by Hugh Miller. "Directly behind the site of the old
town," he says, "the ground rises abruptly from the level to the height
of nearly a hundred feet, after which it forms a kind of table-land of
considerable extent, and then sweeps gently to the top of the hill. A
deep ravine, with a little stream running through it, intersects the
rising ground at nearly right angles with the front which it presents to
the houses; and on the eastern angle, towering over the ravine on the
one side, and the edge of the bank on the other, stood the old castle of
Cromarty. It was a massy, time-worn building, rising in some places to
the height of six storeys, battlemented at the top, and roofed with grey
stone. One immense turret jutted out from the corner, which occupied the
extreme point of the angle, and looking down from an altitude of at
least one hundred and sixty feet on the little stream, and the
struggling row of trees which sprung up at its edge, commanded both
sides of the declivity and the town below." Of the interior we are told
by the same writer, on the authority of an old woman who, as a child,
had lived in the castle, that "two threshers could have plied their
flails within the huge chimney of the kitchen; and that, in the great
hall, an immense, dark chamber, lined with oak, a party of a hundred men
had exercised at the pike."[28]
The elder Sir Thomas had also a winter residence in Banff.[29] In the
Court-book of the Burgh of Banff we have the following entry: "1630,
July 21st, Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie gave in ane Act of the
Session of Banff, geiveing licence to him to erect ane desk and loft in
the kirk of Banff (seeing he is both a parochiner and resident within
the said toun) for his accomodatione. The brethren gave their
approbatione with express provision that neither the edifice nor lichtes
of the said kirk suld be deteriorat."[30]
Beyond the bare fact of his having been a student in the University of
Aberdeen, we have no information concerning the manner in which the
earlier years of our author's life were passed, or the circumstances in
which he acquired the miscellaneous erudition which his writings
display. The only remark he makes about the education he received is to
the effect that his father laid out but a very insignificant portion of
his income upon this item of family expenses. Yet, however little the
expenditure may have been, Urquhart evidently profited fully by the
education which he had received, and attained to something more than a
gentlemanly acquaintance with some of the abstruser departments of
learning.
The special bent of his mind in early years, and his love for study
rather than sport, are shown in the following reminiscence of his youth,
which he narrates with his characteristic diffuseness. "There
happening," he says, "a gentleman of very good worth to stay awhile at
my house, who, one day amongst many other, was pleased, in the deadst
time of all the winter, with a gun upon his shoulder, to search for a
shot of some wild-fowl; and after he had waded through many waters,
taken excessive pains in quest of his game, and by means thereof had
killed some five or six moor fowls and partridges, which he brought
along with him to my house, he was by some other gentlemen, who chanced
to alight at my gate, as he entered in, very much commended for his love
to sport; and, as the fashion of most of our countrymen is, not to
praise one without dispraising another, I was highly blamed for not
giving my self in that kind to the same exercise, having before my eys
so commendable a pattern to imitate; I answered, though the gentleman
deserved praise for the evident proof he had given that day of his
inclination to thrift and laboriousness, that nevertheless I was not to
blame, seeing whilst he was busied about that sport, I was imployed in a
diversion of another nature, such as optical secrets, mysteries of
natural philosophie, reasons for the variety of colours, the finding out
of the longitude, the squaring of a circle, and wayes to accomplish all
trigonometrical calculations by sines, without tangents, with the same
compendiousness of computation,--which, in the estimation of learned
men, would be accounted worth six hundred thousand partridges, and as
many moor-fowles."
There can be little doubt that Sir Thomas had the best of the argument.
But he was not satisfied with this: for nothing less would content him
than vanquishing his opponent on his own ground, as well as with the
weapons of logic. With the same lordliness of temper which had led him
to re-capitulate the dignified subjects which had occupied his studious
mind--the squaring of the circle being but one of them--he chose the
breaking-in of a horse as a set-off against his friend's achievements of
the day before. The success of the scientific student and the
discomfiture of the mere sportsman are told in the conclusion of the
story. "In the mean while," he says, "that worthy gentleman, being wet
and weary after travel, was not able to eat of what he had so much
toyled for, whilst my braine recreations so sharpened my appetite, that
I supped to very good purpose. That night past, the next morning I gave
six pence to a footman of mine, to try his fortune with the gun, during
the time I should disport my self in the breaking of a young horse; and
it so fell out, that by [the time] I had given my selfe a good heat by
riding, the boy returned with a dozen of wild fouls, half moor foule,
half partridge, whereat being exceeding well pleased, I alighted, gave
him my horse to care for, and forthwith entred in to see my gentlemen,
the most especiall whereof was unable to rise out of his bed, by reason
of the Gout and Sciatick, wherewith he was seized for his former daye's
toyle."[31]
In the early years of his manhood, before our author felt himself
qualified to take part in public life, he spent some time in foreign
travel. The kind of figure cut by a young _English_ gentleman of that
period upon the Continent we know from the testimony of Portia, for it
can scarcely be that much change had taken place in the interval of a
generation, between her time and the end of the first quarter of the
seventeenth century. He was generally unversed in the languages of the
countries he visited, and, from his lack of Latin, French, or Italian,
was apt to fail in understanding the natives, or in making himself
understood by them. He might be handsome in figure, but conversation
with him was reduced to the level of a dumb-show. His dress was often
very odd, and his manners eccentric, as though he had bought his doublet
in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his
behaviour--everywhere. A strong contrast to him in the matter of
language was the young Scotchman of the period, if Sir Thomas Urquhart
is to be taken as at all an average specimen of his nation, and if his
account of himself can be relied upon. He says of himself that when he
travelled through France, Spain, and Italy, he spoke the languages to
such perfection that he might easily have passed himself off as a native
of any one of these countries. Some advised him to do so, but his
patriotic feelings were too strong to allow him to follow such a course:
"he plainly told them (without making bones thereof), that truly he
thought he had as much honour by his own country, which did contrevalue
the riches and fertility of those nations, by the valour, learning, and
honesty, wherein it did parallel, if not surpass them."[32]
It is somewhat difficult for the mind to grasp the idea of a Scotchman
in those days, when so many of the things which we now associate with
the nationality were not in existence--when his Church was Episcopalian
in constitution, the Shorter Catechism not yet written by Englishmen for
his use, Burns unborn, and distilled spirits not extensively used as a
beverage. We could scarcely even know him by his costume. For no
self-respecting representative of that country would assume the Highland
garb which so many Englishmen believe to be generally worn north of the
Tweed, if we are to credit the authoritative statement of Macaulay to
the effect that "before the Union it was considered by nine Scotchmen
out of ten as the dress of a thief."[33] The characteristics by which "a
Scot abroad" in those days was recognised, were, from some accounts,
not shrewdness in making bargains, economical habits, indomitable
perseverance, and unsleeping caution, but the pride and
high-spiritedness which made him keen in detecting and swift in avenging
slights that might be cast upon the country from which he came. So deep
was the impression made by these peculiarities upon foreign nations,
that they became proverbial. "He is a Scot, he has pepper in his
nose!"[34] said they, somewhat familiarly, yet with a touch of fear,
when they noticed the flashing eye, and the hand instinctively seeking
the sword-hilt. "High-spirited as a Scot!"[35] they exclaimed with
admiration, when among themselves some soul was moved to unwonted
courage. Such, at least, is the impression produced upon the mind by
some of those novels in which Scott and his imitators trace the
wanderings of their fellow-countrymen through European lands in those
earlier times. That there is some foundation of truth for the lofty
superstructure is rendered credible by the case of Sir Thomas Urquhart.
"My heart,"[36] he says, "gave me the courage for adventuring in a
forrain climat, thrice to enter the lists against men of three severall
nations, to vindicate my native country[37] from the calumnies wherewith
they had aspersed it; wherein it pleased God so to conduct my fortune,
that, after I had disarmed them, they in such sort acknowledged their
error, and the obligation they did owe me for sparing their lives, which
justly by the law of arms I might have taken, that, in lieu of three
enemies that formerly they were, I acquired three constant friends, both
to my selfe and my compatriots, whereof by severall gallant testimonies
they gave evident proofe, to the improvement of my country's credit in
many occasions."[38]
The fair critic, whose estimate of the young Englishman has been
referred to, gives her opinion also of his Scottish rival; but,
strangely enough, she observes in him qualities of a kind opposite to
those displayed by Sir Thomas Urquhart. She was struck by his
neighbourly charity, "for he borrowed a box of the ear of the
Englishman, and swore he would pay him back again when he was able."[39]
Can it be that the words put into her mouth are merely the ribald wit of
an envious Southron, or are we to understand that the spirit which
triumphed over so many inferiors was yet wise enough to discern when it
stood in the presence of a mightier than itself?
