Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie, Knight

by John Willcock

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.

HORTLY 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 prœtextuous 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]