How a young man on his travels should occupy his time, had been laid
down in a little volume which had been published just before Urquhart
set out to see the world abroad. In this he might read a list of the
things which should engage his attention, drawn up in sonorous language
by no less a personage than a late Lord Chancellor of England--a man who
was ready to give advice to all his fellow-creatures in all conceivable
circumstances. "The things," says Lord Bacon, "to be seen and observed
are: the courts of princes, especially when they give audience to
ambassadors; the courts of justice, while they sit and hear causes; and
so of consistories ecclesiastic; the churches and monasteries, with the
monuments which are therein extant; the walls and fortifications of
cities and towns, and so the havens and harbours; antiquities and ruins;
libraries, colleges, disputations and lectures, where any are; shipping
and navies; house and gardens of state and pleasure near great cities;
armories, arsenals, magazines, exchanges, burses, warehouses; exercises
of horsemanship, fencing, training of soldiers, and the like; comedies,
such whereunto the better sort of persons do resort; treasuries of
jewels and robes, cabinets and rarities; and, to conclude, whatsoever is
memorable in the places where they go.... As for triumphs, masks,
feasts, weddings, funerals, capital executions, and such shows, men
need not be put in mind of them; yet they are not to be neglected."[40]
To what extent Urquhart followed a plan of this kind it is impossible to
say; for, though his writings are so discursive that we might expect to
find in them allusions to anything remarkable he had seen or heard, he
has very little to say about his foreign experiences. Dr Johnson spoke
with contempt of an English peer, who had extended his travels as far as
Egypt, but who had brought back only one small contribution to the
general stock of human information--the fact that he had seen "a large
serpent in one of the pyramids of Egypt." Urquhart was not quite so
poverty-stricken as this; for he seems to have observed examples of
mental infirmity, illustrations of which he might doubtless have found
nearer home.
"I saw at Madrid," he says, "a bald-pated fellow who beleeved he was
Julius Cæsar, and therefore went constantly on the streets with a laurel
crown on his head; and another at Toledo, who would not adventure to goe
abroad unlesse it were in a coach, chariot, or sedane, for fear the
heavens should fall down upon him. I likewise saw one in Saragosa, who,
imagining himself to be the lawfull King of Aragon, went no where
without a scepter in his hand; and another in the kingdome of Granada,
who beleeved he was the valiant Cid that conquered the Mores. At
Messina, in Sicilie, I also saw a man that conceived himself to be the
great Alexander of Macedone, and that in a ten years space he should be
master of all the territories which he subdued; but the best is, that
the better to resemble him he always held his neck awry, which naturally
was streight and upright enough; and another at Venice, who imagined he
was Soveraign of the whole Adriatick Sea, and sole owner of all the
ships that came from the Levante. Of men that fancied themselves to be
women, beasts, trees, stones, pitchers, glasse, angels, and of women
whose strained imaginations have falne upon the like extravagancies,
even in the midst of fire and the extremest pains fortune could inflict
upon them, there is such variety of examples, amongst which I have seen
some at Rome, Naples, Florence, Genua, Paris, and other eminent cities,
that to multiply any moe [more] words therein, were to load your ears
with old wives' tales, and the trivial tattle of idly imployed and
shallow braind humorists."[41]
He also tells, though not in the same connexion, of his having been
witness of the honour and admiration lavished upon one of his
fellow-countrymen, Dr Seaton, by the _élite_ of Parisian society. "I
have seen him," he says, "circled about at the Louvre with a ring of
French lords and gentlemen, who hearkned to his discourse with so great
attention, that none of them, so long as he was pleased to speak, would
offer to interrupt him, to the end that the pearles falling from his
mouth might be the more orderly congested in the several treasures of
their judgements."[42]
Part of his time abroad was devoted to the fascinating occupation of
book-hunting, and he had great pleasure in the spoils he had won. When
they were set in order on shelves in the library of the castle of
Cromartie, he looked on them with the joy which only book-collectors
know. "They were," he says, "like to a compleat nosegay of flowers,
which, in my travels, I had gathered out of the gardens of above sixteen
several kingdoms."[43]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _System of Heraldry_, ii, 274.
[2] Wyntown's narrative is as follows (quoted in Sir William Fraser's
_Earls of Cromartie_):--
"A nycht he thowcht in hys dreming,
Dat syttand he wes besyd þe Kyng
At a Sete in hwnting; swà
Intil his Leisch had Grewhundys twà.
He thowcht, quhile he wes swà syttand,
He sawe thre wemen by gangand;
And þai wemen þan thowcht he
Thre werd Systrys mást lyk to be.
De fyrst he hard say gangand by,
'Lo yhondyr þe Thayne of Crwmbawchty.'
De toyir woman sayd agayne,
'Of Morave yhondyre I se þe Thayne.'
De thryd þan sayd, 'I se þe Kyng.'
All þis he herd in hys dreming."
Wyntown's _Cronykil_, i. 225.
Wyntown's date is about A.D. 1395. Macbeth was killed at Lumphanan by
Macduff, 5th December A.D. 1056.
[3] A charter of lands in Cromartie granted by William de Monte Alto,
between 1252 and 1272, is still in existence. The granter of the
charter, having been owner of Cromartie, was claimed by Sir Thomas
Urquhart as one of his Urquhart ancestors, but with no better authority
than the earlier ancestors who figure in our author's _Pedigree_. See
_Earls of Cromartie_, by Sir William Fraser.
[4] It would seem from this that Urquhart was originally a place-name,
probably Gaelic. There were two parishes of Urquhart in the old province
of Moray--one with a priory near Elgin, and the other with a castle in
what is now Inverness-shire.
[5] "Tutor" here simply means "legal guardian"--for boys until fourteen
years of age, and for girls until twelve. After these ages and before
that of twenty-one such wards are in the charge of "Curators." Owing to
our author's having the same Christian name as his father, the mistake
is often made of asserting that John Urquhart was _his_ tutor.
[6] _Works_, p. 172. In a MS. volume of unpublished poems by Sir Thomas,
which is described on p. 116, there is the following:--"Upon the tutor
of Cromarty, my great-grandfather's younger brother, and my father's
tutor:
"The present tyme, the preterit, nor futur
T' ourselves, our fathers, nor posteritie,
Do now, have yet, nor will produce a tutor,
For's Pupils weil of more dexteritie,
For he left free th' estate he had in charge:
And by meer industrie did's own enlarge" (iii. 7).
We are sorry to quote a poem of Sir Thomas's at this early stage, before
the atmosphere has been created which is needed for perceiving and
appreciating its true value. The judicious reader will, however, return
to it with interest when that process has been completed.
[7] John Urquhart, "the Tutor of Cromartie," died in 1631, at the age of
eighty-four, and was buried in the old church of King-Edward,
Aberdeenshire, where there is a marble monument to his memory.
[8] _Works_, p. 340.
[9] Another erroneous date is in the edition of the _Tracts_ of 1774,
where 1613 is given as the year of our author's birth.
[10] This is now amongst the Gardenston papers, having been formerly in
the possession of Mr. Dunbar. All account of its contents is given in
_Antiquarian Notes_, by C. Fraser Mackintosh, p. 195. An independent
corroboration of the above date of the marriage is by a document now in
the Register House in Edinburgh (_Aberdeen Sasines_), in which Sir
Thomas Urquhart, senior, gives sasine of the barony of Fisherie to Lady
Christian Elphinstone. The "precept," or clause in the marriage-contract,
which directs the notary to give sasine of the estate settled on the
bride, is also dated the 9th of July, 1606, and in it she is described
as being _in suâ purâ virginitate_. Probably the marriage took place
either on that day or very soon afterwards. The bridegroom was just of
age, while Lady Christian was under sixteen, the date of her birth being
19th December, 1590 (_The Lords Elphinstone_, Fraser, i. 167).
The issue of this marriage were at least the following sons and
daughters:--(l) THOMAS; (2) Alexander; (3) George; (4) John; (5) [name
unknown]; (6) Henry; and (7) Jane, _m._ Sir Alexander Abercromby of
Birkenbog; (8) Helen, _m._ Sir James Gordon of Lesmoir; (9) Annas, _m._
Alexander Strachan of Glenkindie; (10) Margaret, _m._ John Irving of
Brucklay; (11) [name unknown], _m._ ---- Campbell of Calder.
[11] Fisherie is about six miles from Banff.
[12] It is quite possible, however, that, in the parish school of
King-Edward, our author could have got the rudiments of a classical
education. In 1649 (15th Nov.), Mr James Petrie, who was school-master
there, applied for the school of Banff and, as a test of his power, "was
ordeined to teache the sext satyr of Persius to-morrow in the school of
Banf be nyne hours in presence of the bailyies and others in the toune
who wer scholars." He passed through the test successfully, and was
appointed to the office (_Annals of Banff_, ii. 30, New Spalding Club).
[13] The entry of his name as a student on the roll is in the following
terms: "In Academiam regiam Aberdonensem recepti sunt adolescentes
quorum nomina sequuntur, præceptore Alexandro Lunano, Anno 1622.
. . .
Thomas Urquhardus de Cromartie.
. . .
_Fasti Aberdonenses, 1854._"
[14] _King's College: Officers and Graduates_, by P. J. Anderson, M.A.,
pp. 347, 348.
[15] An "eminent Yorkshire educationist" introduced the same rules into
the establishment under his charge. It is probable, however, that in Mr
Squeers's case the arrangement was the result of independent research
into methods of education, rather than a hint borrowed from Andrew
Melville. "No holidays--none of those ill-judged comings home twice a
year that unsettle children's minds so!" (_Nicholas Nickleby_, chap.
iv.).
It is only fair to say that there are doubts as to how far the
arrangements under the _Nova Fundatio_, as above described, were in
force in Sir Thomas Urquhart's student days. If the older system were
still in operation, the Alexander Lunan, who is mentioned as his
preceptor, would virtually have taught our author all the subjects
contained in the curriculum through which he passed. As there is no
proof that Alexander Lunan was another Admirable Crichton, the fact of
his doing so would strengthen what we have said above as to the
comparative slightness of the erudition imparted in a university
education in those days. Sir Thomas Urquhart speaks of having "learned
the elements of his philosophy" in the University of Aberdeen under
William Seaton (_Works_, p. 263). It has been suggested that it is an
error for John Seaton, and that it indicates that our author, like many
other students of King's College, took a session or two at Marischal
College (see Anderson's _Fasti Acad. Marisc._ ii. 34, 588).
[16] _Works_, p. 395.
[17] Dr Lesley was successively Humanist, Regent, Sub-Principal, and
Principal of King's College. In 1639 he was deprived of his office by
the Covenanting party.
[18] _Works_, p. 262.
[19] _Works_, p. 263. The editor of the _Book of Bon Accord_ gives a
lower estimate of Dr Guild's character: he says that his works are of no
literary merit, and that he got fame by his wealth and ostentatious
liberality. He was minister of King-Edward before he went to Aberdeen;
and his widow, Catharine Rolland, founded a bursary at the university
for young men belonging to that parish.
[20] _Ibid._ p. 263: see p. 11, note.
[21] Lord Elphinstone died 14th January, 1638. During the four preceding
years his son-in-law had "made ducks and drakes" of his ancestral
possessions. His portrait, which is still preserved at Carberry Tower,
is engraved in Sir William Fraser's work, _The Lords Elphinstone_. It
gives one the impression of a grave, melancholy man. He had fourteen
sons and five daughters. It is to be hoped that none of his sons and no
other of his sons-in-law had the faculty for getting into difficulties
which Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior, displayed.
[22] _Works_, p. 336.
[23] The offence of _forestalling_ consisted in buying merchandise,
victuals, etc., before they appeared in a fair or market-place for sale,
or in taking steps to raise the prices of such things, or in dissuading
anyone coming to market from carrying his goods thither. The amount of
fine for a first offence was, as above, £40 Scots (or £3, 6s. 8d.
Sterling); for a second offence, 100 merks (or £5, 11s., 1d. Sterling);
while for a third offence it was forfeiture of movable goods.
[24] M'Farlane's _Genealogical Collections_, ii. 283. MS. Advocates'
Library.
[25] Records of the Court of Justiciary.
[26] It was built in the old turreted style, and defended on the south
by a moat and high wall. When it was taken down, in the surrounding
ground were found human skeletons, and urns containing human remains,
both enclosed in graves made of flags (_Old Stat. Account_).
[27] _Works_, p. 312. "The situation appears in every view most
delightful" (Pococke's _Tour_, 1760).
[28] _Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland_, pp. 78, 80.
[29] This was a fortalice-tower, with gardens, orchards, dovecots, etc.,
in the south part of Banff, which afterwards came into the possession of
the Earl of Airlie. The bounds are thus described: "The common vennel at
the north, the loch called the Saltlochs at the east, the lands called
Little Guishauch at the south, and the road to Overak at the west."
Shortly before its demolition it was the headquarters of the Duke of
Cumberland's army on its passage to Culloden. Besides this house and the
castle of Cromartie, the Urquharts occasionally occupied their
mansion-house of Fisherie. This stood a few yards to the south-west of
the present farmhouse of Mains of Fisherie. It was taken down some sixty
years ago. Some old trees still stand near the site of the house and
garden.
[30] _Annals of Banff_ (New Spalding Club), ii. 28. The old church in
which Sir Thomas had a "desk" or pew, and a "loft" or small gallery, is
now in ruins. Only the south transept is standing. In the parish church
of King-Edward, Aberdeenshire, the handsome silver communion cups bear
an inscription to the effect that they were a joint present from Dr
William Guild, the then incumbent of the parish, Sir Thomas Urquhart,
and his uncle John Urquhart of Craigfintray. That the Sir Thomas
Urquhart here named is not our author but his father, is evident from
the date of the incumbency of his fellow-donor, Dr Guild, who was
minister of King-Edward from 1608 to 1631. The cups bear date of 1619.
[31] _Works_, p. 331.
[32] _Works_, p. 272.
[33] _History of England_, chap. xiii.
[34] "_Scotus est, piper in naso_," Mediæval proverb.
[35] "_Fier comme un Ecossais_," French proverb.
[36] It may be as well to warn our readers at this point that Sir Thomas
Urquhart's vanity, or what would be called vanity in any other man, was
unbounded. So calm and unconscious is it, that it often seems to betray
a disordered mind. Those who seek in his estimates of himself for
illustrations of the grace of humility will seek in vain. They may,
however, find other things, which, if not so edifying, are far more
amusing.
[37] The reader who has sufficient curiosity and leisure may compare
with the above the account which his contemporary, Lord Herbert of
Cherbury (1581-1648), gives of his duels in his _Autobiography_. That
nobleman was a kind of Sir Thomas Urquhart in water-colour, and his
single combats are surrounded with a proportionately milder glow of
romance. Indeed, they seem to have been generally undertaken in order to
compel impudent young men to give back pieces of riband to charming
young ladies from whom they had snatched them.
[38] _Works_, p. 311.
[39] _Merchant of Venice_, Act I. Scene ii.
[40] _Essays, Civil and Moral_, xviii.
[41] _Works_, p. 364.
[42] _Ibid._ p. 256.
[43] _Works_, p. 402.
CHAPTER II
Recalled Home--The Covenanting Movement--The Trot of Turriff--Our
Author escapes to England--Is Knighted--Publishes his
_Epigrams_--His Father's Embarrassments increase--Lesley of
Findrassie--Death of Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior--Our Author
struggles in vain to keep his Creditors at bay--Other Wrongs and
Losses--On bad Terms with the Church.
While Urquhart was engaged in foreign travel, the ecclesiastical and
political controversies in Scotland came to such a height, that it was
evident that matters could only be settled by an appeal to the sword,
and, accordingly, he returned home to assist the party to which his
family adhered. He, doubtless, like Milton, considered it disgraceful
that, while his fellow-countrymen were fighting at home for liberty, he
should be travelling abroad for amusement and intellectual culture. His
father, who had been the first of the Urquharts to give up Roman
Catholicism for Protestantism, took the unpopular side in the conflict
that agitated the Church of Scotland. He was a staunch Episcopalian, and
refused to accept the National Covenant, when those who had voluntarily
and enthusiastically entered into it attempted to coerce others into
following their example, and so turned it into an instrument of tyranny.
The determined efforts of Charles I. and his advisers to make the Church
of Scotland in all respects like the Church of England, were fiercely
opposed, and, for a time, the party which was resolved to make them as
dissimilar as possible prevailed. Episcopacy, liturgy, ancient
ecclesiastical customs and rites, and all that savoured of Prelacy or
Popery, were swept away by the rising flood. Yet, without committing
oneself to the doctrine of passive obedience, it may be doubted whether
the course of policy followed by the Covenanters was either wise or
scriptural. For, notwithstanding the vehement protestations of loyalty
expressed in the National Covenant, armed resistance to the royal
authority was not obscurely hinted at in it. "We," said the subscribers,
"promise and swear by the great name of the Lord our God to continue in
the profession and obedience of the said religion; and that we shall
defend the same, and resist all those contrary errors and corruptions,
according to our vocation, and to the utmost of that power which God
hath put into our hands, all the days of our life." It is quite
possible, it may be hoped, for one to be in sympathy with a certain
political party, and yet to regret that the Church should identify
itself with that party; and it certainly was not in the end a good thing
for the cause of religion that it should have been so closely allied as
it was with party politics in the seventeenth century. "My kingdom is
not of this world," said Christ; "if My kingdom were of this world, then
would My servants fight." "Put up again thy sword into his place," He
said to St Peter, "for all they that take the sword, shall perish with
the sword." It is difficult to see how these clear and emphatic
utterances can be made to harmonise with the resolution not only to use
force in the correction of ecclesiastical abuses and religious errors,
but also to coerce those who were not prepared to follow the same course
of policy.[44]
The Covenanting party were successful beyond their hopes. The influence
of the Marquis of Argyle secured the allegiance to the cause of the
Highlanders in the west of Scotland; while, in Inverness and the region
north of the Moray Firth, the movement was enthusiastically welcomed.
Only one district in Scotland held aloof--that of which Aberdeen was the
centre. The community there had probably but little sympathy with the
innovations which Laud was bent upon bringing in, but they had still
less with the Covenant. They were attached to the modified form of
Episcopacy which had now existed in Scotland since the Reformation
(with the exception of the years between 1592 and 1610), in which the
bishops were little more than permanent moderators of Presbyteries, and
were subject to the General Assembly, and in which the ritual was of a
very simple character.
As a University and Cathedral city, and the residence of a large number
of wealthy landed proprietors, Aberdeen occupied a position of great
importance in Scotland, and was by no means under the command of the
capital. The heads of the Covenanting party very speedily found it
necessary to take steps for bringing this corner of the kingdom into
subjection to themselves. They could scarcely hope to succeed in
overcoming the powerful forces at the command of the English Government,
if they were to allow this enemy to remain undisturbed in their rear.
Accordingly, at a very early stage in the proceedings, they attempted to
gain over to their side the great territorial magnate of the district,
the Marquis of Huntly, who, from his rank and wealth and hereditary
loyalty to the throne, was likely to be the leader of the King's party
in the North. Had they succeeded, they would virtually have had the
whole country at their back, for the community of Aberdeen, and the few
neighbouring lairds, who, like Sir Thomas Urquhart, refused to accept
the Covenant, would not have dared to resist the national policy by
force of arms. In the negotiations between the Covenanting leaders and
the Marquis of Huntly, we have an illustration of the very muddy roads
along which religion is dragged, when it forms an alliance with a
political party. It is certainly with somewhat of a shock that one who
is under the impression that all the Covenanters were saints of a very
spiritually-minded type, learns of the grim option which they offered to
their possible opponent. Colonel Robert Munro, who had seen service in
Germany, was appointed to wait upon the Marquis at Strathbogie, and to
acquaint him with the resolutions to which the Covenanters had come.
"The sum of his commission to Huntly was," we are told, "that the
noblemen Covenanters were desirous that he should join with them in the
common cause; that, if he would do so, and take the Covenant, they would
give him the first place, and make him leader of their forces; and,
further, they would make his state and his fortunes greater than ever
they were; and, moreover, they should pay off and discharge all his
debts, which they knew to be about one hundred thousand pounds sterling;
that their forces and associates were a hundred to one [in comparison]
with the king; and, therefore, it was to no purpose to him to take up
arms against them, for if he refused this offer and declared against
them, they should find means to disable him for to help the king; and,
moreover, they knew how to undo him, and bade him to expect that they
will ruinate his family and estates." The hands were, perhaps, the hands
of Christian, the voice was certainly the voice of Mr Worldly Wiseman!
The reply of the Marquis was admirable for the spirit of generosity and
chivalry which it breathed. "To this proposition," we are told, "Huntly
gave a short and resolute repartee, that his family had risen and stood
by the kings of Scotland; and for his part, if the event proved the ruin
of this king, he was resolved to lay his life, honours, and estate under
the rubbish of the king's ruins."[45]
Though Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior, was a staunch Episcopalian and a
devoted Royalist, the circumstances in which he was placed forbade his
aiding the ecclesiastical and political causes which were dear to him
with more than good wishes. He was surrounded by neighbours of the
opposite party,[46] and isolated from those with whom he would gladly
have co-operated. Consequently, it remained for his eldest son, our
author, who apparently was residing at that time at Balquholly Castle,
in Aberdeenshire, where the adherents of the Royalist cause were
numerous, to play a more heroic part.
Between the date of the signing of the Covenant and that of the meeting
of the General Assembly in Glasgow in 1638, The Tables, for such was the
name by which the executive government established by the revolutionary
party was designated, decided to subdue the city of Aberdeen and the
neighbouring country, and to compel the people there to accept the
Covenant. Before resorting to force, however, an attempt was made to
persuade. A committee of three eminent clergymen, Henderson, Dickson,
and Cant, with the Earl of Montrose as president, was sent north to deal
with the somewhat unimpressible Aberdonians. The hospitable corporation
of the northern city invited the visitors to a banquet of wine, but
their invitation was scornfully declined. The deputation "would drink
with none till first the Covenant was subscribed." Such incivility was
new in the history of the city, and a very satisfactory rebuke was given
to it by the materials for the proposed banquet being distributed among
the poor. It can be easily imagined that after this unsatisfactory
beginning the sermons delivered by the clerical deputation fell upon
unsympathetic ears, and made but few converts. "The commissioners had
one powerful ally in the town, in the person of Earl Marischal, the son
of the founder of the College, who had died in 1623; and, when they were
refused licence to preach in the city churches, they adjourned to his
residence at the north end of what is now Marischal Street. The mansion
consisted of several buildings with galleries surrounding a courtyard,
and from these galleries the three Covenanting ministers held forth from
eight o'clock in the morning till four in the afternoon, trying to
convince the people of the truth of the Covenant. The children of
granite, however, proved absolutely impervious to the 'apostles,' whom
they scornfully pelted with mud."[47]
A paper-war, which attracted considerable notice, sprang up between the
commissioners and six of the Aberdeen clergy--popularly designated in
contemporary literature as "the Aberdeen Doctors."[48] In this warfare
the representatives of the Covenanting party came off rather badly. "The
position taken by the Doctors," says John Hill Burton, "is the
unassailable one of the dry sarcastic negative. Whatever the Covenant
might be--good or bad--and whatever right its approvers had to bind
themselves to it, how were they entitled to force it on those who
desired it not? And when their adversaries became eloquent on its
conformity to Scripture and the privileges of the Christian Church, the
Doctors ever went back to the same negative position--even if it were
so, which we do not admit, yet why force it upon us?"[49]
Early in the following year, 1639, The Tables resolved to suppress the
northern Malignants, as they were called, before preparing to enter on a
campaign against their enemy in the south, and thus save themselves
from the dangers involved in having an enemy in their rear. The Earl of
Montrose went north at the head of a considerable body of troops, and
took possession of Aberdeen. The opponents of the Covenant fled from the
city, and Huntly, the leader of the Royalists, felt unable to offer
effective resistance. In spite of a safe-conduct granted him by Montrose
on his coming in to a conference, he was taken prisoner to Edinburgh and
lodged in the Castle.
This kidnapping of the Royalist chief caused great irritation; and upon
a rumour of the fleet's coming to the Firth of Forth, and of the Royal
army's approach to the Scottish border, the northern Royalists, of whom
our Sir Thomas Urquhart was one, resolved to take arms on the King's
side. The first mention of our author in history is in connexion with
this rising; and the annalist Spalding relates two exciting incidents
that occurred in one week, in both of which he took part.
The first, which happened on Friday, the 10th of May, was an attempt
made by him and some of the other Royalist lairds or "barons," as they
are called,[50] to take the castle of Towie-Barclay,[51] in
Aberdeenshire. It seems that the lairds of Delgatie and Towie-Barclay
had plundered the house of Balquholly,[52] which was occupied by our
author, and carried off a large supply of "muskets, guns, and
carabines." Sir Thomas was not a man to submit quietly to such an
outrage as this; and, doubtless, to his desire for vengeance was added a
strong wish to get possession of the firearms, now that there was a good
cause to be defended and brave men to use the weapons. They had intended
to surprise the castle, but when they came to it they found the gates
shut, and the place strongly guarded. Lord Fraser and the eldest son of
Lord Forbes had already known that an attempt was to be made to recover
the weapons, and had manned the castle so effectually that the idea of
storming it was out of the question. A few shots were exchanged, and
then the attacking party rode away. The only casualty was the death of a
David Prott, who was a servant of the laird of Gight,[53] one of
Urquhart's friends. "This," the historian remarks, "was the first time
that blood was drawn here since the beginning of the Covenant."[54]
Four days after, a more serious encounter took place between the two
forces. The Covenanters of the north had decided to assemble in force,
and fixed upon Turriff, in Aberdeenshire, as their headquarters. The
Royalists drew to a head at Strathbogie, some eleven miles off, and
resolved to disperse their opponents. The Covenanting party was about
twelve hundred strong, and the Royalists about eight hundred, but the
latter had four brass cannon, which very materially strengthened them as
an attacking force. They were under the leadership of skilful officers,
among whom Arthur Forbes of Blacktown [in King-Edward] is specially
mentioned. Sir Thomas himself informs us that, "having obtained, though
with a great deal of pain, a fifteen hundreth [hundred] subscriptions to
a bond conceived and drawn up in opposition of the vulgar [popular]
Covenant, he selected from amongst them so many as he thought fittest
for holding hand to [taking in hand] the dissolving of their committees
and unlawful meetings."[55]
About ten o'clock on the night of Monday, the 13th of May, they started
for Turriff, marching in a "very quiet and sober manner," and by
daybreak managed to steal upon the village by an unguarded path. The
sound of trumpets and of drums aroused the unsuspecting Covenanters to
the fact that they had been fairly surprised. "Some were sleeping,
others drinking, and smoaking tobacco, others walking up and down." A
few volleys of musketry, and a few shots discharged from the cannon,
served to disperse them, and the village was taken possession of by the
attacking force. It was but a slight skirmish,[56] in which three men
were killed, two of the Covenanters, and one of the Royalists; but it
was the first of the battles in the great Civil War, which raged for so
many years, and deluged with blood so many fruitful plains in each of
the three kingdoms. On this account "the Trot of Turriff," as it was
called, should not be forgotten.
After this victory, the Royalists being masters of the village, the
common soldiers, who were hungry after their night's march, plundered
the houses of those they thought were Covenanters, and supplied
themselves with meat and drink. The greatest loss fell upon the
minister, Mr Mitchell, who, however, received very liberal compensation
from Parliament in the following year. They next gathered as many of the
inhabitants of Turriff together as they could find, and made them accept
and subscribe the King's Covenant.[57] This device for securing
adherents was, however, ineffectual, for, a few weeks later, those who
had sworn to the King's Covenant, on a declaration that they had acted
under compulsion, were solemnly absolved by their minister from all
obligation to keep it.
The Royalist leaders now began to think of further projects, as the
number of their followers increased after the victory at Turriff. They
lost no time in marching upon Aberdeen, and in quartering themselves
upon its inhabitants, especially upon those who were known to belong to
the Covenanting party. In a few days, however, they found their position
untenable. A considerable number of their Highland forces disbanded, and
marched away to their homes, plundering as they went--"a thing," the
historian remarks, "verye usuall with them." The others retreated from
Aberdeen, when the Covenanting army under the Earl Marischal entered the
city, on the 23rd of May, 1639.
A small number of prominent Royalists,[58] of whom our Sir Thomas was
one, now resolved to leave Scotland, where the cause to which they were
devoted was at such a low ebb. A ship, belonging to one Andrew Findlay,
had been kept in readiness for an emergency like this, and on it they
embarked hastily, and sailed away to England, to offer their services to
Charles I. "Urquhart," says Dr Irving, "who professes to have launched
forth in the view of six hundred of his enemies, was, within two days,
landed at Berwick, where he found the Marquis of Hamilton, and delivered
to him a letter from the leaders of the northern Royalists. He had
likewise undertaken to be the bearer of despatches to the King,
containing the signatures of the same chieftains; and, having proceeded
to the royal quarters, he obtained an audience of His Majesty, and
explained to him their past exertions and future plans for his service.
He appears to have been satisfied with his own reception, and the
written answer 'gave great contentment to all the gentlemen of the north
that stood for the king.'"[59]
In one of our author's tracts, published in 1652, we have a pedigree of
the family of Urquhart. Under his own name he states that "he was
knighted by King Charles, in Whitehall Gallery, in the yeer 1641, the 7
of April." In the same year he first made his appearance as an author in
the publication of his three books of _Epigrams, Moral and Divine_, of
which a fuller notice will be found in a later chapter. Let us now for a
little leave Sir Thomas, happy in his sovereign's favour, his head
encircled with the ivy-wreath that clothes the brows of learned poets,
and his eye fixed upon a prominent crag of Mount Parnassus as henceforth
specially his own, and turn to his father, whose golden dreams have long
since fled away, and left him but the dreariest and shabbiest prose.
For thirty-six years the elder Sir Thomas had been in possession of the
ample estates of the house of Urquhart, and during nearly the whole of
this time the country had been at peace, so that he had no one but
himself to blame for the impoverished condition in which they were when
his son received them. The latter described the state of matters in the
following terms: "All he bequeathed unto me, his eldest Son, in matter
of worldly means, was twelve or thirteen thousand pounds sterling of
debt, five brethren all men, and two sisters almost mariageable, to
provide for, and lesse to defray all this burden with by six hundred
pounds sterling a year, although [_i.e._ even if] the warres had not
prejudiced me in a farthing, then [than] what for the maintaining of
himself alone in a peaceable age he inherited for nothing."[60]
So exasperated was the old man by the importunity of his creditors, that
at last, we are told, the sound of one of their voices was in his ears
as "the hissing of a basilisk." The great Civil war itself, which
brought calamity and grief to so many homes, was almost welcomed by him
for the relief it brought him from the "hornings" and "apprisings," and
other legal processes, which threatened him in times of peace. "The
disorderly troubles of the land," says his son of him, "being then far
advanced, though otherways he disliked them, were a kind of refreshment
to him, and intermitting relaxation from a more stinging disquietnesse.
For that our intestin troubles and distempers, by silencing the laws
for a while, gave some repose to those that longed for a breathing time,
and by hudling up the terms of Whitsuntide and Martimass, which in
Scotland are the destinated times for payment of debts, promiscuously
with the other seasons of the year, were as an oxymel julip wherewith to
indormiat them in a bitter sweet security."[61]
The most importunate of all the creditors, or, as Urquhart describes
them, "the usurious cormorants," who harassed the unhappy proprietor of
Cromartie, was a certain Robert Lesley of Findrassie. He held a mortgage
upon the estate, and though he was indebted to its owner for many acts
of kindness, he had been the first to foreclose upon the property, and
had persuaded other creditors to join with him in taking this step. The
annoyance and mortification caused by these proceedings hastened Sir
Thomas's death. Two days before that event, animated by regret for the
wrong he had done his heir by the impoverishment of the family property,
he assembled his younger children, and bound them, "under pain of his
everlasting curse and execration," to do all in their power to help
their elder brother. The terms of this extraordinary bond, his son tells
us, were these: "to assist, concur with, follow, and serve me, to the
utmost of their power, industry, and means, and to spare neither charge
nor travel, though it should cost them all they had, to release me from
the undeserved bondage of the domineering creditor, and extricate my
lands from the impestrements wherein they were involved; yea, to bestow
nothing of their owne upon no other use, till that should be done; and
all this under their own handwriting, secured with the clause of
registration to make the opprobrie the more notorious in case of
failing, as the paper itself, which I have _in retentis_, together with
another signed to the same sense, by my mother, and also my brothers and
sisters, Dunbugur [Dunlugas][62] only excepted, will more evidently
testifie."[63] Sir Thomas Urquhart, the elder, died in April [?], 1642,
after a long and lingering illness.[64]
Our author now returned home to enter on possession of his estates, and
to attempt to reduce to something like order the chaos in which the
family affairs were. He resolved to commit the management of his
property to trustees, who, after paying his mother's jointure, were to
devote the whole of the rest of the rents to the reduction of debt. He
himself went to live on the Continent, in the hope that in a few years
he would be able to return home and enjoy his inheritance unencumbered
by debt. These proceedings, with the disappointing results that followed
them, are related in a passage of his _Logopandecteision_, which is
worth quoting. "Immediately after my father's decease," he says, "for my
better expedition in the discharge of those burthens, having repaired
homewards, I did sequestrate the whole rent (my mother's joynture
excepted) to that use only, and, as I had done many times before, betook
myself to my hazards abroad, that by vertue of the industry and
diligence of those whom, by the advise and deliberation of my nearest
friends, I was induced to intrust with my affairs, the debt might be the
sooner defrayed, and the ancient house releeved out of the thraldome it
was so unluckily faln into. But it fell out so far otherwayes, that
after some few years residence abroad, without any considerable expence
from home, when I thought, because of my having mortified and set apart
all the rent to no other end then [than] the cutting off and defalking
of my father's debt, that accordingly a great part of my father's debt
had been discharged, I was so far disappointed of my expectation therin,
that whilst, conform to the confidence reposed in him whom I had
intrusted with my affairs, I hoped to have been exonered and relieved of
many creditors, the debt was only past over and transferred from one in
favours of another, or rather of many in the favours of one, who, though
he formerly had gained much at my father's hands, was notwithstanding at
the time of his decease none of his creditors, nor at any time mine; my
Egyptian bondage by such means remaining still the same, under task
masters different only in name, and the rents neverthelesse taken up to
the full, to my no small detriment and prejudice of the house standing
in my person. The aime of some of those I concredited [committed] my
weightiest adoes [affairs] unto, being, as is most conspicuously
apparent, that I should never reap the fruition nor enjoyment of any
portion, parcell, or pendicle of the estate of my predecessors, unlesse
by my fortune and endeavours in forrain countries, I should be able to
acquire as much as might suffice to buy it, as we say, out of the
ground. And verily," he concludes, "though not in relation to these
ignoble and unworthy by-ends, it was my purpose and resolution to have
done so, which assuredly, had not the turbulent divisions of the time
been such as to have crossed and thwarted the atchievements of more
faisible projects, I would have accomplished two or three severall ways
ere now."[65]
One is inclined to wonder what the two or three lucrative undertakings
were, which this Highland gentleman had in view when he spoke in this
way of the practicability of making enough money to purchase back his
estates. "What song the syrens sang," says Sir Thomas Browne, "or what
name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling
questions are not beyond all conjecture." But even as wise a man as Sir
Thomas Browne might well pause before venturing on a conjecture in
connection with this matter.
In one of the official records of the time,[66] there is an entry which
shows that Urquhart was resident in London in 1644. On the 9th May of
that year he is assessed for a forced loan at £1000; and, on the 16th of
the same month, there is an order for him to be brought up in custody to
pay his assessment; while, on the 21st, it is noted that his assessment
is "respited till he shall speak with the Scottish committee and take
further orders, be engaging to appear whenever required." He no doubt
proved to the committee that he had no property in London, but was only
a sojourner there, and was accordingly virtually discharged. His place
of residence in London at this time was Clare Street,[67] then newly
erected upon St Clement's Inn Fields, on the east side of Drury Lane,
and called after John Holles,[68] second Earl of Clare, whose town-house
was near by.
Sir Thomas Urquhart now resolved to take the management of his own
affairs, and, if possible, so to conduct matters as to secure
subsistence for himself, as well as satisfaction for his father's
creditors; and, in the year 1645, he went to live in the ancestral home
at Cromartie. His rental still amounted to £1000 Sterling a year, which
represents about £7000 in our time, but a debt of twelve or thirteen
years' income was a very serious burden upon such an estate.
There can be little doubt that the entanglement in which the financial
affairs of the house of Urquhart were involved became none the less
confused and confusing when the gallant knight applied himself to
unravel it. That was scarcely a task for which he was fitted. Much more
appropriate would it have been for him to draw the sword, like
Alexander, and cut the Gordian knot. Perhaps his failure, as in another
well-known case,[69] is partly to be attributed to his not having had a
legal adviser, familiar with the intricacies of the law, and able to
prevent his creditors getting more than their pound of flesh, if not to
save even that from them. Charles I. once said that he knew as much law
as a gentleman ought to know. Sir Thomas Urquhart seems to have had a
somewhat similar acquaintance with the same subject, and this, like that
of the person mentioned in the footnote on the preceding page, was
probably acquired "as a defendant on civil process." There can be no
doubt that he "made an effort" more than once. In vain did he have
recourse to "pecunial charms, and holy water out of Plutus' cellar."[70]
The charms were indeed potent, but they were not applied long enough;
the holy water was composed of the right ingredients, but there was too
little of it in the cellars at Cromartie. He could not, with all his
struggles, succeed in curing what the Limousin scholar in Rabelais calls
"the penury of pecune in the marsupie" [_i.e._ the want of money in the
purse]--that complaint which is so mortifying to the pride of any
gentleman, but which is specially exasperating to a Highland gentleman.
His cares and distresses, or, as he calls them, his "solicitudinary and
luctiferous discouragements," were enough "to appall the most undaunted
spirits, and kill a very Paphlagonian partridge, that is said to have
two hearts."[71]
Probably Sir Thomas Urquhart was harshly dealt with by his father's
creditors, though, of course, it is possible that in the story as told
by them they would appear in a more favourable light. They had to do
with a man who was unpractical and fantastical in the highest degree,
and morbidly sensitive in all matters that seemed to lower his dignity
or to cast a slur upon his honour. His brains seethed with plans for the
improvement of agriculture, trade, and education, but none of these did
the importunity of his creditors permit him to carry into effect. "Truly
I may say," he complains, "that above ten thousand severall times I have
by these flagitators been interrupted for money, which never came to my
use, directly or indirectly one way or other, at home or abroad, any one
time whereof I was busied about speculations of greater consequence then
[than] all that they were worth in the world; from which, had I not been
violently pluck'd away by their importunity, I would have emitted to
publick view above five hundred several treatises on inventions never
hitherto thought upon by any."[72] Before his imagination there floated
the dream of what he might have been, and his mind alternated between
passionate remonstrances against his unfortunate circumstances and
delusive hopes and anticipations.
The editor of the Maitland Club edition of Urquhart's works truly
remarks that there is a melancholy earnestness, almost approaching
insanity, in his wild speculations on what he might have done for
himself and his country but for the weight of worldly incumbrances.
"Even so," he says, "may it be said of myself, that when I was most
seriously imbusied about the raising of my own and countrie's reputation
to the supremest reach of my endeavours, then did my father's creditors,
like so many millstones hanging at my heels, pull down the vigour of my
fancie, and violently hold that under, what [which] other wayes would
have ascended above the sublimest regions of vulgar conception."[73]
So convinced was he that the schemes and inventions with which his
thoughts were occupied were of immense value, that he declared that he
ought to have the benefit of that Act of James III. (36th statute of his
fifth Parliament) which provides that the debtor's movable goods be
first "valued and discussed before his lands be apprised." He claimed
this as a right from the State; "and if," he says, "conform to the
aforesaid Act, this be granted, I doe promise shortly to display before
the world, ware of greater value then [than] ever from the East Indias
was brought in ships to Europe."[74] But unfortunately the Philistines
were too strong for him.
To these pecuniary difficulties were added annoyances and wrongs, which
the meekest of mankind, among whom Sir Thomas is not to be reckoned,
would have found it hard to bear.
Mention has already been made of Robert Lesley of Findrassie, the most
relentless of all the creditors, who, according to Sir Thomas
Urquhart's account of matters, made life bitter for him, and defeated
his many schemes for the benefit of the human race. The injurious
proceedings of this man form a subject which our author can never leave
for any length of time, and to which it is necessary for his biographer
to revert occasionally. His unfortunate debtor found a certain grim
satisfaction, as well as an opportunity for gratifying his taste for
genealogical research, in tracing Robert's descent from a celebrated
murderer--that Norman Lesley whose hands were dipped in the blood of
Cardinal Beaton. It is certain, however, that there was no real
foundation for this opinion.[75]
Unless Robert Lesley is a much-maligned man, his conduct towards the son
of his patron was both rapacious and ungrateful. On one occasion at
least he acted in a very high-handed manner. "With all the horse and
foot he was able to command," says Sir Thomas, "he came in a hostile
manner to take possession of a farm of mine called Ardoch; unto which
... he had no more just title then [than] to the town of Jericho
mentioned in the Scriptures; and at the offer of such an indignity to
our house, some of the hot-spirited gentlemen of our name would even
then have taken him, with his three sons, bound them hand and foot, and
thrown them within the flood-mark, into a place called the Yares of
Udol, there to expect the coming of the sea in a full tide, to carry him
along to be seized in a soil of a greater depth, and abler to restrain
the insatiableness of his immense desires, then [than] any of my lands
within the shire of Cromartie." Sir Thomas, according to his own
account, hindered the perpetration of this violence, and gave his enemy
and those who accompanied him "a pass and safe-conduct to their own
houses."[76]
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 passage in the _Logopandecteision_, our author gives us a
specimen of the peculiarities of speech which distinguished his
arch-enemy, Lesley of Findrassie. 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 passed 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 multitude 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 petition 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 incumbents 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 passage 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
clusters 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 passion, 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, vassals 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 incumbent 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, kakou korakost
kakon oon [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 godliness 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 passage 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 title."[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 God 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
class of minds, it is hard to conceive of their being associated 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 attitude 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 Assembly 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
Assembly the guilt of cherishing "dangerous opinions" was as great as
that of rekindling the flames of civil war, if, indeed, it did not
surpass 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 principal 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, Principal 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 Michell,
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 Assembly 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 Bellenden, 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 cluster of narrow, dirty streets and
passages, 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 Saturday 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 titles of their
founders--Clare Street, Denzil Street, and Holles Street. Clare Street
is somewhat rich in interesting associations. 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 pass 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 apron, which he was wearing
when captured at Finchley. Here was Johnson's Hotel, celebrated for
upwards of seventy years for its _à 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 Findrassie themselves claimed to be
descended from Robert, the fourth son of Earl George. See _Scotch
Peerage Law_, by J. Riddell, p. 190.
[76] _Works_, p. 379.
[77] _Ibid._ p. 380.
[78] One of these volumes containing the signature of our author is
still in existence. It is a copy of Arthur Johnston's Latin poems,
printed at Aberdeen by Raban, 1632, and is in the possession of the Rev.
J. B. Craven, Kirkwall. It is a very fragile volume. The signature in
this volume, and two others, attached to legal documents, are all that
are known to be extant. We give a fac-simile of one of the latter on p.
iv.
[79] "_Apprizing_" is a legal process to which Sir Thomas several times
refers with great horror, and it may be as well to explain to our
readers what it was, for fortunately it is now a thing of the past. It
was for long the only method of attaching a debtor's heritable property.
By the Act, 1469, c. 36, when payment of a debt could not be obtained
out of the debtor's movables (including rent), "the King's letters might
be obtained, under which a debtor's land might be sold by the Sheriff to
the amount of his debts, and the creditor paid out of the proceeds. If
within six months no purchaser could be found, a portion of the land
equal to the debt was to be apprised by thirteen men chosen by the
sheriff, and the portion apprised by them was to be made over to the
creditor." The debtor could redeem within seven years. This procedure at
first took place in the head burgh of the shire, where the jury probably
knew enough to make a fair valuation of the land. But after a time the
proceedings often took place in Edinburgh, where the jury had no special
knowledge, and might be packed by the creditor. So that large estates
were sometimes carried off in payment of trifling debts. The appriser at
once entered into possession, and was not obliged to account for the
rents (until 1631, c. 6). It was thus a powerful engine of oppression.
If A. wished B.'s land, and B. owned land and nothing else, it was
possible for A., if he could only get B. as his debtor even in a small
sum, so to work matters that for the debt he might apprise all B's land.
Being then in right of B.'s rents, he had B. completely in his power,
and B. had no resources for gathering together the amount of the debt
which he must pay in order to redeem his lands within the seven years
allowed. The law was much relaxed by the Act, 1621, c. 6, but the above
will enable us to understand how an unscrupulous creditor might get an
easy-going, thriftless man into his clutches, and impoverish him and his
family.
[80] _Works_, p. 382. The evident meaning of the last sentence is that
Lesley's ways were so dark that it was highly necessary for him often to
ask, "See ye?" Yet one cannot help feeling that this relentless creditor
may not have been solely animated by malignant hatred of his debtor.
Even in the above speech there seem to be claims which cannot be lightly
brushed aside. One is again reminded of Mr Micawber, and of the sudden
and unexpected glimpse of a better nature in his most truculent
creditor, which was vouchsafed him when he got his discharge in
bankruptcy. "Even the revengeful bootmaker," we are told, "declared in
open court that he bore him [Mr M.] no malice, but that when money was
owing to him he liked to be paid. He said he thought it was human
nature" (_David Copperfield_, chap. xii.). An eminent American
philosopher has said that there is a great deal of human nature in man.
There seems at any rate to have been a great deal in Mr Lesley of
Findrassie.
[81] In one of his queer _Epigrams_, after comparing the insatiable
demands of his creditors to those of the grave and of the sea, he closes
with the following alliterative litany:
"Free me from Farcher, Fraser, Fendrasie."
[82] "His subjects and familiars surnamed him [Esormon] ourochartost,
that is [to] say, 'fortunate and well-beloved'" (_Works_, p. 156).
[83] Rabelais, p. xv.
[84] _Acts of the Parliament of Scotland_, vol. vii. 479, _a_, _b_.
[85] The parish of Cromartie consists of the north-east portion of the
peninsula called the Black Isle, terminating eastward in the precipice
called the Southern Sutor, and stretches for about four miles along the
shore of the Moray Firth on the east, and about six along that of the
Firth of Cromartie on the north and west. To the west of the parish of
Cromartie were situated the joint parishes of Kirkmichael and
Cullicudden, on the southern shore of the Cromartie Firth. In Sir Thomas
Urquhart's time these were separate parishes, but they were united in
1662, and a new church was built at Resolis, in Kirkmichael, near the
border of Cullicudden. The newly constituted parish bore and still bears
the name of Resolis.
[86] In his _Logopandecteision_ he speaks of the "stipauctionarie tide"
which began to overflow the land. He thought "with sufficient bulwarks
of good argument to have stayed the inundation thereof from two of his
churches"; but, he says, "I was violently driven like a feather before a
whirlewind, notwithstanding all my defences, to the sanctuary of an
inforced patience" (_Works_, p. 352). He does not, however, appear to
have stayed long in this sanctuary, or else the shelter it afforded was
but imperfect. His "_stipauctionarie_" (_i.e._ stipend-increasing)
reminds us of Mr Micawber's calling his salary his "_stipendiary
emoluments_."
[87] The attention of the reader is specially directed to the marvellous
felicity and vigour of the above description. Sir Thomas himself has
never written anything better in its way.
[88] We fear that this is meant as a description of a presbytery.
[89] The reference is to the process of "horning" described on p. 16.
[90] _Works_, p. 280-282.
[91] That Sir Thomas Urquhart is not exaggerating matters in speaking of
such injunctions being given by ecclesiastical authorities, is proved by
the following well-known passage in the memoir prefixed to the _Works_
of Archbishop Leighton:--"It was a Question asked at [of] the Brethren,
both in the classical and provincial Meetings of Ministers, twice in the
Year, If they preached the Duties of the Times? And when it was found
that _Mr Leighton_ did not, he was quarrelled [_sic_] for this Omission,
but said, _If all the Brethern have preached to the_ TIMES, _may not one
poor Brother be suffered to preach on_ ETERNITY?"
[92] _Works_, p. 280.
[93] The notice given us by Sir Thomas of Mr Anderson's preaching makes
us desirous of knowing more about him; but, unfortunately, only a very
few facts concerning him are known. He was born in 1597; he graduated at
Aberdeen in 1618; was settled at Cawdor, near Nairn, some time before
30th October, 1627; was transferred to Cromartie between 5th October,
1641, and 11th January, 1642; died in November, 1655, and was succeeded
in the benefice by his son Hugh (Scott's _Fasti_).
[94] _Works_, p. 276.
[95] _Ibid._ p. 261.
[96] See p. 83.
CHAPTER III
Unsuccessful Rising in the North--Sir Thomas makes his Peace with the
Church--Return of Charles II. to Scotland--Invasion of
England--Battle of Worcester--Sir Thomas a Prisoner in the
Tower--Makes Friends--Is liberated on Parole--Great Literary
Activity--Revisits Scotland--Dies--Later History of the Urquharts
of Cromartie--Characteristics of our Author--Glover's Portraits of
him.
Shortly after the news of the execution of Charles I. reached Scotland,
a rising on the part of some of the leading Cavaliers in the north took
place, with the view of restoring the Royal Family. The most prominent
person in this attempt was Thomas Mackenzie of Pluscardine, a younger
brother of George, the second Earl of Seaforth, who for nearly ten years
past had managed the affairs of the family, and was looked up to, both
on account of his ability and also on account of the great territorial
influence he represented. He had seen a good deal of service abroad, and
was at one time governor of Stralsund.[97] Along with him, and only
second to him, was our Sir Thomas Urquhart, to whom even civil war was
scarcely more fraught with anxiety and danger than was the life he had
been forced to lead for some time past. Together with them were
associated eight other Royalists of good standing,--among whom Colonel
Hugh Fraser of Belladrum and John Munro of Lemlair had a certain
pre-eminence,--and these ten formed a kind of revolutionary committee
for the control of the movement they had set on foot, and the government
of the district that might become subject to them.
Montrose had determined, on hearing of the execution of the King, to
renew the war in Scotland, but Pluscardine and his associates did not
wait for his arrival. Charles was beheaded on Tuesday, the 30th of
January, 1649, and, by the 22nd of the next month, the Scottish
gentlemen in the north had already taken the field, and captured
Inverness. Four days after, on Monday, 26th February, a meeting of the
Committee of War was held in that town, the minutes of which are still
in existence,[98] and contain the name of our author next in order to
that of Pluscardine himself.
The Committee passed certain enactments, by which they took into their
own hands the customs and excise of the six northern counties--Inverness,
Sutherland, Cromartie, Caithness, Nairn, and Elgin. An inventory of all
the ammunition of the garrison was ordered to be taken. It was also
decided that Sir Thomas's house at Cromartie should be put in a state of
defence, and that the work should be carried out by the tenants of Sir
James Fraser, a bitter Parliamentarian, and opponent of the Stuarts in
the north, and by those of our knight's old enemy, Lesley of
Findrassie.[99] It is easy for unregenerate human nature to understand
the pleasure with which the members of the Committee of War would give
this last order. By another enactment, the Committee declare that they
consider it expedient for their safety that the works and forts of
Inverness be demolished and levelled with the ground, and they ordain
that each person appointed to this work should complete his proportion
of it before eight days have passed, "under pain of being quartered upon
and until the said task be performed."
On the 2nd of March, Mackenzie of Pluscardine, Sir Thomas Urquhart, and
their associates, were proclaimed as rebels and traitors by the Estates
of Parliament,[100]--as "wicked and malignant persouns intending so far
as in thaine lyes, for their own base ends to lay the foundation of a
new bloodie and unnaturall warre within the bowells of this their native
country," etc. etc.
On the 1st of March the Commissioners of the General Assembly had
written to Pluscardine and his associates expressing their wonder and
grief at such a rising in the interests of "the Popish, Prelaticall and
Malignant party," and threatening the penalty of excommunication within
ten days if they would not "desist from and repent of that horrid
insurrection."[101] The reply to this letter came in due time, and was
signed by the principal leader in the insurrection, and by some other
members of the Clan Mackenzie, and is, it must be confessed, a
distinctly prevaricating and hypocritical document. For one sentence at
least in it our author was responsible, though he neither signs the
letter nor is named in it. His pedantic phraseology reveals his hand in
the construction of the reply to the Commissioners' remonstrances and
threats.
The letter is addressed "to the Honourable and Right Reverend," and
begins as follows:--"Wee have lately received yours of the first of
Merch, 1649, for the which and your wisdomes Christian care of ws, and
your fatherly admonition to ws, we humbly and heartily rander yow all
possible thanks." This lamb-like tone is maintained with admirable
gravity all through the epistle, and is combined with a canting
phraseology which was meant to be impressive, but which must have
entertained any members of the Commission of the General Assembly who
originally possessed and still retained a sense of humour. "And quheras
[whereas]," so it goes on, "your wisdomes taks it a matter of no lesse
wonder then [than] greife that we, being vnder the oath of God and tye
of our Nationall Covenant, would make insurrection and take armes
against the Lords people, certainly, if it were so, we acknowledge your
wisdomes had reason to wonder and to be grieved. And it is no lesse
winder and griefe to ws, being wnder the said oath and tye of Covenant,
furthering the same with all our power and meanes, and at all occasions
desireing nothing els then [than] the enjoying of the liberty of the
subject, and proprietie of our goods, intended and promised in and by
our Covenant." No one who has read any of Sir Thomas Urquhart's original
works can doubt that the next sentence was either composed or revised by
him. The two phrases which we have taken the liberty of putting into
italics could scarcely have occurred to any other member of the
Committee of War. "Yet we find, that evill willers and envyous
vnderminers, _in a singular and proetextuous way_ aiming at our ruine,
doe spend _the quintessence of their witts_ to find out means whereby,
under specious pretences of the publick [good?] to extermine ws with
povertie, and by inventing fresh occasions to make ws odious, and bring
ws vpon fresh stages [_sic_] vnder the base name of Malignancy." It is
unnecessary to quote the whole of the letter, but a couple of sentences,
which describe what the insurgents had done at Inverness, deserve
notice. "But the whole countrey of all degrees, being sensible of the
oppression and insolency of the vnnecessary and vnprofitable garison of
Innernes to Church or State, did heartily and vnanimously contribute to
the demolishing thereof, which being done, all disbanded peaceablie, and
the people retired peaceablie to their owne homes, without offence to
any nighbour of any degree or condition.... And now, when the said
garison is dismantled, we shall be found not only disposed to live
peaceablie, bot also ready to obey all publick ordours for the good of
the Kingdome." The writers ask that "the taxes and impositions," which
pressed with special severity on the class to which they belonged,
should be remitted, and liberty given them to lead that religious,
peaceful life, to which both by nature and by deliberate choice, they
seem to say, they were strongly inclined. The sting of the letter is in
its closing words. If these "evill willers" succeed in persuading the
Commissioners of Assembly to go on with the sentence of excommunication,
as fully deserved, they (the writers) formally appeal against such a
decision from the Commission to the next General Assembly.[102]
The ecclesiastical court to which the above letter was sent _may_ have
contained a goodly sprinkling of fanatics, but it is certain that in it
there were but few, if any, imbeciles; so that the communication from
the Committee of War did not succeed in imposing upon those to whom its
contents were read. They did not condescend to answer it, but at once
issued a pamphlet, entitled _A Declaration and Warning to all Members of
this Kirk_, "to recover, if possible, the disturbers of the peace of
God's people out of the snare of Sathan, and to prevent others from
falling therein." The document displays very genuine indignation and
dismay at the possibility of the negotiations which were being carried
on for restoring Charles II. as a "covenanted king" to the throne of his
ancestors, being defeated, and of his coming back as an arbitrary ruler
and oppressor of the Church. Those who have any doubt about the
deterioration of both religion and politics when they are fused
together, should read this and other State Papers of the period, and
their eyes would be opened. The calm assumption by the writers that
political opponents are the enemies of God, the claim to knowledge of
the Divine purposes and counsels, the free use of the most sacred words
of Scripture, the dark fanaticism which inspires so many of the
utterances, and the intense passion which makes so many of them sound
like mere raving--all combine to make these documents very painful
reading. A circular letter of warning and exhortation was sent to
Presbyteries, attempts were made to persuade individuals to disconnect
themselves from the insurrectionary movement, and a message of
encouragement was sent to Lieutenant-General David Lesley to strengthen
his hands in the work of putting it down by fire and sword.[103]
The insurgents, after demolishing the fortifications of Inverness,
retired before the troops sent to suppress them, and took refuge among
the mountains of Ross-shire. Lesley advanced to Fortrose and garrisoned
the castle there, and then proceeded to endeavour to make terms with the
leaders of the insurrection. The only one who would listen to no
accommodation was Mackenzie of Pluscardine. Immediately on Lesley's
return south, he descended from the mountains, and attacked and took the
castle of Chanonry. Our Sir Thomas Urquhart was now safely out of the
conflict, but our readers may wish to know what became of the
insurrectionary movement which he had such a large share in setting on
foot, and from which he found it prudent to retire at an early stage.
Mackenzie's force was brought up to eight or nine hundred men by the
accession of his nephew, Lord Reay, with three hundred followers. Soon
afterwards he was joined by General Middleton and Lord Ogilvie, and
advanced into Badenoch, with the view of raising the people in that and
the neighbouring districts. In what is called the Wardlaw MS. a very
vivid picture is given of the behaviour of the Highlanders from the Reay
country, when they poured into Inverness on the morning of Sunday, the
2nd of May, 1649. "They crossed the bridge of Ness," says the Royalist
minister of Kirkhill, "on the Lord's Day in time of divine service, and
alarmed the people of Inverness, impeding God's worship in the town. For
instead of bells to ring in to service I saw and heard no other than
the noise of pipes, drums, pots, pans, kettles, and spits in the streets
to provide them victuals in every house. And in their quarters the rude
rascality would eat no meat at their tables until the landlord laid down
a shilling Scots upon each trencher,[104] calling this '_airgiod
cagainn_' (chewing-money), which every soldier got, so insolent were
they."
The campaign was a very brief one. The Royalists, joined by the Marquis
of Huntly, attacked and took the castle of Ruthven, but, soon after,
being hardly pressed by Lesley, they turned southwards and took up their
quarters in Balvenie Castle. General Middleton and Mackenzie were
despatched to treat with Lesley, but before they reached their
destination, the troops from Fortrose, after a rapid march, surprised
the Royalist forces at Balvenie. A fierce engagement took place, in
which both sides suffered severely.[105] Eighty of the insurgents fell
in defence of the castle. The Highlanders were dismissed to their homes
on swearing never again to take up arms against the Parliament; while
their leaders were sent as prisoners to Edinburgh, where most of them
were set free soon after, on payment of fines, and on giving security
that they would keep the peace. By sharp and vigorous action the
remaining sparks of insurrection in the north were stamped out, and
fresh bodies of troops were stationed in the principal strongholds of
that part of the country. Thus ended a rising which would probably have
had a very different result, if it had been postponed until the arrival
of Montrose.
The same writer[106] who gave an account of the riotous and insolent
demeanour of the Highland soldiers in Inverness, furnishes us with a
companion-picture--that of them on their way back to their homes after
their defeat at Balvenie. It is as follows:--"Next twenty horse, and
three companies of foot, were ordered to convey the captives back over
the Spey, and through Moray to Inverness, where I saw them pass through;
and those men who, in their former march, would hardly eat their meat
without money, are now begging food, and, like dogs, lap the water which
was brought them in tubs and other vessels in the open streets. Thence
they were conducted over the bridge of Ness, and dismissed everyone
armless and harmless to his own house. This is a matter of fact which I
saw and heard."
The profound feelings of anxiety which this abortive attempt at
insurrection had excited in the minds of the ecclesiastical rulers of
Scotland are very clearly indicated by the exuberance of joy with which
the tidings of the victory at Balvenie were received by the Commission
of Assembly.[107] They instantly decided to appoint a solemn Day of
Thanksgiving, on the 25th of May, for "the Lord's mercifull defeat of
the enemies of the peace of this land."[108] They tacked on a postscript
to the above-mentioned _Declaration and Warning_, containing a
statement of the causes of the Thanksgiving, and ordered both to be read
from all the pulpits in Scotland. Letters of congratulation were
despatched to the victorious officers, and to others who had been
faithful in the recent crisis, and full particulars of what had taken
place were sent to the Commissioners of Scotland at the Hague, who were
engaged in the negotiations with "the young man, Charles Stuart." In the
last-mentioned document there is a flicker of grim humour, as the
writers send intelligence of the destruction of the hopes which news of
the rebellion might have excited in the minds of Charles and his
friends. The last sentence in the letter can scarcely have been written
or read without a smile. "We have appointed," they say, "the twenty-fift
day of Maij for a solemn thanksgiving for this and other late mercies,
wherewith we thought good to acquaint yow, that yow manage this to the
best advantage of the work in your hands, according as yow shall thinke
fitt."[109] It was once said of a good man that he would have been
better if he had had a little more of the devil in him; and one is
inclined to think more highly of these good men for the touch of malice,
which relieves the sombre character of their communication.[110]
The threatened bolt of excommunication was not launched, but our author
found it necessary to apply to the Commission of General Assembly in
order to make his peace with the ecclesiastical power. Accordingly, on
the 22nd of June, 1650, he appeared in Edinburgh before this body, and
presented his "supplicatioun" for pardon for the guilt of taking part in
the Northern insurrection, and of assaulting and razing the walls of
Inverness.